How Disney Infinity's starter set was chosen

When Disney Infinity launches, the $75 Starter Set will feature Mr. Incredible, Monster Inc's Sully, and Captain Jack Sparrow. But, how did Disney settle on these characters?

Ozzie Mejia

January 16, 2013 9:00 AM

14

Disney Infinity is the House of Mouse's twist at Activision's successful Skylanders franchise, by incorporating real-world toys with video gaming. As pretty much everyone has concluded, "this thing is going to print money."

When the game launches, the $75 Starter Set will feature Mr. Incredible, Monster Inc.'s Sulley, and Captain Jack Sparrow. But, how did Disney settle on these characters, especially considering the breadth of IPs at their disposal? We asked John Blackburn, developer Avalanche Software's CEO, about exactly that.

"The Incredibles is one of my favorite things ever, so we actually pitched this as one of the original properties," Blackburn answered (correctly). "Aside from that, what we look for is what properties are really popular and what properties will game well. You can go through a list of Disney properties that are harder to make video games out of, like Finding Nemo is a little more challenging than Pirates of the Caribbean."

Of course, Disney well intends to expand the roster significantly in the future, and many properties will be included in the game in some fashion. "There's going to be a release of more Play Sets over the course of the cycle," said Blackburn. "We'll be announcing the other two Play Sets that will be coming out at launch. We'll also be launching some new figurines, some come with Play Sets and others are individual pieces that can only be used in the Toy Box. That will happen over the rest of this year."

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?