darkSpyro

Im making this topic to tell people that skylanders isnt gonna die soon anyway because their will always be little kids (little kids being their main demographic) and new parents so parents will buy skylanders for their kids. Lets just say in a way that skylanders is activision is kids cod.

Someone probably said the same thing about beanie babies.

Yeah, eventually it will end. It is true there is a never-ending cycle of children, but the franchise will eventually dwindle unless they significantly evolve over time. Disney has this whole thing mastered with its movies, they release a movie, market it like crazy, then pull it off the market for 10 years or so. My oldest didn't see the Lion King until he was almost 8 since it fell in the cycle where it went off the market right before he was born. When a product is on the market consistently over years, it loses interest simply because of familiarity. I have little doubt that Activision will eventually drive this franchise into the ground, hopefully they won't do it as forcefully as they did it to the Guitar Hero franchise.

I'm hopeful that they start to back off the figure count and reposes/variants in future games. Those are the sorts of things that wear fans out. Also, they will eventually have to sunset some of the figures. Keeping them fully backwards compatible is going to be a limitation eventually, either keeping them from doing a new feature or simply running out of memory space on an older figure. Let's face it, currently they have 80 unique characters in the game, that's a ton of balance to maintain.

Yay more money for Activision

I think anything that is series 3 at this point needs to take a break, i understand brand recon and the need to show some of the same figures but at a point we don't need a 4th eruptor or stealth elf.
I think if they keep the game fresh and the figures new and different then it will be fine.

Was someone worried?

Quote: shelly9871

Was someone worried?

*looks at users*

I got nothing.

*snickers*

When was ANYONE on this forum worried about skylanders ending?
Besides all those skylander haters I mean.

Skylanders is going to end eventually. I can see it dying after the 5th or 6th game

Eventually the bubble will burst. It always will. Considering Activsion's want to continue pumping out things every year, the market will be flooded with the figures. If prices continue to rise as well, then eventually families will just drop it. Collectors probably wont but I'd have to wager that there's many more families playing the game than collectors.

That's not to say the series is bad or anything. But..something will eventually come along to push it out of the spotlight, or sales will collapse. One or the other. That could happen as soon as the next game, or as far away as the 14th game.

Without run-of-the-mill families playing, the franchise will collapse as there are not enough collectors to keep the wheels turning, so to speak.

Quote: defpally

Yeah, eventually it will end. It is true there is a never-ending cycle of children, but the franchise will eventually dwindle unless they significantly evolve over time. Disney has this whole thing mastered with its movies, they release a movie, market it like crazy, then pull it off the market for 10 years or so. My oldest didn't see the Lion King until he was almost 8 since it fell in the cycle where it went off the market right before he was born. When a product is on the market consistently over years, it loses interest simply because of familiarity. I have little doubt that Activision will eventually drive this franchise into the ground, hopefully they won't do it as forcefully as they did it to the Guitar Hero franchise.

I'm hopeful that they start to back off the figure count and reposes/variants in future games. Those are the sorts of things that wear fans out. Also, they will eventually have to sunset some of the figures. Keeping them fully backwards compatible is going to be a limitation eventually, either keeping them from doing a new feature or simply running out of memory space on an older figure. Let's face it, currently they have 80 unique characters in the game, that's a ton of balance to maintain.

I agree with most of this. If they ever settle on the engine one would hope they could leverage previous efforts to maintain that balance and economy of scale, but it definitely doesn't help the QA effort. If they could get to the point where additional content can be trickled in on a release that has the current number of figures would do much to maintain longevity of a franchise and increase loyalty. I'd like for them to get on a 2 year cycle.

Less reposes so people don't lose all their money.

They need to make some normal new characters as Lightcores only. Instead of making the same character with Lightcore.

They only thing I see doing when Skylanders keeps making games is that I buy less toys and only new guys. Unless less of course it is Wrecking Ball.

All im trying to say is that activision will milk this franchise till it drops dead like a cow.

Quote: shroom boom

All im trying to say is that activision will milk this franchise till it drops dead like a cow.

Correction: They will try to milk this cash cow well after it has expired, I am afraid to say...

just look at the rock band and GH series... some could argue that there are millions of songs and new songs being produced every day how could something like that die off, but it did and so eventually will skylanders

Yes, I agree with ckasper. I've been suspecting them to do the same with Skylanders eventually, it definitely has at absolute worst one or two games left and is certain to become a kind of mini-cult classic but I don't think that it will go on for decades like Pokémon.

