-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Disney Infinity Canceled; Disney Exits Console Publishing; Avalanche Shut [Statement]
- Thread starter Inferno313
- Start date
My brother/sistah!!!
If this means that a new MvC game can come out sooner then I'm all for it.....
Not like Disney exiting console publishing would allow for that necessarily but still.
*sighs and dreams*
NCR Redslayer
NeoGAF's Vegeta
another one bites the dust. Now skylanders and legos will pick the bones.
There's also a point to be made that even their stuff that actually do require amiibo to play (both Animal Crossing games, Amiibo Tap, and Mini Mario & Friends) all seem explicitly designed to have been cheap and easy projects, primarily through those products heavily cannibalizing stuff from other games.
Meanwhile, every new version of Disney Infinity required tons of new assets to be produced, and then DI3.0 had the additional costs resulting from them contracting out to two separate studios to completely overhaul significant portions of the game from previous editions.
I really enjoy the Infinity games, but, in retrospect, maybe it isn't that much of a surprise that they ultimately sank themselves.
This is the reason I was trying to warn about in my old thread. Amiibos can exist independently because games that support them do not require them. Disney was pumping a LOT of money into a subpar product under the assumption that the toys would influence interest in the games. I would say that it wasn't until Disney Infinity 2.0 caused some executive to lose out on a bonus did they realize the games needed to be interesting as well. Enter Disney Infinity 3.0, better gameplay but still an underwhelming experience since it tried to use Star Wars as a crutch.
I wonder if they were afraid to create new stories.
Megatron
Member
Yeah, license that shit out again Disney! Please!
They never said they weren't no longer licencing.
Hero of Legend
Member
This rumor would very well be true for a couple reasons.
1. Remember Reggie announced amiibo support in Disney Infinity and Skylanders when announcing amiibo at E3 2014? Only Skylanders happened but a year later.
2. These:
The former is a direct collab with a Nintendo IP (Art Academy), the latter is a localization of a Bandai Namco-published game.
I think Nintendo and Disney could be extremely powerful allies in the gaming industry if done right. Even better if Nintendo also allows Disney to make CG Nintendo IP movies with their Feature Animation division.
Also, looking back on the voice cast for DI, there was also a weird point where they seemingly put in an absurd amount of effort to bring in as many of the actual actors behind the games' characters that they could. The Force Awakens stuff flat out had Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Adam Driver all voice their respective characters. Even if you hand wave some of it away to where people like Samuel L. Jackson were probably happy to voice their characters for nothing, there's still probably enough "big" names on there to where that could not have been a cheap process even before you start factoring in voicing everybody else.
Again, in retrospect, it's pretty easy to see how Disney Infinity ended up becoming too bloated of a project for it to be worth continuing.
Again, in retrospect, it's pretty easy to see how Disney Infinity ended up becoming too bloated of a project for it to be worth continuing.
CosmicQueso
Member
I would like to know if the individual brand groups Infinity was going to may have had ultimate creative control over the types of stories and topics that could be touched. The brands couldn't meet in the story missions, only reason I can think of that happening would be because of brand protection concerns from those teams.
But what does "winning" mean here? There's now new shelfspace available for the holiday. Do you go buy that? Do you buy more retail ads? What do you do with pricing, assuming that Infinity will be liquidating its inventory at vastly reduced prices? How do you compete on shelf with product that's potentially twice the price, or more?
Just wanted to say I appreciate your post even if I have nothing in particular to discuss about it. You make some great points.
Those are definitely the right questions! It's absolutely a hard call. Would hate to have to figure all that out.
I think the writing has been on the wall for a long while now. The whole thing is going to come crashing down. I'm sure Lego Dimensions is next. Feel bad for all the people employed at these companies. They should definitely start polishing up their resumes and curating their LInkedIN profiles.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Maybe they should have made all the popular characters over the flavors of the month.
I'm not sure that was ever an issue for the series. I can't think of a single major Star Wars or usable Marvel character that hasn't gotten a figure, and there have been plenty of classic Disney characters released alongside the more current crop.
It's kind of stupid though that they didn't have a regular Mickey Mouse until last year, and a (looks it up) Sorceror variant only right before that.
They didn't even give him anything, so he's only usable in sandbox mode.
Mario was at launch for Amiibo.
Armitage Shanks
Member
In Japan, at least, Disney has been in and out of development like it's a hot bath. Start a studio. Close it down again a couple of years later. Then after a little while start a new studio, only to close it again a few years later. Seems par for the course.
