Skylanders, created by Activision, is a game series played by placing toy figurines on the Portal of Power, a device that will transfer the character represented by the figure into the game as a playable character. Skylanders: Spyros’s Adventure, created in 2011, was the first video game to use the “toy to life” concept. It began as an experiment by Activision to see if they would be successful in getting their market focus (I.E young children) to not only purchase the game, but also purchase the separate character packs in order to enhance their game play experience. To the surprise of many, my partner and myself included, the game was a huge hit. As of February of this year, Activision has sold over 175 Million toys and has generated 2 billion dollars in revenue. (source) This is huge in the gaming world, and as fate would have it, someone else decided to get in on the action in order to save their company and that company was Disney Interactive Studios.
Disney Interactive has lost more than $200 million per year between 2008 and 2012, or a total of $1.31 billion, and was able to turn tables after reporting a profit of $16 million for the fourth quarter of 2013. Their secret recipe? Disney Infinity.
Modeled after Activision’s Skylander business plan and software development concept, Disney Infinity is an interactive game that requires separate individual real life figurines that when placed on the game pad, they are transferred into the game. Since last year, sales surged 80% and has generated more than $500 million from the sale of more than 3 million starter packs since August 2013’s launch. (source)
With Disney being Activision’s only competition, it’s easy to see that Disney has the upper hand.
On the surface layer both games appear to have equal qualities, says Sam Loveridge. Each game comes with a starter pack and a couple of toy figurines that can be placed on a base to transport them into the game. Both games have you level up your characters and save a created world that you can make yourself. The biggest difference that sets these two apart is the fact that Disney has a much more known character set, thanks to their established brand.
With a wide variety of characters known to children around the world, it is going to be tough to compete. For example, after the movie, Frozen, was released and became an immensely popular hit, Disney Interactive released Anna and Elsa figures, which actually turned out to be two of the top selling Disney Infinity figures to date. The addition of Anna and Elsa has attracted a surprising amount of younger girls, who make up 45% of players, to try out the game for themselves. The success of recently released Disney films can also boost Disney Infinity sales even more. Guardians of The Galaxy generated $161.7 in sales worldwide after its opening weekend in August.
Disney also perfected the aesthetics and character design. With its sleek, simple design, the game pads looks much more user friendly and intuitive. Most agree that it looks more sophisticated than Skylanders’ Power Pad (images below). The action figures seem are actually more detailed as well. The toys are made out of hard matte plastic, with a more pliable, rubbery plastic used for accessories, such as Thor’s cape. The colors are a little muted, though and lack the vibrancy of their Skylanders counterparts.
The gameplay for both games is very similar and Skylanders’s graphics have gotten improved over the years, but the main appeal is Disney Infinity’s Toy Box feature. It allows players to create their own game in an open-world arena. Players can mix and match everything that is unlocked within each of the play-sets including characters, weapons and gadgets.
Initially, we had come to agreement that Skylanders and Disney Infinity looked like total flops. We would have never guessed there’s a market for these games, let alone their quarterly increases in sales. We were in complete shock when we saw both Skylanders and Disney Infinity are highly praised. The truth is, both of these games are marketed towards children aged 6-12, which would explain our lack of interest from the beginning, but once we looked into reviews, sales figures, and future plans, we immediately took back our negative first impressions and now give Activision and Disney Interactive props for changing the standard business model for video games and changing the industry for the better.
You can check out Andrea’s blog here for more failures and successes of pop culture merchandise.
Talk Nerdy to Me :P 