Following the publication of their financial results, Disney has revealed that they will be discontinuing the Infinity line of video games and toys.
The Wall Street Journal wrote earlier this morning that Disney would be taking a US$147 million writedown in cancelling the Disney line of Infinity toys and console games. In a post on the Disney Interactive website, Disney Infinity GM John Blackburn wrote that he hoped fans “had as much fun playing the game as we had making it”.
The Finding Dory play set in June will be the last release for the series, with the Alice Through The Looking Glass scheduled to hit store shelves later this month. James Pitaro, consumer products and interactive chairman at Disney, said the company would “exclusively” focus on a licensing model for the console market going forward.
“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,” the WSJ reported.
Avalanche Software, the makers of Disney Infinity, will be shut down as a result of the decision, causing 300 developers to lose their jobs. Disney will continue publishing mobile games in the future.
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39 responses to “Disney Cancels The Infinity Line”
Good luck to everyone at Avalanche studios. Hope you find new positions soon.
Avalanche Software*
Where’d you get your journalism degree from? The journalism degree store?
Something like that! It’s fixed now, apologies.
Note that Avalanche Software (the maker of Disney Infinity) should not be confused with Avalanche Studios, the maker of Just Cause. They’re two unrelated companies. Avalanche Studios is doing just fine.
Maybe it was Avalanche Studios all along and a group of plucky kids and their dog just unmasked them?
And they would have gotten away with it, too!
Meanwhile the fighting games scene goes into meltdown at the news of Disney stepping back to IP licensing because Marvel Vs Capcom 4 just went from “absolutely no chance in hell” to “a snowflake’s chance in hell”.
I literally gasped at the possibility, with eyes watering… my workmates thought I heard horrible news
DAMMIT DISNEY, I WANT MvC4!!
This is bigger than you clowns are making out, Australian games retail is nothing but Toys to Life.
Local Disney carpet-bombed every major chain with these things, ceding shelf space for other brands like Skylanders/amiibo until Lego Dimensions came along. I don’t expect Lego Dimensions to last to Christmas.
Not to mention the less and less room you’d see for actual video game box art.
How things will go from here is interesting. If Target/Big W follow Kmart’s lead and abandon gaming altogether, we’re left with EB/JB and that’s it.
Who you calling clown, bozo?
Who you calling bozo, fool?
I’m not your buddy, guy!
Who you calling Guy, Friend!
Big W consistently prices games well at release and seem to be on top with new releases. Kmart on the other hand, I’ve never considered getting games from there before they dropped out. I really hope Big W keeps selling.
Kmart used to have crazy good introductory specials on games for a while there, and often dropped game prices pretty hard too. Picked up quite a few games from them for a song over the years.
There you go. Last time I remember picking up a game there was the GameCube era. I hate the place now, especially the checkout in the middle of the store.
Kinda saw this coming, the latest Infinity didn’t do so well, it’ll be interesting to see if Skylanders are doing anything this year, because from what I’ve seen Superchargers has sold awfully, even worse than Infinity.
Lego Dimensions is actually pretty solid though, I grabbed it initially for the Portal set, but the sheer amount of cool stuff you get with each figurine, like hub world access and new stages, made me buy more.
I do hope Lego Dimensions continues. It is the one ‘toys to life’ that are real toys, and can be used outside/independent of the HUB. The other two are just static models that look nice on a shelf but little more.
The one question is, will Marvel and Star Wars come to Lego Dimensions?
Not a chance, Dimensions is a Warner owned franchise, unless we’re talking Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Disney and Warner do not mix with eachother
In saying that both DC and Marvel are licensed by Lego for their regular toy line. I know that a Batman vs Ironman movie is out of the question, but electronic entertainment and toys fall under a different agreement. Also remember the Lego movie had DC, Star Wars in the same universe.
Thanks to Civil War we now have big picture companies sub-licensing their um… license (marvel own Spiderman, Sony owns Spiderman movies … Marvel pays Sony to use Spiderman in a movie)
This all added up to me says that if Disney are willing to be paid by Time Warner and be given royalties on top of it… without having to lift a finger. While Time Warner is able to catch the Infinity fans its win, win.