Sure, but Disney has had a weird attitude towards Mickey in recent times. He's the undisputed mascot, but you really wouldn't know it from how they promote absolutely everything else first.
I will say it is a damn shame they never completed the trio and got Goofy in the game.
SpookyFries
Member
I still remember when the team that made Advent Rising shut down in Utah. And then EA Salt Lake... And now Avalanche.
Protect ChAIR at all costs
Protect ChAIR at all costs
MrMephistoX
Member
Any time you attach Mickey to a property it's kind of like telegraphing your game is for toddlers: blame Eisner for fucking up the character and embrace the new Mickey Shorts http://youtu.be/wLgSbo0YsN8
KingJ2002
Member
Fuck... what a shame considering the level of quality coming out from their studios.... and prior to the acquisition of avalanche... they were one of my studios to watch.
I hope those guys bounce back from this.
...
I guess Capcom & Square-Enix can go back to making B-tier Disney titles again.
I wonder what this means for Marvel though.
I hope those guys bounce back from this.
...
I guess Capcom & Square-Enix can go back to making B-tier Disney titles again.
I wonder what this means for Marvel though.
MrMephistoX
Member
Have any Marvel games released on console this gen? 100% mobile.
Doctor Ironic
Member
I'm honestly not surprised. Lego had arguably the biggest IP power behind it but it came late into a market that already had three competitors against it in a genre that requires significant financial and spacial investment, meaning you can't really regularly keep up with more than one. I would be very, very surprised if Lego Dimensions didn't also peter out by the end of the year.
Eppy Thatcher
God's had his chance.
Oh fuck my daughter is gonna rage....
There's another Disney TTL game out there. I forget what it's called, though. Or what it is, exactly.
I dunno if Dimensions is next, BUUUUT, they're licensing a lot of stuff for it. Maybe they'll get Disney/Star Wars stuff. Maybe not.
I don't think Amiibo is going anywhere, though. They need to strengthen the AC stuff at least with simple, logical stuff like the villager cards being used to move villagers in and start with them.
Skylanders needs to improve its' product quality to last longer, IMO.
CosmicQueso
Member
You must be thinking Marvel Playmation, which has also been killed.
Yeah. Must be tough to be one of those sad souls right about now.
Problem seems to be that they probably have too much hubris to just settle for building towards becoming a legitimate gaming publisher capable of leveraging their properties on their own. Instead of following in WB's footsteps in really breaking into the industry (which is weird to say, considering it's generally the other way around in other stuff) by making/publishing a lot of smaller/simpler stuff until they could get to the point where they had groomed a number of internal studios capable of producing well regarded adaptations of their properties, they rebooted/consolidated their gaming division and almost immediately threw a lot of money into working on a massively bloated toys to life project that tried to cram multiple genres down into a single game all to try and drink the milkshake of a much simpler (and probably significantly cheaper) product. And when it became clear that it wasn't the success they anticipated, they ran.
There's an interesting comparison in how Marvel similarly kept trying to break into the tabletop RPG market (even as recently as a few years ago), which made a lot of sense given tabletop gaming and comics generally overlap in their markets and frequently share the same space. Then,even when they'd find relative success in doing so, they'd always bail within a short time because it didn't meet their expectation of success of matching the industry leader (re: Dungeons & Dragons) in an industry where even the most popular/successful alternatives are still typically in a very very very distance second.
ForsakenLotus
Member
I assumed Infinity was making good money. This sucks for Avalanche, hope everybody finds work soon.
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
Should be interesting to see if the US gets Magical World 2.
Quadraphonic
Member
Disney is caught in a weird place with Mickey.
People don't like him as much as the rest. It's why they rammed him down your throat at Disneyland, because Donald was already more popular then. They wanted him in a ton of things.
But they treat him like a Golden God. They're too scared to give him a ride. But they're okay putting him in the creepy new cartoons.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Wait Goofy still isn't in the game
It's called Disney Infinity
But we have the fat Iron Man blob from Big Hero 6. Sweet.
It's called Disney Infinity
But we have the fat Iron Man blob from Big Hero 6. Sweet.
My biggest gripe with the game right here and now it will never be addressed.
MAtgS
Member
Every so often it dawns on me that there's never been a full blown Mickey movie and how odd that is. Even Goofy had a few.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
I had seen it as Disney's "Smash Bros" at the start; not a fighting game you understand, but a chance for them to represent their history and draw new people in.
