Disney Wants That Sweet Gamer Cash
April 20, 2005
The Orlando Sentinel is reporting this morning that Walt Disney Co. is trying to get its hands back into the video game directly by buying up two game developers: Avalanche Software (creators of Tak and the Power of JuJu) and an unnamed new developer. Avalanche will make the kiddie games while the other unit will concentrate on adult-oriented titles. Something of note is that the new unit is led by former Electronic Arts staff.
Disney isn't exactly a stranger to the world of video games. The company has been licensing their characters to companies for years and before that held their own development house, Disney Interactive. Who could forget titles such as Capcom's Ducktales or Darkwing Duck for the Nintendo Entertainment System or Sega's Castle of Illusion? With these new acquisitions it seems that Disney is ready to cut out the middleman and take a bigger chunk of the profits than they were previously. On the one hand it's good to see Disney doing this. Now quality publishers such as Capcom won't be spending time developing the next kiddie-oriented Disney game and can focus on material for "the rest of us".
On the other hand, now that Disney is in the market directly there's another giant behemoth to try and take over the industry. After all, the company expects revenues from video games to reach $500 million next year. That money has to come from somewhere.