Disney Infinity has now sold past three million units, providing the beleaguered Disney Interactive with a much needed boost.
Disney Interactive has certainly been struggling for a while. After the disappointing creative and financial failure of Epic Mickey 2, one would expect the shift to mobile is the cold, calculated way to certain profit. But, Disney’s Where’s My Water 2 also failed in the market, after trying to get everything right.
To be clear, Where’s My Water 2 ended up occupying the same familiar spot the likes of Bejeweled Blitz and Plants vs Zombies 2 are in: many downloads that did not translate to expected numbers of sales. As is the case with Popcap, Disney Mobile’s struggles lay in the transition to free to play.
And this is where Disney Infinity comes in as double savior. Not only was it conceived as a way to save money from having to make multiple games every time they release a new IP, it has achieved financial success, very much comparable to Activision’s Skylanders franchise. While it’s not an exceedingly profitable game (say, like Grand Theft Auto was), it has offset losses from Disney Mobile in the last year. Whereas 2012 Q4 saw a loss of $ 76 million, 2013 Q4 was an upswing to $ 16 million profit, with $ 396 million in revenue.
Overall, Disney is still finding its space in the gaming world. It doesn’t seem to even know what to do with Star Wars, licensing the rights to those games away to EA. Still, Infinity turned out to be the right step forward, and with a new game promised every year, that fanbase its built now can only keep growing. Perhaps in the near future Disney will be incentivized to make more games to cater to the significantly loyal core gamer fanbase. Who’s up for a Treasure Planet MMO?