Before you read the rest of this post, I just wanna say I'm awful with sales figures so I'll try to touch on it as little as possible.

Please read what Eric Hishberg had to say about Gutair Hero, any "we want to keep Skylanders going for a long time" speeches from Acitivision don't mean that much judging by how they ended that franchise. It has life in it for a while yet because people will stay interested in the concept but eventually, for some reason or another, it will fade out.

Also, read this. Is a similar situation happening with Skylanders? I don't know, because we don't know the sales figures for individual figures, but I'd wager yes and that Acti are trying to stop that happening this time by making consumers need the new SWAP Skylanders for 100%, and "nerfing" the old toys to make the SF characters look powerful, so people want new, strong toys(seriously, there was no reason to make Slam Bam's Ice Prison so bad in SF- I can't help but feel on at least him that it was intentional to make him worse and Acti told VV to do so). Is it working? Again, we don't know sales figures on each toy, but I would say leaning towards yes, it does seem to work somewhat. But if it's really intentional and happens continually older fans will get sick of it and fans who played the last game and are just buying the next one will see the pattern.

Also, Eric said they'd be willing to consider a return for Guitair Hero if they could reinvigorate it, but haven't they essentially been saying the same about Crash Bandicoot, which has been a mess of cancelled projects and tons of teases/rumors for the last couple of years? There are reasons that Acti has a generally bad rap among the gaming community. Quote that I think is fitting: "The surest way to guarantee that you won't win is to assume that you will."-Brad Bird

I won't write any further about it because there's not much point, none of us know and we can't get a definite answer, so this is more of a thought-dump. Maybe Skylanders will get lucky and last longer than I'm guessing, but anyway, those are just my predictions based on past happenings. Anyway, I'm back to actually play the game rather than worrying about wether the next one will be the last. Just chill guys, even if Skylanders doesn't last past the next game, we still have four games and several spinoffs to enjoy from this franchise.

i can see it going after the 8th game.

reason: the bases are coloured differently so hopefully we will get all of the elements colours on the bases of the figures.

It all depends on the decisions they make as it was wise to make giant figures for giants and swap force now as something different and a way innovative to keep people interested. That in itself does mean they are putting the effort there, along with the hd jump in swap force was surprising from low expectations i had of the game. Getting the dark starter was a good deal.

The cons is they need to do something to keep people interested, perhaps stray into the online part of games for the newer systems which seems to be the only way to go where there are characters that will work online only for example when you put them on yet a different portal. No more 3 different figures too - Looking at grim creeper this time around along with several others that are getting 3 per game now, even star strike has 3 if you include variant. Make some new lightcore and others normal to balance them as mentioned as well as give many a rest that have hit the series 3 mark. It's been fun seeing spyro and cynder but it's time to also retire main staples from going at it for that long as well. I really think after this it's going to be a different idea based off the portal technology instead of more of the same if there are more games. I haven't finished swap force yet but with all the collecting, it does give a final push type of deal of skylanders in general.

If they do make another game the figure sales will slump more, I feel this time around so many are just been there done that and burned out from buying so many. They aren't going to get every figure and with progressive years it will take its toll on many if it hasn't already.

If you count the differences in the 3ds games to the main consoles, some have already been playing 6 different games for skylanders.

They could milk the series like Pokemon. That doesn't ever seem to be in danger of dying out. I lost track after the Orange Islands but I think they are around 500 or so Pokemon and I think on their 6th or 7th wave of games? I don't think that the game has really changed all that much, but it's still beyond hot and popular for reasons I don't quite understand. I'm guessing the TV show?

I firmly believe that Skylanders really needs a TV series to keep themselves going...you know something to keep people interested and to get a better connection to the series. It's at a 80s GI Joe/Transformers status right now where they have a ton of characters to cash in on. Their short website bios are a lot like the backs of the GI Joe cards from the 80s, but they seem to be doing very little to expand on that which is disappointing to me.

When they get people invested into the characters, then they can TMNT/GI Joe/Transfomers it to death, fading out every few years and coming back again looking a bit different, but still offering the same basic stuff to keep the old fans around and make new fans. DC comics has been doing it since the late 60s with their Superheroes cartoons, so why cannot Skylanders?

