Disney Canceling Infinity

It was announced today that Disney is cancelling the Disney Infinity game series. While the figurines and playsets currently in development will still be released, everything past that is coming off the table. As part of this announcement, they also stated that all internal Disney Interactive development, including Avalanche Studios, is being shut down. Any and all future Disney-related video games will be on a licensing basis.

Personally, I consider this to be a very short-sighted move on the part of Disney's management. While I realize they are company, and this is a response to their current earnings, the Disney Infinity brand is strong. Their only real mistake with the line was possibly over-committing to supply. If they had throttled back on production, they could have cut costs while also possibly creating an Amiibo-like demand for their figurines. While it has been nice that the more recent Infinity lines have had ample supply that makes them easy to acquire, I do recognize that this likely represented considerable expense for them.

I'm personally very disappointed. I love the Infinity games, and especially love the figurines that go along with them. Some of my favorite characters fall under the Disney umbrella, and having a toys-to-life series that incorporated them all was a lot of fun.

Here's the article I found https://mynintendonews.com/2016/05/10/disney-infinity-is-cancelled-and-disney-is-no-longer-publishing-video-games/

John Vingnocchi doesn't deserve this. I wonder where he'll end up. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g59Vs1erj0M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdgcjBbh3cc

So much for the name "Infinity."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUQmfqdNjX8

Good.  Skylanders is next, and LEGO Dimensions already knows they're on shaky ground with talk of no more starter packs but possible add-on packs through download updates.

And this is coming from someone who owns/enjoys all 3.  Heck, I just played Infinity Battlegrounds 4-player tonight for over an hour.

I can see them running out of Infinity characters, though. I just don't understand why the entire games dept. is being shut down unless they think they can gouge enough for their licenses to offset lost margins.

Hmm imagine if all these toy to life series got canned. It would be weird seeing retail establishments without the giant sections devoted to these toys.

The video game department getting canned is likely a cost cutting measure meant to make up the losses on the TV side.

Infinity had a few problems. One was that they were contracted to make figures few people wanted (looking at you, Yondu). One was them not allowing different sets to mix and match. It was acceptable to not include that in 1.0, but even with 3.0 they just would not allow Disney characters in Marvel or Star Wars characters in classic Disney.

LEGO Dimensions' big problem is that they are expensive as hell. To collect everything released thus far costs about as much as one of the new VR headsets and sales only go so far.

Kerig said:

Good. Skylanders is next, and LEGO Dimensions already knows they're on shaky ground with talk of no more starter packs but possible add-on packs through download updates.

And this is coming from someone who owns/enjoys all 3. Heck, I just played Infinity Battlegrounds 4-player tonight for over an hour.

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Dimensions is supposedly the best selling of the three and Skylanders the least.

Does that have something with it being the newest? I would also think the licenses are pushing sales to older gamers and even beyond the gamers.

DNukem170 said:

LEGO Dimensions' big problem is that they are expensive as hell. To collect everything released thus far costs about as much as one of the new VR headsets and sales only go so far.

Click to expand...

This is true. But this is also Legos. Anyone familiar with Legos is quite used to their prices, which have always been prohibitively high. Legos aren't cheap, and never have been.

The cancelling of Disney Infinity is actually a huge opportunity for Lego Dimensions. Skylanders is "limited" to its own characters. The limited is in quotations because technically they are only limited by their imaginations. Not being tied to an existing IP could be argued as a strength, not a restriction. But seeing outside characters in Skylanders would be more of a fun diversion than an over-arching strategy. But Lego Dimensions revolves around the same mash-up strategy that Disney Infinity pursued.

And the existing Lego licensing model is fairly permissive, and already includes video game and physical toy manifestations of Star Wars and Marvel characters. You see where I'm going with this. There's no way that Disney would have licensed those characters for use in Lego Dimensions while they had a competing product on the market. Now that Infinity is out of the picture, and Disney is pursuing aggressive licensing instead of internal development, those barriers are effectively gone.

Whatever form Lego Dimensions next versions or expansions take, they could easily include formerly Infinity-exclusive characters and properties. All the machinery for such a move is already in place.