It’s been almost a month since the announcement that Disney Infinity will be shuttered, and to many fans, the shock remains. Yet, to insiders and veteran observers, it was only a matter of time. The video game division of the company, Disney Interactive, never seemed to have complete confidence from the parent company. They were never given autonomous creative control, nor were they ever run by a person that truly understood gaming and the gaming market. Most gamers could tell that the studio existed for the most part to try and wring money out of the gaming industry. Their titles were often lackluster and existed mainly to translate films or television shows into game form. There were a few exceptions to the rule, but those were often from outside studios trying to do something original with the Disney IP rather than being forced to try to fit one of the properties into a predictable gaming template.
One of the reasons why Disney Interactive was destined to fail was because they often created redundant titles. The gaming industry itself can be accused of over-saturating the market with many “me-too” titles, often trying to steal the thunder from rival studios and popular game ideas. Yet, these copycat games are often offset by a handful of original titles from the same publisher. Risk is something that any business, especially multinational corporations, tries to limit. The entertainment industry, however, was built on the backs of creative individuals who took those risks. Look at all of the chances that the early Walt Disney Studios took with film and animation. Other studios didn’t see much of a future in animation; they certainly couldn’t imagine creating an entire business around cartoons. The Silly Symphonies changed all of that. They were wildly popular animated shorts, especially The Three Little Pigs. It completely changed the way people thought about animation. Not that much earlier Steamboat Willie had also set a new paradigm. Suddenly the other major studios were now taking notice and trying to create their own “me-too” cartoons. What happened next was a lesson in creative thinking, or a lack thereof. The Three Little Pigs was huge and theater owners were clamoring for more. Walt hesitated at the but eventually conceded, the fans and theater owners were relentless and they got what they wanted.
Most people remember The Three Little Pigs quite vividly but few can name the follow-up films. The Disney studios did their best to try and change up the formula but they could not capture the magic of the original. Disney gave audiences what they wanted and he learned that what they needed was something else entirely. From that point on Walt reminded his employees “You can’t top pigs with pigs.” Entertainment demanded constant change and evolution. Creating a sequel would only stunt the studio’s growth. The Disney Studios would push to advance the art form with the multi-plane camera, the first full-length animated feature, and later on with television and live action features. Through his life Walt tried to avoid following pigs with pigs. The company flourished by offering entirely new forms of entertainment, experiences that audiences didn’t know they needed until they got it. When Walt died the company seemingly became frightened with the creative process. In animation, in theme parks and films, the creative outlets were hampered at every turn. In Walt Disney World people wondered why they weren’t getting a Pirates of the Caribbean. Marc Davis and his fellow Imagineers did not want to follow pigs with pigs either. Western River Expedition was in the works for that park, learning everything they could from the Pirates formula and changing it in order to give audiences a completely new experience. The company decided to lessen the creative risk, and tighten the budget in the process. Fans got what they wanted but it certainly was not what they needed. Fast-forward a decade to the rise of the video game and the Disney Studios did not change much. TRON was an attempt at bridging the new form of entertainment with the traditional one. It wasn’t the blockbuster that the studio had hoped for but the seeds had certainly been planted in a generation of future directors, writers and Imagineers.
When it came to video games the Disney company did not seem to have a horse in the race. The first round of arcade and console hits went to the studios that created a mascot and a memorable game. Pac-Man, Frogger and Donkey Kong led the pack but were soon joined by many more faces. The Mario Bros, Rygar, Kid Ikarus, the Bionic Commando, Dirk the Daring from Dragon’s Lair, Simon Belmont from Castlevania and a host of other icons were being made. Nintendo found a creative genius in Shigeru Miyamoto. He ended up designing the majority of the studios’ most successful IP. He enjoyed a level of autonomous freedom from company CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi. To be fair designer Gunpei Yokoi was responsible for the hardware in the nascent games division. The company was founded a century ago and made hanafuda (memory-type) playing cards. In 1959 Hiroshi Yamauchi met with Walt Disney to reach a licensing agreement and put the mascot characters on the hanafuda cards. As the company grew, Mr. Yamauchi decided to branch out into toys, electronics and eventually gaming which made the most of his talented designers. They were allowed to experiment and invent new ways of designing toys and games. The team at Nintendo ended up creating some of the first portable video games, known collectively as the Game & Watch. The company also ended up releasing some of the most memorable arcade and home console experiences. Mr. Yamauchi knew it was important to take a chance in the entertainment industry and give people new experiences. He was not content with just printing cards during his tenure. During the late ’70s and early ’80s the Disney Studios did the opposite. By the time they got on board with video gaming the console revolution was well under way. Over the next 30 years the Disney Company would follow pigs with pigs.
