Disney exits console publishing, Disney Infinity killed (RIP chronovore)

[Tasty]

http://venturebeat.com/2016/05/10/the-disney-infinity-franchise-is-over-as-entertainment-company-pulls-out-of-console-games/

“After a thorough evaluation, we have modified our approach to console gaming and will transition exclusively to a licensing model. This shift in strategy means we will cease production of Disney Infinity, where the lack of growth in the toys-to-life market, coupled with high development costs, has created a challenging business model. This means that we will be shutting down Avalanche, our internal studio that developed the game. This was a difficult decision that we did not take lightly given the quality of Disney Infinity and its many passionate fans.”

~300 devs in Utah are now jobless. Yikes.

[G The Resurrected]

I kind of expected this after Disney became distant from E3 and stopped support on certain platforms. They still owe me money, that I'll now never get. It's sad but life will go on and the good talent will land elsewhere. I have to thank them for the opportunity to work with some great folks and go through the Star Wars holocron while there.

[Kara]

Adiós amiibos.

E: Sorry G.

[G The Resurrected]

I haven't worked there for a while now. I know a good amount of people though that aren't making the transition to mobile.

[chronovore]

With the number of massive, inventory-moving sales after Infinity 3.0 launched, I am not surprised that they're not continuing with the franchise. It's a shame, because from a technical standpoint Infinity is one of the most insanely complex pieces of entertainment software out there. Just thinking about its features makes me dizzy: crossplatform, networked, user-editable, hardware accessory enabled, backward-data-compatible.

With any luck, Avalanche is in talks with a publisher about being purchased outright. That's a talent pool which would be wasted on the current type of mobile market.

[thisismyusername]

Wow, Avalanche went from Split/Second to Disney Infinity?

[The Legend of Sunblade]

With any luck, Avalanche is in talks with a publisher about being purchased outright. That's a talent pool which would be wasted on the current type of mobile market.

People are reaching out there, at least.

[Stoney Mason]

Wow, Avalanche went from Split/Second to Disney Infinity?

Funny how that works.

 :'(

I never tried out any of these disney infinity games. They seem to be respected well enough.

[chronovore]

Wow, Avalanche went from Split/Second to Disney Infinity?

From what I can see, Black Rock has nothing to do with Avalanche, unless you are making a very questionable rock-based pun.

Avalanche went from Toy Story 3's open-world, editable game to Infinity. TS3 is a stunningly competent piece of work, so it's not surprising they were brought in by Disney.

Sadly, Disney has a long history of finding companies which work well, buying them, and then dismembering them when sales don't match that quarter's expectations. Not just games, where both Avalanche now and Black Rock made stunningly good games, but in movies and effects houses. The Secret Lab was a great little shop, and it was laid low by just one movie over which they had no control:

http://jimhillmedia.com/editor_in_chief1/b/jim_hill/archive/2003/01/15/224.aspx

[Stoney Mason]

I worked with Avalanche in some capacity when they were just beginning out. They were a bunch of nice guys. They got much larger after I had any contact with them. First time I ever went to Utah.

[chronovore]

I worked with Avalanche in some capacity when they were just beginning out. They were a bunch of nice guys. They got much larger after I had any contact with them. First time I ever went to Utah.

I'm pretty sure I'm out of the industry for good (though I've told myself that twice before), but I had hoped to work with Avalanche at some point. I also wanted to work for Pandemic.

...I should stop wanting to work places.

[Stoney Mason]

Yeah its a tough business. A lot of times it feels like luck whether the actually truly good companies end up surviving.

I always had a soft spot for Big Huge Games and their work (who seem to work on mobile stuff now) and Radical Entertainment who I always thought were hugely undervalued but are now out of business.


Blue Castle was another developer I was always super impressed with when it came to their chops.

[benjipwns]

Big Huge Games has died and been resurrected like three times. They got stuck in with THQ and then in the Curt Shilling mess. Apparently they just got bought by Nexon in March because of DomiNations.

[bluemax]

With any luck, Avalanche is in talks with a publisher about being purchased outright. That's a talent pool which would be wasted on the current type of mobile market.

People are reaching out there, at least.

(Image removed from quote.)

Yeah my twitter feed was full of devs and studios reaching out and posting links and what not. Generally if you work for a major studio like that its a lot easier to at least get face time with interviewers after your studio blows up than if you worked for some no name studio.

