#9 The Architects & The Avatars: Community Continuity

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#9 The Architects & The Avatars: Community Continuity

Postby goofyspaceranger » Mon May 23, 2016 11:31 am

Glossary post #9 for "A Toy Box Tale: Recapture the Spark!"

The Architects
In the story, the Architects are the original members of the Disney Infinity Team - the developers, animators, & marketers of the product. As fans, we thank them for the product that they created, and readily recognize that no matter how a reboot might occur, it would not have been possible without all of their prior contributions. This new business model is about leveraging what's already been done, making incremental enhancements, and inviting the players to provide the majority of the new content at very little cost to the business. Yet those incremental updates are important and can utilize a skill base that took many years to develop. Specifically, the business could leverage the developers who understand the years of accumulated code in what we know as the Toy Box Engine, as well as the animators who have perfected this toy version style of these iconic characters. You need both to successfully extend the product. It's the right thing to do, and it's the efficient thing to do for the business. This scale couldn't restore all of their jobs, but hopefully the new ownership would be able to restore some.

High Ratings for Toy Box TV
There's also an emotional factor involved that's inter-mixed with the community aspect of Disney Infinity marketing. It's the community that drove the petition, the stories, the videos, etc. and it's the ongoing support of the community that is critical to the subscription-based pricing model of a rebooted Toy Box. Toy Box TV provided a connection with the Architects of the product and its players. The weekly video of this YouTube channel was integrated with the console game, as well as Facebook & Twitter feeds so that product news and fan-created content became a social event. Showcasing the best of the Toy Box Artists solidified their creations as part of the product, and essentially made them Disney Cast Members. The annual Toy Box Summit solidified this further, where the Toy Box Master Artists established even stronger emotional connections with the production team. The fans have been particularly vocal in social media for the former VP of Production, John Vignocchi.

The Avatars
It was a brilliant idea of the Disney Infinity Team to make a Townsperson toy of the first Toy Box Summit winner. The pinnacle of Toy Box building is to become a toy within the Toy Box. It was even better for the second summit to encourage collaboration and award this honor to a team. In the reboot, EVERY Toy Box Master Artist could get his/her own Townsperson Avatar in the game. It's a relatively inexpensive work of animation, and would significantly bolster the community aspect. The "game within the game" of the rebooted Toy Box, with The Library of stories, utilizing enhancements to The Engine, instructed in-game by Puzzle Boxes of The Architects, collaborating within The Guilds, having your works vetted by The Guardians, is to become a Toy Box Master Artist... and to become a toy - an instantiation of a real player, an Avatar. That's fun. Every Toy Box Master Artist from the two prior summits could receive Avatars as part of the reboot, along with Library "Shelves" to easily find their works. It would be inspiring to fans, make it easier to find quality content, and encourage a greater sense of community in programming these Avatars into new Toy Box Tales.

The Forums
In the story, The Forums refer to these forums. This is the one aspect of the "official" Disney Infinity website that was largely redundant. These unofficial forums have been in place from the start, and there's really no reason for a new owner to create another one. This could become the official set of forums for the reboot and provide even more continuity for the Disney Infinity community. With any change of hands the product is going to change with it - perhaps with some of the elements in these glossaries or other ideas altogether. You'll lose some old players and you'll gain new ones. That's how it goes. But a strong element of continuity would help restore the confidence of more original fans. The Sheriff is a perfect candidate to be a "Guardian" as a trusted long-time fan to help with the vetting process (whether he'd want that specific role I have no idea). There could be a new forum category here for Guilds, where each team gets its own thread, and everyone could collaborate here in the public domain.

That's the gist of this Toy Box Tale, in just 9 clarifying glossary posts, summarizing hundreds of posts over the course of several years ;). I still have great hope for the #SaveDisneyInfinity initiative. It's an excellent business model. It's an excellent platform for STEM education. And it's just fun. 8-) As a reminder as to how little I take myself seriously (despite being very serious on the topic itself), there's this...
Use the Force in Holocron Heuristics to program with more Creativi-Toys!
 
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