The 8-bit console, the Nintendo Entertainment System and to a lesser extent the Sega Master System, were in many households through the mid-’80s. At the end of the decade the 16-bit revolution was ready to strike. Sega lost the first round to Nintendo and was determined to have a better showing in the early ’90s. In order to do this they needed a game and mascot that could rival the Mario Bros. series. They dubbed their next console the Genesis (Mega Drive outside of the USA) but they were still without an icon. Nintendo was preparing a 16-bit console of their own and promised to take Mario to entirely new heights. One of the most highly anticipated games from Sega featured the one character that could dethrone Mario. Mickey Mouse was known around the world and if used right could have become the next-generation icon. The game Mickey Mouse in the Castle of Illusion was moderately successful, creating a sort of cult-following. The memories of that groundbreaking game never faded. It was revisited 23 years later when Sega Studios in Australia remade it for the Playstation and Xbox online download services. Mickey however would not become the gateway for Disney to get into gaming. Sega had other plans for their console and they did not want to have a licensed mascot representing them. Just a half year later they introduced Sonic the Hedgehog and fans soon forgot about Mickey.
The Disney Company could no longer ignore the new kid on the block. Video gaming was a legitimate form of entertainment and would soon outgross motion pictures. The Disney Company did not seem to have a defined roadmap on how they would break into the industry and stay in it. Disney Interactive was created in 1995 out of necessity. The market demanded it and the company had to follow the trends. Sadly their gaming division was never led by a Shigeru Miyamoto. or Jeffery Katzenberg, Kevin Feige or John Lasseter for that matter. It was obvious that the board and CEO through the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s simply did not know that it was necessary. They eventually caught on that it was important to have a person that knew the industry, the IP and creative process in other sectors of the company. In animation Katzenberg turned the studio around before leaving to start Dreamworks. He was followed up by John Lasseter who understood both CGI animation and theme parks and was brought over from Pixar to help turn those parts of the company around as well. For comic book features they could not have done better than Feige, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Marvel universe and knows which project should be in the pipeline to ensure that the company continues to grow and entertain while staying true to the source material. Disney Interactive was never given the type of autonomous control. They did not have their own captain that could steer them into new experiences, create their own mascots or even hardware. They were instead relegated to the role of publishing lackluster games based on movie and television IP. If I pick out three original titles that the studio released over the next three decades it perfectly sums up how Disney Interactive was following pigs with pigs.
Earthworm Jim was developed by Shiny Entertainment and released by Activision for the Sega Genesis in 1994. It represented a change in the traditional gaming mascot. The title character was far from Mario and Sonic as one could be. The humor and animation was more offbeat. It reflected the changing tastes of the audience. Specifically the Gen-Xers who had grow out of the Disney Afternoon shows and found the zany Ren and Stimpy much more interesting. Earthworm Jim was a smash-hit. It was fun to play and light-years ahead of what any other studio had done for console games. A year passed and Disney had their answer to Earthworm Jim ready, an entirely new duck hero called Maui Mallard who could transform into a ninja known as Cold Shadow. The game was hampered by creative changes dictated by corporate and a cut in the development cycle which hampered its potential. The game was too little too late as a sequel for Earthworm Jim was in the works, not to mention an animated series was in development as well as a 3D version on the 32-bit generation of consoles. Dave Perry, the designer behind Earthworm Jim had actually worked at Disney Interactive. He helped produce some of the better animated games from the studio. It was entirely possible that Earthworm Jim could have been a Disney game, if could have revitalized the studio. If only they had trusted their own designers to take creative chances and not follow the trends. A decade later something similar happened for the studio.
