Disney should have games at events like The MIX Next

Disney games over the last several years have certainly had quite the variety in terms of scale. You have huge epic AAA games like Insomniac’s Spider-Man and the Star Wars Jedi franchise along with popular early access games like Disney Dreamlight Valley and Disney Speedstorm and even smaller scale efforts like Disney’s Illusion Island (which is by no means a small game but it is a Nintendo Switch exclusive not nearly on the scale of the previously mentioned titles) to even experimental visual novels like Tron: Identity.

But I think Disney is leaving a lot of money on the table by not really appealing to the right crowd tapping into those who grew up on the games of the late ‘80s/early-to-mid '90s and making new games in that vein. This was pretty much proven by the recent MIX (Media Indie Exchange) NEXT showcase last week. There were many notable games but two getting a lot of buzz were literally new licensed games that were throwbacks of the kind of games you get in the 8 & 16-bit era, a platformer based on The Rugrats, and a GI Joe brawler in the vein of classic arcade brawlers which has had a pretty good resurgence in general thanks to things like Shredder’s Revenge and Toxic Crusaders the latter of which was also at the show.

Disney has stated they are pretty open to working with developers of all sizes and making all kinds of different games and we have seen a lot of different games based on various Disney properties in the last several years as I’ve said but nothing that feels like a good old throwback by a talented indie team. Games like this would be reasonably small investments that could be made in a much shorter amount of time than most of the bigger games they release and would be if not hugely popular, certainly popular enough to justify at least a couple of releases every year in that vein. Disney thinks Gargoyles is worth a solo remaster on modern platforms, I’m sure a brand-new game in that franchise with similar (hopefully somewhat improved) gameplay would be hugely popular.

Both the Disney Afternoon Collection and the Disney Classic Games Collection have been hugely and consistently popular. If any talented indie team made a good follow-up to any of those games I think it would be huge and you could showcase them at events like The MIX NEXT it would be beneficial to both as it could easily raise the profile of the indie showcase and the games would get more notice than they would at something like Summer Gamefest or The Game Awards.

I love that we are seeing a pretty good variety of games based on various Disney IPs but indie developers making spiritual successors to beloved retro classics is something that’s been a thing for a while now and Disney really hasn’t tapped into it and they really should and use indie showcases to really get a spotlight on such projects.

That’s all for today, I’ll most likely have something next week so see ya real soon!