If done properly, Skylanders could last a long time, but I have a feeling they'll botch it up and it'll become like Megaman. A series that is dying on the vine with a rabid devoted fanbase always wanting that one more killer game to be released, but ultimately ends up being disappointed as Capcom cannot get their act together on it. Or perhaps like Digimon which has faded away into almost nothingness but is still somehow around lingering around waiting for whatever to happen to the franchise to bring it back into popularity once again.

Personally I'm glad for the three years I did get, but I have a feeling that the inevitable crossover will happen, like in Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which will kill my love for it. We may see Sonic or Pokemon characters popping on our portals to team up with Spryo and I don't know how to feel about that. If not that, then they'll kill off the backwards compatibility which will probably be it for me.

Either way, I don't think it's another Guitar Hero as there are marketable characters to be had. Not Beanie Babies as there are unique characters made to cash in on. I'm morbidly curious to see how they'll eventually end up doing it, but I rather see the series last forever like Pokemon than watching their ineptness killing it off.

Great point about the TV show connection that some of these brands have. Would be great if they could make a semi-serious TV show out of these characters (something less hoaky than what we get in shortcuts and cut-scenes) -- those are fine for short scenes, but more action/plot would be necessary for a long-running show.

If activision keeps brining out a skylanders game every year instead of 2 to 3 years parents might not want to buy the games or toys anymore.
But like many users have posted if there was a skylanders show it would proberly get more coustomers and hell even angry birds has a show so why cant skylanders???

There definitely needs to be something to keep kids interested. And creating so many new figures for each game will burn people out. I know they want to make more money, so they find the best way to do it. But it will burn them out, in the end. I'm not sure they care about that. It's all about making the money, now, then moving on to something else once they burn it into the ground.

As for crossovers, I don't know who they would cross over with. They would have to have the rights. Super Smash Brothers only included Nintendo owned characters. Even when Nintendo started mixing Mario and Sonic (two arch rivals back in the day) it was only because they had taken over the rights when they bought Sega. Although I don't mind crossover games (Smash Brothers was fun and so was Capcom Vs Marvel), I wouldn't want them to bring characters from other games into Skylanders, as they are different universes. But if they developed a standalone game that mixed the characters, I wouldn't mind. Smash Brothers was just a fun standalone game that wasn't really a part of the Universe of any of the characters (nor was Mario Kart). It would have to be something like that.

Quote: shelly9871

Was someone worried?

My life would cease to have meaning.

Lmbo...

Quote: fairyland

They could milk the series like Pokemon. That doesn't ever seem to be in danger of dying out. I lost track after the Orange Islands but I think they are around 500 or so Pokemon and I think on their 6th or 7th wave of games? I don't think that the game has really changed all that much, but it's still beyond hot and popular for reasons I don't quite understand. I'm guessing the TV show?

Try over 700. This is the 6th gen though lol.

Quote: fairyland

I firmly believe that Skylanders really needs a TV series to keep themselves going...you know something to keep people interested and to get a better connection to the series. It's at a 80s GI Joe/Transformers status right now where they have a ton of characters to cash in on. Their short website bios are a lot like the backs of the GI Joe cards from the 80s, but they seem to be doing very little to expand on that which is disappointing to me.

This is actually a really great idea. I mean, heck Angry Birds put out animated shorts and while they're not much fluff, the animation is gorgeous. Plus they're doing a movie in the next few years too.

I can see Skylanders being made into a series on Nick potentially but CN as a stiff back up. Something like that would be perfect for the franchise.

Quote: spyroflame0487

Quote: fairyland

They could milk the series like Pokemon. That doesn't ever seem to be in danger of dying out. I lost track after the Orange Islands but I think they are around 500 or so Pokemon and I think on their 6th or 7th wave of games? I don't think that the game has really changed all that much, but it's still beyond hot and popular for reasons I don't quite understand. I'm guessing the TV show?

Try over 700. This is the 6th gen though lol.

Quote: fairyland

I firmly believe that Skylanders really needs a TV series to keep themselves going...you know something to keep people interested and to get a better connection to the series. It's at a 80s GI Joe/Transformers status right now where they have a ton of characters to cash in on. Their short website bios are a lot like the backs of the GI Joe cards from the 80s, but they seem to be doing very little to expand on that which is disappointing to me.

This is actually a really great idea. I mean, heck Angry Birds put out animated shorts and while they're not much fluff, the animation is gorgeous. Plus they're doing a movie in the next few years too.

I can see Skylanders being made into a series on Nick potentially but CN as a stiff back up. Something like that would be perfect for the franchise.

And they could give more of they skylanders personalities