A Sad Farewell to 'Disney Infinity'

It's a sad day for fans of Disney Infinity. The popular toy-and-story game wasn't popular enough, it seems, and Disney have announced that they are completely leaving the video game self-publishing business.

It gets even worse. The principal developer Avalanche Software is closing, with almost 300 jobs to be lost. The closure includes a staggering $147 million charge.

As Ben Fritz of The Wall Street Journal puts it:

It's a shocking development - only a month ago Disney committed to exploiting downloadable content for the future of Disney Infinity. The decision is clearly financial; Disney reported disappointing Quarter 2 earnings, missing analysts' estimates for the first time in five years. Given that the company still accrued a mind-blowing $12.97 billion in revenue, I find it hard to imagine that kind of profit being seen as "disappointing", but such is the reality of Wall Street. As CNBC summarise it:

"The company added that "lower results" for Infinity contributed to operating income in its consumer products and interactive media segment falling 8 percent year over year to $357 million."

Disney have just issued a brief statement that confirms the last two releases will be three new characters from Alice Through the Looking Glass and the Finding Dory playset to be released in June. After that, it's farewell to Disney Infinity.

From this point on, Disney games will be produced under product licensing - not direct development. So while Disney Infinity's story may sadly have come to an end, we'll continue to see Disney games - just in a very different way.

Even the House of Mouse sometimes has to admit defeat.