Disney Interactive may no longer be around, but that doesn’t mean that Disney has gotten completely out of gaming. They will be licensing their characters to other studios. Some of the most popular Disney games, like Kingdom Hearts, Castle of Illusion and DuckTales had been made by the respective outside companies Square-Enix, Sega and Capcom. Hopefully Konami has plans for a new Disney Sports Soccer! The Disney Company will keep producing mobile games because the cost of entry was a much smaller investment than a console title, also, because mobile games offer a better return on investment. In 2015 the most successful mobile studio, Finland’s SuperCell Games made over $5 million a day. Their studio consisted of 150 people and their total revenue was almost $2 billion dollars in 2014. It would be hard to ignore that profit margin.
Disney has a few mobile games out right now. Currently the most successful is MARVEL Contest of Champions by Kabam. In 2014 the Marvel game made $100 million for the studio and if the daily numbers hold for 2016 they are making the studio over $260,000 each day. It is a bit of a drop off from last year but still on target to clear over $60 million by the end of the year. Of course, that is without new expansions being added. It is not a bad number, but a far cry from the $1.58 million dollars a day that Machine Zone Inc. makes with Game of War – Fire Age. In the top selling 50 mobile games of 2016, the Disney properties appear a few times, MARVEL Contest of Champions is #6, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes #11, Kingdom Hears: Unchained χ is #14, and MARVEL Avengers Academy is #32. Disney is adding another mobile title to their portfolio…well, to be fair, it is in the vein – and in the continuity – of the Bandai Namco series Disney Magic Castle Online. Although this new game is being developed by Marvelous Inc, which also published the Rune Factory and Harvest Moon (Now called Story of Seasons here) series.
This new mobile game, for both Android and iOS devices has many of the elements that made Magic Castle Online successful. That means that many of your favorite Disney characters are friends and even neighbors. This time around the game is centered around a farming village, making more in tune with a mobile version of Harvest Moon. The previous Magic Castle games were Nintendo 3DS exclusives. The gameplay in those were closer to the community-building of Animal Crossing. The series has been very well received in Japan and even in the US where people participate in holiday events and unlock all sorts of goodies for their in-game characters. If you ever run into the Fabulous Disney Babe at the park ask to see her limited edition Magic Castle 3DS.
Like the other great mobile games Dream Island is the perfect getaway. Whether you only have a minute or a half-hour, there are plenty of things to see and do. There are tons Disney shout-outs, seriously, when was the last time that Casey Jones Jr. made an appearance in a game? There are seasonal events, daily mission, hundreds of things to collect throughout the year. Spending a little bit here and there in the form of micro transactions is what makes all of these mobile games profitable, and, of course, free to download. Alas, Disney Interactive may be gone forever, but we’ll always have mobile gaming. If you haven’t tried many mobile games, or have yet to see what makes some so appealing, this is a good place to start. Dream Island is available on the Google Play Store for Android devices and the App/iTunes Store for Apple devices. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to help Minnie bake some pies.
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