The whole toys to life market is way over saturated, it was only a matter of time before someone bowed out. I think Lego is next, Dimensions is getting discounts all the time.

[Kara]

Big Huge Games has died and been resurrected like three times. They got stuck in with THQ and then in the Curt Shilling mess. Apparently they just got bought by Nexon in March because of DomiNations.

Too Big Huge Games to fail.

[thisismyusername]

Wow, Avalanche went from Split/Second to Disney Infinity?

From what I can see, Black Rock has nothing to do with Avalanche, unless you are making a very questionable rock-based pun.

Ah, my bad. I thought they were the same studio.

[chronovore]

Yeah its a tough business. A lot of times it feels like luck whether the actually truly good companies end up surviving.

I always had a soft spot for Big Huge Games and their work (who seem to work on mobile stuff now) and Radical Entertainment who I always thought were hugely undervalued but are now out of business.


Blue Castle was another developer I was always super impressed with when it came to their chops.

You made me run over to confirm that Blue Castle is still around. They're bought by Capcom, but they're intact. Whew!

Radical's wiki entry, at least as far as the Vivendi/369 period goes, is so poorly written that I've begun to question the validity of English as a language.

[The Sceneman]

Correct me if I'm wrong, are we talking the Avalanche that made the Just Cause games?

[Rufus]

No, the Just Cause peeps are Avalanche Studios. This one is/was Avalanche Software.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I worked with Avalanche in some capacity when they were just beginning out. They were a bunch of nice guys. They got much larger after I had any contact with them. First time I ever went to Utah.

I'm pretty sure I'm out of the industry for good (though I've told myself that twice before), but I had hoped to work with Avalanche at some point. I also wanted to work for Pandemic.

...I should stop wanting to work places.

Whats still on your deathlist?

[demi]

Correct me if I'm wrong, are we talking the Avalanche that made the Just Cause games?

No that's different. These guys made Tak and other games before being bought out by Disney.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalanche_Software

They DIDNT make Split/Second. That was Black Rock Studio - a UK developer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Rock_Studio

[ToxicAdam]

I think the game got off on the wrong foot. Infinity 1.0 was basic as hell and the 'game' parts were uninspired.

 
Hard to recover from first impressions.

[qq more]

For some reason I've assumed Disney Infinity was actually doing well. Guess I was wrong? Hope for the best for those losing their jobs.

[benjipwns]

On Disney's earnings call this afternoon, chairman and CEO Bob Iger explained more about the company's decision to close down Infinity production. "We thought we had a really good opportunity to launch our own product in that space, "Iger said. "I realize it was console space, but it was also essentially-- a large component of it was the toys-to-life, they call it toys-to-life business. In fact we did quite well with the first iteration of it, and we did okay with the second iteration. But that business is a changing business and we did not have enough confidence in the business in terms of it being stable enough to stay in it from a self-publishing perspective.

Iger reinforced the financial earnings report that attributed much of the [$147 million] write-down to lingering Infinity inventory. "You know that you take on substantially more risk, particularly when it comes to manufacturing and managing the inventory, the toy inventory, of that business," he said. "In fact, as Christine noted, a good part of the write-off that we just announced comes from having to write off that inventory that we took responsibility for when we went into the publishing business. We just feel that it's a changing space and that we're just better off at managing the risk that that business delivers by licensing instead of publishing. It's just that simple. We actually made a good product. I give the developer a lot of credit for the product that they made. It was extremely well-received. But we knew going in that there would be a lot of risk with this product and the fact that we did so well initially gave us the confidence to continue with it. The truth of the matter is that the risks that we saw at the beginning when we started this caught up with us."

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Disney also sunk Wideload Games, which was a fine studio that had the bad luck of bouncing from one flailing publisher to another before getting put down for good. As well as Black Rock Studio and Junction Point (but who the hell would have bet against Warren Spector).

To Disney, I say, fuck you people. Seriously, right now the company as a whole is awash in cash, that they couldn't make this who videyagames thing work was never the fault of the people making them. They have the strongest stable of IP on earth and they can't make it work? Warner Bros seems to be doing pretty well with their efforts and I'll bet they haven't even spent near as much money as Disney was putting out close to their peak.

so yeah, fuck those guys.

