PaigeFTW: Beyond ‘Infinity’
Disney has backed out of the gaming industry.
The company canceled its ambitious Disney Infinity and announced earlier this month that it would be getting out of publishing altogether, instead content to simply license its products off to other companies, a la EA’s Star Wars Battlefront or Square-Enix’s Kingdom Hearts.
Considering that Disney has never had more marketable franchises under its purview — Star Wars and the whole array of Marvel, in addition to Pixar and its own properties — it’s a frankly baffling decision.
Obviously game publishing is no walk in the park, but is it really the case that one of the largest media conglomerates in the world — with fingers in the pies of film, television, music and more — doesn’t have the resources to put towards investing in an in-house developer?
My feeling is that Disney has a fatal weakness towards oversaturation.
Like the oppressive blanket of advertising that accompanies its tentpole film releases — seriously, was there anyone who didn’t know that Captain America: Civil War came out this month? — Disney flooded the market with Infinity figures after an initially promising launch.
They stopped selling, and even after the game retooled and reinvented itself for a promising new slate of expansions, Disney abruptly closed down shop.
It’s part of a larger trend. One day, if Disney keeps making Star Wars movies every year and marketing them nonstop, will people be tired of those, too? What about the ever-present Marvel machine?
I’m no marketing expert, of course, but I have noticed that Tsum Tsums, once all the rage, have lost much of the hype that surrounded each new collection. Now you can Buy Two, Get One Free at the Disney Store in Ala Moana. Disney just made Tsum Tsums of every single thing imaginable until everyone got tired of buying them, maybe.
With Disney, it’s all or nothing — the downfall of Infinity, and with it the company’s foothold in gaming.
