When it was first announced, Disney’s Infinity system seemed to fill a niche for younger gamers, and for collectors who wanted to get their hands on the highly stylized Disney characters. It all comes to an end as Disney announced it is closing Avalanche Software.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the Infinity series was popular (so popular that it passed the Skylanders game) but apparently didn’t sell enough to justify the $100 million per game to make.
“We thought we had a really good opportunity to launch our own product in that space,” said Disney Chief Executive and Chairman Robert Iger. “We did quite well with the first iteration of it, and we did OK with the second iteration, but that business is a changing business.”
Disney will lay off 300 people at the Utah facility, and the company will no longer develop console games in-house.
Will another company seek to license the Infinity line from Disney? Probably not if the most recent iteration of the game failed to hit the sales figures Disney expected.
Senior Vice President and GM of Disney Infinity, John Blackburn posted the following on the Disney Interactive site yesterday afternoon:
By now you may have heard the news that we have made the difficult decision to discontinue production of Disney Infinity. From the beginning, Disney Infinity was built for you—our fans—and I wanted to take a moment to thank you not just for your support over the years, but for creating a community that made Disney Infinity more than just a game.
Our goal for Disney Infinity was to bring the best of Disney storytelling to life in homes around the world, and with your support we accomplished that. We hope you had as much fun playing the game as we had making it.
So what’s next for Disney Infinity? We have two final retail releases coming, including three new characters from Alice Through the Looking Glass later this month, and the Finding Dory Play Set launching in June.
And as we turn to the next chapter in our story, I want to thank everyone who helped bring Disney Infinity to life, particularly Disney’s Glendale-based production and publishing teams, our external development partners, and of course the incredible Avalanche team for their tireless dedication to this project.
But most of all, I want to again thank you for making Disney Infinity a part of your lives—and for adding to the Disney legacy by being a part of this community.
It’s too bad Disney announced it was shutting down Infinity before the final products were released, as it may be even harder to sell those sets now. Or maybe the sales will surge as people rush out to turn the figures into collectibles.
It was a good run while it lasted. The kids at the Major Spoilers HQ love playing the game, and loved the figures, but as they’ve aged, their attention is more on LEGO Avengers games.
3 Comments
I hate to see people lose their jobs and I hate to see people lose a game they love but this could end up being good news for those of us who are really into Lego Dimensions.
I’m not really surprised by this. I always like the figures but the game play and interface always felt “clunky” to me. If you want any of the figures for your collection, get them before they are gone.
I’m quite sad by this. I only have a few figures, but I still really enjoyed the games and thought they were a blast.
Also sad we won’t be seeing some of the figures they announced earlier in the year, such as new Star Wars characters.