[Great Rumbler]

LucasArts was already pretty much dead even before Disney bought them out, but it's sad to see the final nail put in their coffin.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Lucasgames was already pretty much dead even before Disney bought them out, but it's sad to see the final nail put in their coffin.

shit, I forgot about that, their utterly deplorable treatment of Lucasarts.

Now I'm angry all over again.

[Take My Breh Away]

Disney also sunk Wideload Games, which was a fine studio that had the bad luck of bouncing from one flailing publisher to another before getting put down for good. As well as Black Rock Studio and Junction Point (but who the hell would have bet against Warren Spector).

To Disney, I say, fuck you people. Seriously, right now the company as a whole is awash in cash, that they couldn't make this who videyagames thing work was never the fault of the people making them. They have the strongest stable of IP on earth and they can't make it work? Warner Bros seems to be doing pretty well with their efforts and I'll bet they haven't even spent near as much money as Disney was putting out close to their peak.

so yeah, fuck those guys.

WB was also smart and grabbed a bunch of ex-Eidos management not making the transition to Squeenix during the time between Arkham Asylum and Arkham City then grabbed Monolith, Travelers Tales and Midway Chicago (All stupidly well talented) along with the Midway IP catalog. Then started using all the IP between both the casual kids audience and the big scary core gamers which delivered massive hits like Arkham City and Mortal Kombat. WB was just smart and let them go do do their jobs.

Disney just bet it all on one game, hired super talented studios like Ninja Theory, United Front Games and Sumo Digital just to make segments of the big bet instead of diversifying with big core games. Targeted it to kids who have a limited spend while adults, who will spend much more on season passes and microtransactions, were thirsting for Star Wars and Marvel games, then sold off the Star Wars rights to EA and let them make money. Oh and the biggest Q2 2016 AAA release is a multiplayer shooter based on the concept of superheroes battling it out, Warner supposedly has a Suicide Squad FPS in the works as their big Holiday game and Disney does not have a solitary Marvel AAA game on the market.

I'm amazed Disney didn't can it sooner because how the fuck could one publisher be that blind to general industry trends?
   

[chronovore]

Lucasgames was already pretty much dead even before Disney bought them out, but it's sad to see the final nail put in their coffin.

shit, I forgot about that, their utterly deplorable treatment of Lucasarts.

Now I'm angry all over again.

Let's be frank: LucasArts was nearly dead from its own problems when Disney moved in and took over. LucasArts had an early history of tremendous innovation and success, but the final 10 years or more were rife with business problems. Any other company in games, surviving just 10 years to begin with is amazing, so a decade of death spiral is pretty amazing in its own horrible way.

I worked with Avalanche in some capacity when they were just beginning out. They were a bunch of nice guys. They got much larger after I had any contact with them. First time I ever went to Utah.

I'm pretty sure I'm out of the industry for good (though I've told myself that twice before), but I had hoped to work with Avalanche at some point. I also wanted to work for Pandemic.

...I should stop wanting to work places.

Whats still on your deathlist?

LucasArts! (no, I joke. I joke)

United Front Games, creators of Sleepeh Dawgs and full of ex BULLY developers, would be nice... but I'm out of mainstream game dev so they're safe.

Disney just bet it all on one game, hired super talented studios like Ninja Theory, United Front Games and Sumo Digital just to make segments of the big bet instead of diversifying with big core games.

Ruh-roh...

[bluemax]

Disney also sunk Wideload Games, which was a fine studio that had the bad luck of bouncing from one flailing publisher to another before getting put down for good. As well as Black Rock Studio and Junction Point (but who the hell would have bet against Warren Spector).

To Disney, I say, fuck you people. Seriously, right now the company as a whole is awash in cash, that they couldn't make this who videyagames thing work was never the fault of the people making them. They have the strongest stable of IP on earth and they can't make it work? Warner Bros seems to be doing pretty well with their efforts and I'll bet they haven't even spent near as much money as Disney was putting out close to their peak.

so yeah, fuck those guys.

WB was also smart and grabbed a bunch of ex-Eidos management not making the transition to Squeenix during the time between Arkham Asylum and Arkham City then grabbed Monolith, Travelers Tales and Midway Chicago (All stupidly well talented) along with the Midway IP catalog. Then started using all the IP between both the casual kids audience and the big scary core gamers which delivered massive hits like Arkham City and Mortal Kombat. WB was just smart and let them go do do their jobs.