Disney announced that Mickey Mouse was back and he was going to become a star of a new franchise. Epic Mickey, released in 2010, was watched with great anticipation from audiences and editors alike. The media machine was behind the game and every tidbit of the development spread like wildfire through the community. It was announced that Warren Spector would produce the title. He had produced, if not co-produced some of the most critically acclaimed PC titles including Ultima VI, Wing Commander, Deus: Ex and System Shock, Almost from the get-go Spector was hampered by mandates from the head office. The game would push a dystopian version of Disneyland and try to re-introduce Oswald the Lucky Rabbit back into the public consciousness. His team at Junction Point studio did their best best with the mandate. An awkward control scheme and a single platform release made it a flop in the eyes of the industry. Undoing all of the missteps in Epic Mickey 2 was too little too late. Spector was dismissed and Junction Point was closed down. Spector was a passionate Disney fan and knew much more about the company and its history than any other producer the studio ever had. He had earned his Masters with a thesis in Animation History. Word was that his outspokenness and challenging the direction of the studio had rubbed a few executives the wrong way. Instead of recognizing that he was the talent that the company was sorely lacking, the Shigeru Miyamoto they never had, the company let him go. Of course Epic Mickey failed for a number of reasons, none of which were truly Spector’s fault. Disney Interactive was again following the trends rather than creating them. Epic Mickey featured a Morality System, making good and bad choices changed the outcome of the game. These things had been seen years earlier in Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) and Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (2008). By the time Epic Mickey was released all of the studios were experimenting with different mechanics and themes. There was not much for Spector to do but give it his best shot. It wouldn’t be the last time Disney spent a tremendous amount of time, money and energy following pigs with pigs. Only now it was becoming obvious how much this part of the company was beginning to hurt the bottom line.
Here is the chronology of what happened following Epic Mickey.
- October 2012, Disney Interactive Media Group had 15 consecutive quarters of losses totaling $977 million
- January 2013, Avalanche Software, one of the developers for Disney Interactive Games unveiled the cross platform game Disney Infinity
- October 2013, Disney Interactive posted a profit of $16 million during the September Quarter.
- March 2014, Disney Interactive laid off 700 people, 1/4 of its staff. And merged its mobile and social game units.
- June 2015, Disney Interactive merged with Disney Consumer Products
- May 2016, Disney Interactive discontinued Disney Infinity and closed down the developers at Avalanche Software due to lack of growth in the toy-to-game market.
It was that early portion in the decade that every game player could see coming. Disney had doubled-down on their efforts. They were determined to follow the trends, to copy what other studios were doing, and somehow come out ahead. It didn’t work in the ’90s, it didn’t work in the ’00s and to no one’s surprise the great experiment failed yet again. The Disney Company saw that Activision was making a killing on a collectable toy-meets-game known as Skylanders. To date the series has earned Activision $2 billion in global sales. It had grown faster than any other trend in the multi-billion dollar gaming industry and Disney thought that they could recreate their success. After all Disney had a deep library to pull from. Live-action, cartoon, comic book characters and locations from Pixar, Marvel, the Muppets and Star Wars were all ripe for the taking. What they did not count on was the saturation of the market and lack of interest from audiences. Skylanders debuted in 2011, families with children (the largest portion of Skylanders consumers) had already invested hundreds of dollars into the games, sequels and collectable figures. Convincing them that they should buy a new title and all new figures, that were not promised to be backwards compatible, would be an uphill battle. It did not matter if Disney Infinity had more features; including the ability to create your own toy box games, higher quality figures or a diversity of IP to work with. Not only that but the editing features would have been more thoroughly explored by fans of the Lego and Minecraft games as well. Nintendo also saw the billions that Activision had earned and decided that they could also provide a superior alternative. Nintendo’s Amiibo figures came out a year after Infinity yet sold as well if not better. Nintendo made it so the figures could be used across multiple games, even those previously released as well as upcoming titles. The moderate success of both Disney and Nintendo could not change the fact that both publishers got to the trend a little late. In 2016 the toy-to-game market was down 12%. This was the final nail in the coffin for Disney Interactive. They could no longer justify trying to support a multi-million dollar franchise if the industry was moving elsewhere. If Infinity had come out first with all of its features then Skylanders would have never had a chance and I would not be writing this article. The only thing that prevented Disney Interactive from succeeding was because they were never organized correctly or allowed to run like an actual creative branch of the company. They were set up to fail, to follow pig after pig instead of carving their own path. The company could have put a person like Spector in charge and allowed him to build a team of directors and producers to create the next string of hits. They could have worked with the existing IP as well as have created their own icons. Yet it is too late now. Another chapter in Disney history closes thanks to a lack of vision. It is always better to give people what they need rather than simply what they want. Perhaps the next Disney CEO might not be so blind to what a gaming publisher needs in order to succeed.
What do you think Disney should do with their Interactive division? What do you see as the future of gaming and how it works with Disney’s rich legacy of storytelling?