Disney is Ending its Infinity Line, Avalanche Software Shuttered

[Gennadios]

I got my Judy Hops and Sabine figures. I'm good. Still, it seems kind of odd that they're just shutting the whole thing down, but their figures do seem to be the ones that are left on the shelves most often.

They might have been using the Disney money and overproduced them. I only played on Steam, but I did buy a handful of figures because I wanted the figures.

What I wonder is what this will do to the price of the figures? Will it drop as sellers try to clear their inventories or will it spike as collectors try to finish their collections before the figures vanish?

Stores are stuffed with the things, even if prospectors start buying in droves retailers should still have plenty of stock to sell current figures on the cheap.

I don't know how Disney does production runs, but the out of print figures may go up in price.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Good riddance. This whole business of indoctrinating kids into the modern "buy a small fraction of the game, pay out the nose to get the rest as DLC" bullshit buy packaging it with toys you can't actually play with needs to go the fuck away, and what better place to start than with the one that wasn't even an actual game to begin with. Maybe next we'll start to see the makers of glorified slot machines for smartphones go under. And maybe a hellmouth will open in the ground and swallow up Donald Trump while I'm wishing.

 

[faefrost]

I feel for the effected employees, and I hope they find places with other studios. But judging by this mornings news out of EA, you can more clearly follow Disney's logic path.

For those not aware, EA today announced record earnings. largely on the back of Star Wars IP, particularly Star Wars Battlefront. Remember a few years back they shuttered Lucasarts and moved all development of games to third party licensee's, mainly EA? Well that is currently a money printing machine. With no overhead costs for Disney. Compare that with the inhouse, hardware heavy Disney Infinity, where they not only absorb development costs and payroll, they also have to front the heavy manufacturing and distribution costs, all at a far lower return than they are drawing from EA.

As others have said the long term economics of the plastic toy DRM games seem poor at best. And worse than Guitar Hero/Rock Band type games in many ways.

 

[Darmani]

Yikes I thought Infinity was widely successful given its continued upgrading, runs, and collectible nature.
Hail the power of marketing I guess.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Looks like it isn't going to go on...

Infinitely...

[sub]I'm just sorry to say my Sister's kids bought into this. :c[/sub]

Good riddance. This whole business of indoctrinating kids into the modern "buy a small fraction of the game, pay out the nose to get the rest as DLC" bullshit buy packaging it with toys you can't actually play with needs to go the fuck away, and what better place to start than with the one that wasn't even an actual game to begin with. Maybe next we'll start to see the makers of glorified slot machines for smartphones go under. And maybe a hellmouth will open in the ground and swallow up Donald Trump while I'm wishing.

This.

 

[mew4ever23]

I was starting to wonder if we'd be seeing an announcement like this. My local Walmarts have shelves just full of the figures. Who'd have guessed that the market wouldn't put up with 3 toys to life concepts?

 

[Naldan]

Maybe the market with that price isn't as big as they thought, overall, in absolute total. It's so damn expensive-- I can't even.

What a surprise. I hope those unemployed now get another job, of course. But please, let this be a lesson.

 

[Quellist]

If only this had been Amiibos going under, i would have cheered for that. As for this, to quote James Marsters "Sorry, Paralyzed by not caring"

 

[Dragonbums]

So the bottom fell out of the plastic toy DRM market?
Colour me surprised.

Has it? I though skylanders was still a mega hit and amiibos still seem to be going strong. There's still a skylanders game scheduled for autumn.

The problem with Infinity was that your enjoyment of the game as a whole was literally beholden to the figurines. You don't have any you can't do shit. So it's hard to get invested in a game that requires you to beg mom and dad to buy you more $10.00 toys to play with. Which is a shame beacause the Disney Infinity figurines are really nice quality and I was very close to simply buying a stick figure just because he looked nice.