Disney just bet it all on one game, hired super talented studios like Ninja Theory, United Front Games and Sumo Digital just to make segments of the big bet instead of diversifying with big core games. Targeted it to kids who have a limited spend while adults, who will spend much more on season passes and microtransactions, were thirsting for Star Wars and Marvel games, then sold off the Star Wars rights to EA and let them make money. Oh and the biggest Q2 2016 AAA release is a multiplayer shooter based on the concept of superheroes battling it out, Warner supposedly has a Suicide Squad FPS in the works as their big Holiday game and Disney does not have a solitary Marvel AAA game on the market.

I'm amazed Disney didn't can it sooner because how the fuck could one publisher be that blind to general industry trends?
   

God this just reminded me that back before Disney acquired Marvel the studio I was working at was in talks to develop or port a 4 player coop Marvel game (I think it was whatever the kiddie version of the Avengers was back then, we had worked on a port of MUA2). Then Disney bought Marvel and our project was put on ice and eventually canned. That was one of two major blows that eventually killed our studio.

Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but it feels like the biggest Marvel game since that happened was that F2P Marvel Diablo clone for PC (which I think was in dev before the acquisition and a bunch of people jumped ship from after).

It's insane that Disney barely even tried to make games with all those Marvel properties. I know there was a garbage Arkham Asylum clone with Captain America, but it feels like after that they just turtled to mobile and didn't try anything else.

[Take My Breh Away]

Disney also sunk Wideload Games, which was a fine studio that had the bad luck of bouncing from one flailing publisher to another before getting put down for good. As well as Black Rock Studio and Junction Point (but who the hell would have bet against Warren Spector).

To Disney, I say, fuck you people. Seriously, right now the company as a whole is awash in cash, that they couldn't make this who videyagames thing work was never the fault of the people making them. They have the strongest stable of IP on earth and they can't make it work? Warner Bros seems to be doing pretty well with their efforts and I'll bet they haven't even spent near as much money as Disney was putting out close to their peak.

so yeah, fuck those guys.

WB was also smart and grabbed a bunch of ex-Eidos management not making the transition to Squeenix during the time between Arkham Asylum and Arkham City then grabbed Monolith, Travelers Tales and Midway Chicago (All stupidly well talented) along with the Midway IP catalog. Then started using all the IP between both the casual kids audience and the big scary core gamers which delivered massive hits like Arkham City and Mortal Kombat. WB was just smart and let them go do do their jobs.

Disney just bet it all on one game, hired super talented studios like Ninja Theory, United Front Games and Sumo Digital just to make segments of the big bet instead of diversifying with big core games. Targeted it to kids who have a limited spend while adults, who will spend much more on season passes and microtransactions, were thirsting for Star Wars and Marvel games, then sold off the Star Wars rights to EA and let them make money. Oh and the biggest Q2 2016 AAA release is a multiplayer shooter based on the concept of superheroes battling it out, Warner supposedly has a Suicide Squad FPS in the works as their big Holiday game and Disney does not have a solitary Marvel AAA game on the market.

I'm amazed Disney didn't can it sooner because how the fuck could one publisher be that blind to general industry trends?
   

God this just reminded me that back before Disney acquired Marvel the studio I was working at was in talks to develop or port a 4 player coop Marvel game (I think it was whatever the kiddie version of the Avengers was back then, we had worked on a port of MUA2). Then Disney bought Marvel and our project was put on ice and eventually canned. That was one of two major blows that eventually killed our studio.

Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but it feels like the biggest Marvel game since that happened was that F2P Marvel Diablo clone for PC (which I think was in dev before the acquisition and a bunch of people jumped ship from after).

It's insane that Disney barely even tried to make games with all those Marvel properties. I know there was a garbage Arkham Asylum clone with Captain America, but it feels like after that they just turtled to mobile and didn't try anything else.