... But nope, movie flavour of the week and Star Wars/Marvel. When Iron Man and Yoda can't save your game, you know you goofed.
Can a brother get a Basil the Great Mouse Detective figure...?
As someone who loves Disney more than almost anything else but doesn't care about Marvel and Star Wars, Infinity has been a pain to follow. Not only that, but it was mostly contemporary stuff. Occasionally they would release a figure I loved and it was awesome, but those times were few and far between. I had been waiting for Goofy and The Lion King to come since year 1 and now the dream is dead.
Knuckle Sandwich
Member
Welp. I got this damn game + a bunch of figures for my kid's upcoming birthday.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I've been pretty bearish on large media outlets getting into gaming.
There's been a pretty consistent trend from the mid-90s of failed attempts. Virgin, Disney (the first time, then the second time, then the third time, and now for a fourth time), FOX Interactive, Universal, Sony Imagesoft. Some of these failures are worse than others. But generally, video games are not hugely profitable for these companies and so they end up flip-flopping between "we need to get into gaming, if we have a hit it'll be huge and think of the brand synergy" and then "we need to get out of gaming, too high cost, too hit driven, we should just take the easy licensing cash".
One of the challenges is that as budgets increase, when these companies get into gaming they largely buy up studios to build up. Disney bought Avalanche, Black Rock (Climax Racing), Wide Load, and Junction Point in addition to picking up the EA Canada refugees for Propaganda. They also bought a lot of early mobile talent. That's a lot of talent to tie up and disrupt for a pretty futile goal. I can't say that these studios would have been stable or healthy without Disney's intervention, so maybe this is not a satisfying criticism, but to some extent it feels more tragic when an acquisition is shut down than when an independent studio fails to make it. Maybe the only silver lining of Disney's participation in gaming has been their post-licensing pivot after the LucasArts acquisition. I feel like both the future of LucasArts properties and the back-catalogue handling have dramatically improve, so kudos there. Hope that if they wind down Disney Interactive that they keep their licensing folks on.
WB has been a notable exception to my thinking. I think getting Midway for a song was probably good. I think having some early hits in the form of FEAR (and I guess to a lesser extent Condemned) and the unexpected smash success of Arkham Asylum helped make sure that WBIE is willing to do stuff that's either not licensed, or that is treated with some care. And the TT Games stuff has been managed pretty well from what I can see. So I'm comparatively bullish on Warner's chances. Plz don't go under, WBIE.
There's been a pretty consistent trend from the mid-90s of failed attempts. Virgin, Disney (the first time, then the second time, then the third time, and now for a fourth time), FOX Interactive, Universal, Sony Imagesoft. Some of these failures are worse than others. But generally, video games are not hugely profitable for these companies and so they end up flip-flopping between "we need to get into gaming, if we have a hit it'll be huge and think of the brand synergy" and then "we need to get out of gaming, too high cost, too hit driven, we should just take the easy licensing cash".
One of the challenges is that as budgets increase, when these companies get into gaming they largely buy up studios to build up. Disney bought Avalanche, Black Rock (Climax Racing), Wide Load, and Junction Point in addition to picking up the EA Canada refugees for Propaganda. They also bought a lot of early mobile talent. That's a lot of talent to tie up and disrupt for a pretty futile goal. I can't say that these studios would have been stable or healthy without Disney's intervention, so maybe this is not a satisfying criticism, but to some extent it feels more tragic when an acquisition is shut down than when an independent studio fails to make it. Maybe the only silver lining of Disney's participation in gaming has been their post-licensing pivot after the LucasArts acquisition. I feel like both the future of LucasArts properties and the back-catalogue handling have dramatically improve, so kudos there. Hope that if they wind down Disney Interactive that they keep their licensing folks on.
WB has been a notable exception to my thinking. I think getting Midway for a song was probably good. I think having some early hits in the form of FEAR (and I guess to a lesser extent Condemned) and the unexpected smash success of Arkham Asylum helped make sure that WBIE is willing to do stuff that's either not licensed, or that is treated with some care. And the TT Games stuff has been managed pretty well from what I can see. So I'm comparatively bullish on Warner's chances. Plz don't go under, WBIE.
CuckFupertino
Banned
Well this sucks. I just got into collecting these and playing the game like, last week. I probably bought 40ish characters, all the 2.0 and 3.0 playsets. I thought to myself, I can always use these characters (at least in toy box) as long as this is a thing.
And now it's not a thing.
