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Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

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Re: Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

#11

Post by deciplex »

cwilkes wrote: post #6

While I think it is a good idea for a company to stick to their knitting (making movies and such, not video games) I'm not sure what studio will want to work with them when Disney holds all the IP to the characters. Say a game is a hit and makes the game studio a lot of money. Disney's going to see that and demand more for licensing fees. What is the studio going to say? No? It isn't like the studio can start releasi…

Studios will simply negotiate exclusive rights I guess. You, and no one else, get to make Star Wars games for the next decade. Quality will probably go to shit as a result, but who cares about that?

Re: Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

#12

Post by Animats »

xyzzy4 wrote: post #8
Animats wrote: post #2

Acquiring and trashing companies is seriously annoying. Disney did this to about a half dozen game companies. Google is doing it to about a half dozen robotics companies. In both cases, the acquisitions were initially seen as positive. In both cases, the parent company had no clue what to do with what they bought. I have a friend who works at a company recently acquired by Microsoft, a company whose product was not M…

Cisco licensed QNX and turned it into a nice operating system called IOS XR.

Yes. If only they'd offer that on consumer-sized routers.

Surprisingly often, you find QNX running some important piece of infrastructure which doesn't get much attention because it isn't breaking very often.

Re: Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

#13

Post by dottrap »

officemonkey wrote: post #9

Saddest part of the Disney Infinity debacle is the fans. DI was marketed strongly to kids based on the success of Star Wars and MCU franchises. Although game play was lackluster, the target audience (kids 4-8) didn't care. And the figurines were really very cool. When they pulled the plug on Disney Infinity, they really sent a pretty clear "we don't care" to any kid that loved those DI figurines. You don't want to se…

Sadly, it won't matter. Here's another example of Disney neglecting successful markets they created. I just re-read this DuckTales 25th Anniversary Retrospective from a few years ago because Alan Young/Scrooge died the other day.

Excerpt:

  But what media company has almost 4 times the market   
  capitalization of CBS and is among the largest media
  conglomerates in the world? That would be Disney of course. 
  And what is Disney doing to celebrate the 25th Anniversary 
  of DuckTales, the most successful syndicated cartoon series 
  in history? Absolutely nothing.
  I'm always quite amazed at Disney's inability to capitalize 
  on their own successful products.
http://playcontrol.net/ewing/jibberjabber/ducktales-25th-ann...

Re: Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

#14

Post by vmarsy »

dottrap wrote: post #13
officemonkey wrote: post #9

Saddest part of the Disney Infinity debacle is the fans. DI was marketed strongly to kids based on the success of Star Wars and MCU franchises. Although game play was lackluster, the target audience (kids 4-8) didn't care. And the figurines were really very cool. When they pulled the plug on Disney Infinity, they really sent a pretty clear "we don't care" to any kid that loved those DI figurines. You don't want to se…

Sadly, it won't matter. Here's another example of Disney neglecting successful markets they created. I just re-read this DuckTales 25th Anniversary Retrospective from a few years ago because Alan Young/Scrooge died the other day. Excerpt: But what media company has almost 4 times the market capitalization of CBS and is among the largest media conglomerates in the world? That would be Disney of course. And what is Dis…

The wiki[1] page says: On February 25, 2015, Disney XD announced it would be reviving the series for a 2017 premiere.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckTales

Re: Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

#15

Post by pinewurst »

xyzzy4 wrote: post #8
Animats wrote: post #2

Acquiring and trashing companies is seriously annoying. Disney did this to about a half dozen game companies. Google is doing it to about a half dozen robotics companies. In both cases, the acquisitions were initially seen as positive. In both cases, the parent company had no clue what to do with what they bought. I have a friend who works at a company recently acquired by Microsoft, a company whose product was not M…

Cisco licensed QNX and turned it into a nice operating system called IOS XR.

The most recent (>5.0) versions of IOS XR are now based on a 64-bit Linux kernel.

Re: Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

#16

Post by xyzzy4 »

pinewurst wrote: post #15
xyzzy4 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cisco licensed QNX and turned it into a nice operating system called IOS XR.

The most recent (>5.0) versions of IOS XR are now based on a 64-bit Linux kernel.

Interesting. Even before that, you could run IOS XR with a Linux-based emulator called EnXR. It's useful for testing because you don't need to load the image onto a real router.

Re: Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

#17

Post by Varriount »

KJP191 wrote: post #10
cwilkes wrote: post #6

While I think it is a good idea for a company to stick to their knitting (making movies and such, not video games) I'm not sure what studio will want to work with them when Disney holds all the IP to the characters. Say a game is a hit and makes the game studio a lot of money. Disney's going to see that and demand more for licensing fees. What is the studio going to say? No? It isn't like the studio can start releasi…

Their videogame deal with Lego seems to be working out OK. And they've got loads of experience licensing out their IP for toys etc.

Lego is likely one of the few companies with sufficient clout and experience to actually work with Disney on videogames. Not only does Lego possess a valuable product that other companies can use as promotion material, but they also possess the experience of developing videogames which use other companies' IP (or at least, the experience to mediate between whatever company they contract to develop the game and the company possessing the IP).

Re: Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

#18

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

pinewurst wrote: post #4
Animats wrote: post #2

Acquiring and trashing companies is seriously annoying. Disney did this to about a half dozen game companies. Google is doing it to about a half dozen robotics companies. In both cases, the acquisitions were initially seen as positive. In both cases, the parent company had no clue what to do with what they bought. I have a friend who works at a company recently acquired by Microsoft, a company whose product was not M…

Disney: this isn't surprising. I don't think people realize how bureaucratically corporate Disney is, almost a parody at the level of "Brazil". They are a good employer though if one finds a happy place there with excellent benefits. QNX: a lovely embedded and even service OS. I used it for encryption and stream management in a game-cartridge-over cable-TV headend. They also included a bag of chocolate chip cookies i…

> They are a good employer though if one finds a happy place there with excellent benefits.

As long as you don't work in IT.

Re: Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

#19

Post by pinewurst »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #18
pinewurst wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney: this isn't surprising. I don't think people realize how bureaucratically corporate Disney is, almost a parody at the level of "Brazil". They are a good employer though if one finds a happy place there with excellent benefits. QNX: a lovely embedded and even service OS. I used it for encryption and stream management in a game-cartridge-over cable-TV headend. They also included a bag of chocolate chip cookies i…

> They are a good employer though if one finds a happy place there with excellent benefits. As long as you don't work in IT.

Not disagreeing - I interviewed for a position there and asked about the outsourcing effort and results. The senior manager was awfully defensive about it.

Re: Disney stops making video games in house – insiders reveal what went wrong

#20

Post by csydas »

cwilkes wrote: post #6

While I think it is a good idea for a company to stick to their knitting (making movies and such, not video games) I'm not sure what studio will want to work with them when Disney holds all the IP to the characters. Say a game is a hit and makes the game studio a lot of money. Disney's going to see that and demand more for licensing fees. What is the studio going to say? No? It isn't like the studio can start releasi…

I'd be curious to see what deals Disney had worked out for its NES era games made by Capcom. While I remember them fondly, I guess I don't really know if they were commercially successful at the time or not.

If it was successful, then it just seems natural that they'd continue to license the IP out to let those who do know games do their thing with franchises, and honestly the in-house production of games for Disney always seemed off.

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