The AA clone was Sega/Next Level Games if I remember right. Sega had the MCU license for a while, but the games they did on the films of Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and Thor were flops (Cause they stank and film licenses were losing popularity rapidly) so they just sold it back. Which Sega must have been kicking themselves for because the MCU and Marvel Mania didn't really kick off till post Avengers. At the same time there were plenty of actual successful licenced games like Ultimate Alliance and Marvel Vs Capcom 3. The quality wasn't so bad with stuff like Spidey Shattered Dimensions and Wolverine Origins either (Even though the film sucked hardcore). And the Avengers FPS THQ Australia was making looked incredibly promising till it was canned because of THQ dying.

It's what gets me most about the Disney thing. They pissed away tons of talented developers in an era where licenced properties in gaming can thrive if they are done right and WB showed exactly how to do it while also sending the core gaming push they had to die (Like releasing Split/Second in the middle of a summer while Red Dead Redemption was tearing up the charts instead of holding off and giving it some polish).

[benjipwns]

God this just reminded me that back before Disney acquired Marvel the studio I was working at was in talks to develop or port a 4 player coop Marvel game (I think it was whatever the kiddie version of the Avengers was back then, we had worked on a port of MUA2). Then Disney bought Marvel and our project was put on ice and eventually canned. That was one of two major blows that eventually killed our studio.

Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but it feels like the biggest Marvel game since that happened was that F2P Marvel Diablo clone for PC (which I think was in dev before the acquisition and a bunch of people jumped ship from after).

It's insane that Disney barely even tried to make games with all those Marvel properties. I know there was a garbage Arkham Asylum clone with Captain America, but it feels like after that they just turtled to mobile and didn't try anything else.

Yeah, they did basically. You search Marvel or any character almost on an app store, they have a shitload of stuff out, especially compared to Warner which has barely anything using their DC properties except like Injustice.

Of course, Warner hasn't exactly done anything elsewhere except Injustice and let Rocksteady finish Batman I suppose. (I had assumed that Warner Montreal was working on another Batman or Suicide Squad or something to come out alongside BvS.)

And they did sign off on the PC port of Arkham Knight knowing it was garbage.

Wait, what was I talking about.

I guess LEGO Avengers did come out.

[bluemax]

And 3 Lego Batman games, lest we forget.

I honestly don't feel like most of DCs roster has the brand recognition to warrant a big game besides Batman and Superman and history has proven that no one can make a Superman game that isn't dogshit.

I also wonder if Disney had the rights to make X-Men games, or if that was in some weird La-La land of IP hell.

The last non LEGO video game with the X-Men on consoles was Marvel Super Hero Squad in 2011 (this was the franchise I was thinking of earlier). So in the last 5 years only 2 games have come out with X-Men characters (non mobile platforms). That seems like an incredible waste of an IP.

[chronovore]

I also wonder if Disney had the rights to make X-Men games, or if that was in some weird La-La land of IP hell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-Men_video_games

From the looks of that list, my best guess is "IP hell," but they're available to be featured in any non-specific game. They're all over the place in recent games, but only general Marvel Super-Hero titles.

It's also possible that Dyack managed to sink the perceived worth of the brand with that flailing mess a few years ago.

[benjipwns]

IIRC, they had some split where like Activision had the movie and regular comics licenses and THQ had the Ultimate Comics line license but not the regular comics. And then the cartoon/animated licenses were somewhere else. And then the deal with Capcom is some side thing only for that series.

Much like their movies. Except people were actually using the licenses so they didn't all revert back to Marvel like most of the film ones did.

Also reminds me of the Star Trek license. How for decades it was split between like the TOS but not the movies, the TOS movies, and then TNG forward. (Which is why the good (imo) Master of Orion rip-off Birth of the Federation starts you off with TNG era ships and stuff.) Once someone finally got the unified license (I think Bethesda?) it was after Enterprise died and time for the Abramsverse so they shit canned almost everything.

Then J.J. blamed the Namco (?!?) published TPS for hurting Into Darkness.

[chronovore]

Lucasgames was already pretty much dead even before Disney bought them out, but it's sad to see the final nail put in their coffin.

shit, I forgot about that, their utterly deplorable treatment of Lucasarts.

Now I'm angry all over again.

Can't wait till Escape from Monkey Island is brought back as a shitty Pirates of The Caribbean movie

They already took one of the best Tim Powers novels and brought it out as a shitty PotC movie, so anything's possible.

[mormapope]

Monkey Island will be its own movie, with Shia Labeouf as Guybrush.

Danny DeVito would make a great LeChuck though.