However as of E3 last year the license distributors of Marvel didn’t know Dimensions was in the pipeline, nor were they asked about joining. Seeing Portal and Dr Who in Lego Dimensions has me thinking they have a pretty solid contract behind the scenes to allow franchises to join.
Screw the big names give me Gremlins, Big Bang Theory, and The Mummy franchises in Lego Dimensions!!
That seems sudden.
No surprises here.
Corporate culture is all about growth these days. If something isn’t growing it gets killed…..
It’s shame – these games were great for kids and encouraged creativity. My lad spent a lot more time with the figures than the game.
They were wonderfully creative – but I’m not surprised they were the first to drop out. Skylanders gives you a huge playable campaign whereas Infinity gives you slivers of a campaign with a huge level editor.
Great for older kids, younger kids though – the game is a scourge on parents!
Great point re: Skylanders. I was super impressed by the length of…..whichever one it is that the lad has.
This seems like an odd decision. I’ve never played them but I was always under the impression that the Disney Infinity games and figures were very popular.
Yeah I think we’ve hit game figure fatigue and the genre will die eventually. Luckily I only have about 10 amiibos and haven’t bothered with skylanders/disney. I was interested in the Lego ones but the price was too high, maybe I’ll pick some up if they go into clearance.
I am always surprised at the flood of adults who come out of the woodwork when Lego Dimensions are on sale. From my armchair POV I dare say that the Pricing on Lego Dimensions is the one thing holding it back from being bigger?
I get the in toys to life you need to pay royalties to publisher, developer, rights holder, manufacturer, licensee. But in the case above selling the end product at 30% less would surely triple your sales (again arm chair dictating).
I really wanted to play the doctor who levels but the price of entry for the base kit and the extra doctor who pack was just to darn high. I like the Lego games but they’re the types of things I’ll pay $5 in a steam sale for, and with dimensions being console exclusive and tied to pricey figures there’s just no way.. So I just made do with watching let’s play videos.
Still holding out for a proper Lego Doctor Who game though
Well, I look forward to buying loads of cheap figurines for my kids. It’s disappointing to see the franchise stop because it had heart and the figurines were very nice.
I agree. The figures were top quality and sat perfectly on the shelf next to some of my collector LEGO sets. The games themselves were fun and enjoyable too. Sadly, no more toys.
I didn’t play too much of the game, it was more my kids’ jam. But yeah, those figures, particularly the marvel and star wars ones are very nice and they have a pleasantly consistent style across franchises.
Perhaps we’ll see Star Wars & Marvel join the Lego Dimensions roll out now? Seems like this move from Disney would open the way for that to happen.
I’m crossing my fingers on that one too. Lego Dimensions has been the centre point of the family game night since Christmas. Even the missus will play with the kids (and she isn’t a gamer).
Best part is they don’t need to be glued to a screen to play with the toys, it’s Lego and unlike the other “toys to life” they are proper toys.
Bring on Marvel and Star Wars!
I wonder if the whole market is for these toys is dying or simply that Infinity is one of the lower competitors? It surprises me as I thought they were one of the top 2 (The other one being Nintendo Amiibos). If something doing as much noise as Infinity is going away, I don’t like the chances of Lego Dimensions of which I haven’t heard in months.
I too would like to know the sales stats on the 4 toys to life franchises (if only I could think of a news site that reported on gaming?). Like the console wars which of the three is doing what in regards to sales?
I too worry that Lego Dimensions will die a silent death, but then I remember that before it was announced it was silent, even between E3 and release no info came out. I have a feeling it follows Lego’s marketing strategy as brick sets are very rarely shown before release?
I also have to point to Lego Avengers, which also had no info until release. it seems to be the way Lego and TT games works?
All I want to know now is when Marvel and Star Wars will come to Lego Dimensions?
Watch out forDisney amiibos this Christmas!