Disney took its new gaming platform "Disney Infinity" to GDC this past week, showing off their adorable little NFC figures and their various effects within the game. Mr. Incredible plops down into his Play Set to fight robotic bad guys, Lightning McQueen races around Radiator Springs and Captain Jack Sparrow navigates the high-seas in his ship. Play Sets are basically six to seven hours of gameplay scenarios highlighting a couple mechanics unique to a character or world. The "Pirates of the Caribbean" Play Set is filled with ocean, littered with Islands begging to be found and explored, while Mr. Incredible's gameplay follows a more traditional beat-em-up pathway.
Various websites posted up videos and articles relaying these kinds of details and a lot of the comments at the bottom of the page say something along the lines of: looks great for kiddies, but it's a pass for me. I can appreciate that mentality when viewing the Play Sets, but Disney isn't visiting industry conferences like GDC to appeal to the younger audience. They're trying to show the press and the gamers who watch events like these that "Disney Infinity" offers them something too.
And that something is in the Toy Box, with the kind of gameplay that's already catching on with you "core" gamers out there, it's just a little hard to tell right now. The Toy Box is "Minecraft" and "Little Big Planet" meshed into one, which we detailed here earlier this week. "Disney" is including game logic in certain objects of the Toy Box, which means they want you and three of your friends futzing around in the open-ended mode, creating scenarios, griefing each other and generally providing your own gaming experience with the tools they've created.
Except it's with Disney characters that you need to collect outside of the game, instead of low-fidelity Minecraft blockheads or just-as-cute Sackboy characters. For some reason, I get the unnerving feeling it's going to be impossible to convince anyone to play this game with me for the simple fact that Disney isn't "cool," unless those people aren't available until their school bell rings at around three or four in the afternoon.
So far Disney hasn't quite connected the dots with most gamers, but I want to believe there is a grand picture awaiting once they've revealed all the Toy Box details. Sharing and connecting - that's a concept fast taking place in gaming today - will exist to make Toy Box a tool for gamers and not simply the youngsters still naïve enough to admit they like collecting pretty things. Would I be proud to have a Mr. Incredible action figure? Probably not, but would I be ashamed? Hell no. Especially when I can pair him with a Buzz Lightyear jet pack and use the Blue Fairy's magical wand to build anything I want in-game.
This should sound like advocacy because it is. I think "Disney Infinity" deserves a spot on the anticipated list, even though buying into the product will probably result in many years of figure-collecting and wallet-thinning to the behemoth entertainment company.
But I don't see a reason not to spend a little cash on these NFC characters. They won't become inert with new "Infinity" titles. Disney has made that clear. They'll last as long as the platform does, and the Toy Box just might last longer, provided gamers give it a chance.
If you're telling yourself you don't want to collect these figures, that it doesn't appeal to you, try to think of each new Play Set and character you buy as a Minecraft update. You're getting new tools, new scenarios and new buildings all for the purpose of widening the possibilities in Toy Box mode. Disney is just finding a smarter way to profit off this kind of gameplay than any game development company ever did. Is that so bad, making money? I don't have a problem with it, and I sort of look forward to amassing a collection of tokens and character pieces that actually level-up in game.
I'm not begging here. It's more like pleading, just to take a glance, a real glance, over at "Disney Infinity." Their PR people might be scouring the internet for articles like these, but that's because Disney knows what it's doing. They're reinventing their gaming platform from minor failures in the "Epic Mickey" franchise to a potential for a never-ending experience. It's smart, they deserve the attention, and if you've ever even enjoyed a Disney movie, much less played a creativity-inducing game, rub the stigma off of fairy tale Princesses and talking cars and see what Toy Box really has to offer.
