From Liability to Reliability - Migration Musings
Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 12:01 pmI think above all we should not lose hope in the Toy Box reboot. Everything would need to be finalized before any official news was given. And in the case of different pricing models, the Walt Disney Company would want the Finding Dory merchandise sold for a period of time beforehand. We simply need to keep the petition going, and continue to show the community's support for whichever publisher might pick up the baton, in whatever new form the Disney Infinity product might become. While the servers are still up, there is still hope for a new publisher to leverage all of that cool community content in new & exciting ways.
It boggles my mind that the official Disney Infinity website still has no warning (particularly for PC consumers) that Infinity has been cancelled. Maybe there's some legal precedent somewhere, but if I were a parent dropping a couple hundred dollars onto the digital version of Infinity, and would later find out that my purchase was made AFTER they'd publicly canceled the franchise, and just a few short months later my family's account was completely unusable, I'd be hoppin' mad. Understood, like many fans here, I've personally dropped over a thousand on the console version, but at least part of that version of the product will still function. The community part of the Toy Box is the best part, but it's not separately advertised for the purchase. The PC version of Infinity does not run at all without server connectivity.
Perhaps this could be a negotiation point for the would-be-new licenser of the Toy Box. Perhaps the best advertisement to kickstart subscription-based Toy Box Community licensing would be in-game? Let's say the switchover to this new licenser's cloud would occur September 1st. Let's say it's seamless. The Disney Infinity ID is the same. The password is the same. Profile data associated with Infinity is also copied; credit card info is not. Future purchases to the new licenser needs to be re-entered to make it legally clear it's a different payment to a different publisher. The Disney account would remain intact for its other Disney responsibilities (mobile gaming, park reservations, etc.). The new publisher reboots the Toy Box with a new splash screen, new menu system to showcase community content & subscription-based advantages. Let's say for a full year, you can access all of the old content at no additional charge. You can check out the performance at Flynn's Arcade, you can check out the performance of Toy Box load times, you can check out the new menu system for finding Toy Boxes easier based on your chosen character, theme, genre, etc. The subscription is necessary to access new community content (as well as the ability to submit content for the community). "New content" would certainly include new characters, new building toys, & new Community Team Toy Boxes. The new publisher could explain the switchover & the pricing differences in-game at startup & through the menu system. Subscription can be paid by the month, with discounts for 6 month & 12 month intervals. After the year transition, you'd need to pay the subscription to continue accessing any Toy Box content (and you would have been warned about this a year ahead of time by the new publisher in-game).
This video game publisher negotiating with the Walt Disney Company for Toy Box engine ownership & licensing fees would be providing the Walt Disney Company brand protection and potentially liability protection. It would be extending the free use of existing Toy Box Community Content for that 12-month period, while leveraging its new menu system & the cutover to drive its own revenue. For the millions of Disney Infinity players who still do not know that Infinity has been cancelled, the new publisher would be providing the information & opportunity to keep playing & keep building. Plus, with subscription-based pricing, it would provide the guarantee that its servers would be available for at least as long as the time period of subscription payments. In the worst-case scenario, the publisher would stop collecting new subscription fees a year ahead of time. The purchase is therefore much more reliable to all consumers. Plus, the revenue stream is much more predictable for the producer. From Liability to Reliability ... the migration path to subscription-based pricing would be a good deal.
P.S. And as a separate publisher, with all of that revenue coming in from new subscriptions, you'd have the option to resume production on those awesome sculpts, starting with Peter Pan, thank you very much
. You don't need to make 2 million of him, especially if console subscriptions don't require the base anymore - but those of us who still want the physical figures, through brick-n-mortar store or online, we'll find a way to make our purchase.
It boggles my mind that the official Disney Infinity website still has no warning (particularly for PC consumers) that Infinity has been cancelled. Maybe there's some legal precedent somewhere, but if I were a parent dropping a couple hundred dollars onto the digital version of Infinity, and would later find out that my purchase was made AFTER they'd publicly canceled the franchise, and just a few short months later my family's account was completely unusable, I'd be hoppin' mad. Understood, like many fans here, I've personally dropped over a thousand on the console version, but at least part of that version of the product will still function. The community part of the Toy Box is the best part, but it's not separately advertised for the purchase. The PC version of Infinity does not run at all without server connectivity.
Perhaps this could be a negotiation point for the would-be-new licenser of the Toy Box. Perhaps the best advertisement to kickstart subscription-based Toy Box Community licensing would be in-game? Let's say the switchover to this new licenser's cloud would occur September 1st. Let's say it's seamless. The Disney Infinity ID is the same. The password is the same. Profile data associated with Infinity is also copied; credit card info is not. Future purchases to the new licenser needs to be re-entered to make it legally clear it's a different payment to a different publisher. The Disney account would remain intact for its other Disney responsibilities (mobile gaming, park reservations, etc.). The new publisher reboots the Toy Box with a new splash screen, new menu system to showcase community content & subscription-based advantages. Let's say for a full year, you can access all of the old content at no additional charge. You can check out the performance at Flynn's Arcade, you can check out the performance of Toy Box load times, you can check out the new menu system for finding Toy Boxes easier based on your chosen character, theme, genre, etc. The subscription is necessary to access new community content (as well as the ability to submit content for the community). "New content" would certainly include new characters, new building toys, & new Community Team Toy Boxes. The new publisher could explain the switchover & the pricing differences in-game at startup & through the menu system. Subscription can be paid by the month, with discounts for 6 month & 12 month intervals. After the year transition, you'd need to pay the subscription to continue accessing any Toy Box content (and you would have been warned about this a year ahead of time by the new publisher in-game).
This video game publisher negotiating with the Walt Disney Company for Toy Box engine ownership & licensing fees would be providing the Walt Disney Company brand protection and potentially liability protection. It would be extending the free use of existing Toy Box Community Content for that 12-month period, while leveraging its new menu system & the cutover to drive its own revenue. For the millions of Disney Infinity players who still do not know that Infinity has been cancelled, the new publisher would be providing the information & opportunity to keep playing & keep building. Plus, with subscription-based pricing, it would provide the guarantee that its servers would be available for at least as long as the time period of subscription payments. In the worst-case scenario, the publisher would stop collecting new subscription fees a year ahead of time. The purchase is therefore much more reliable to all consumers. Plus, the revenue stream is much more predictable for the producer. From Liability to Reliability ... the migration path to subscription-based pricing would be a good deal.
P.S. And as a separate publisher, with all of that revenue coming in from new subscriptions, you'd have the option to resume production on those awesome sculpts, starting with Peter Pan, thank you very much
. You don't need to make 2 million of him, especially if console subscriptions don't require the base anymore - but those of us who still want the physical figures, through brick-n-mortar store or online, we'll find a way to make our purchase. 
Give me some please!