I wonder, do you think the figures will accrue value as they become more rare? I wonder if I'm sitting on the next Beanie Baby treasure chest.
Or did I just spend a ton of money on a bunch of toys which are going to be essentially useless after I grow bored of 3.0?
And now it's not a thing.
I wonder, do you think the figures will accrue value as they become more rare? I wonder if I'm sitting on the next Beanie Baby treasure chest.
Or did I just spend a ton of money on a bunch of toys which are going to be essentially useless after I grow bored of 3.0?
SatoAilDarko
Member
Biggest shame for me is that the Muppets never got added. Between Muppets, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and regular Disney Muppets are the only ones I'm big fans of.
Some concept art:
Also once again. No Mace Windu figure but only a team up disc.
The lack of Disney animation before 2000 in general sucks.
I wonder how the Skylanders Amiibo worked out?
I know the Skylanders Wii U Sku was the highest on Amazon at launch.
Do they expand next game? I see Diddy Kong and Bowser Jr. as logical additions. You could also work in Yoshi and Toad if Nintendo would allow it.
I wonder with rumors of Sonic in Lego Dimensions, if WB decides to continue on, if they'll approach Nintendo for something? Possibly a Zelda minifig? Doubtful a full level is made.
I would think the Mario Knex deal (that includes Donkey Kong and Wario) would prevent those characters appearing. I mean they've been making figures since Mario Kart Wii and just released a Series 7 of blind bags early this year.
Unlike Skylanders which was on three Nintendo platforms Dimensions is only on one. Cutting down the potential audience down a lot.
Though a Zelda minifig would sell very well regardless.
Some concept art:
Also once again. No Mace Windu figure but only a team up disc.
The lack of Disney animation before 2000 in general sucks.
I wonder how the Skylanders Amiibo worked out?
I know the Skylanders Wii U Sku was the highest on Amazon at launch.
Do they expand next game? I see Diddy Kong and Bowser Jr. as logical additions. You could also work in Yoshi and Toad if Nintendo would allow it.
I wonder with rumors of Sonic in Lego Dimensions, if WB decides to continue on, if they'll approach Nintendo for something? Possibly a Zelda minifig? Doubtful a full level is made.
I would think the Mario Knex deal (that includes Donkey Kong and Wario) would prevent those characters appearing. I mean they've been making figures since Mario Kart Wii and just released a Series 7 of blind bags early this year.
Unlike Skylanders which was on three Nintendo platforms Dimensions is only on one. Cutting down the potential audience down a lot.
Though a Zelda minifig would sell very well regardless.
Yeah, I think that's the biggest shame.
Sure I wanted to see more Star Wars, and wonder at how cool seeing Lion King possibly in it, or even Muppets or hey what about things like Winnie The Pooh, Roger Rabbit, Oswald, etc oh and hey finally seeing Ariel in it since they've figured out water based characters with Dory, and can you imagine if they were able to do Gargoyles or Duck Tales or even Chip and Dale BUT before all that and anything else I think Goofy was most important just so they could have the big Disney trio, but no... Mickey and Donald (oh and Minnie I guess) will have be stuck without him now it seems.
The video games industry is at its base an arts industry. This kind of cynical, marketing-based thinking is detected by the end-consumer. There was nothing particularly original or inspired in this entire project, and it showed. Even the name reflected an infinite stream of interchangeable characters and ideas without much meaning or focus behind it; the opposite of how Disney generally pretends/desires to go about their business.
I bet Call of Duty relaunches before fall with a more finite name as well.
From what has been announced they had a Star Wars playset planned, as well as a Peter Pan figure and an additional playset of sorts (not sure what but just based on something general Disney, not Star Wars/Pixar/Marvel) this year but all we're supposedly seeing now is three figures based on the new Alice movie coming later this month and the Dory playset in June.
They'll probably be on eBay in the coming months, if they were even halfway made.
Only figures from the new Alice movie and Finding Dory stuff in June. Everything else was scrapped or just cancelled.
****
But yeah.
Despite buying them from day one, my biggest disappointment was that it lacked an identity. You had a game called Disney Infinity, yet everything around Disney was quite finite and limited.
1.0 was basically Pixar, 2.0 was Marvel and 3.0 was Star Wars. All locked into their respective stuff. The playsets weren't even compatible between releases.
3.0 at least introduced a Diablo-clone of sorts that allowed to mix figures and had a basic story too. That should've been day one and by 3.0 considerably expanded.