darkSpyro

I just saw this posted over on the Skylanders subreddit. Obviously, we probably won't know for sure until either Toy Fair or E3, as Activision is not great at keeping us in the loop, but it certainly seems feasible.

http://nintendoeverything.com/...future-unclear/

While I could see it happening. It probably won't happen. This is just speculation at this point

It mentions the guy is a credible source, plus many of us have noticed a drop off in sales over the years, as well as two years in a row of an item availability issue. All of it, taken together, does lend viability to the rumor. Plus, Activision is the reigning champion of running franchises into the ground. I find it believable.

It's still speculation. Might want to change the topic title since it's not officially confirmed.

We don't know what decisions Acti makes within their walls until they reveal them later next year.

Quote: LordElohim

It mentions the guy is a credible source, plus many of us have noticed a drop off in sales over the years, as well as two years in a row of an item availability issue. All of it, taken together, does lend viability to the rumor. Plus, Activision is the reigning champion of running franchises into the ground. I find it believable.

It is not surprising, if true. I've noticed a huge drop off in interest this year - after already dropping off big last year. Let's just hope it is a temporary parking of the franchise to build up some steam and in a few years they can innovate the game again. I just hope they finish up the waves this year, there are some really nice figures left over for wave 4 and 5.

If this is true, they won't confirm that before the date they would usually announce the next game.

No main Skylanders game in 2017 does not mean the franchise as a whole is dead, but I doubt it can survive on a TV show and spin-offs Time to think about moving on... If this is the end, we can say the series had a good run.

Six years of great games and awesome toys. Can't be upset at that. It's as the old phrase goes: Don't cry that it's over. Smile because it happened.

Shame because Imaginators is such a great game. The original Spyro's Adventure is still my favourite, but this game is sensational. Great gimmick, interesting levels. But following on from Superchargers which was utter rubbish was always going to be hard.

I've always felt that beyond the first game there were too many characters and not enough content. I wonder if fewer characters would have made a difference in terms of profitability. But it might not have. Let's hope that they reboot the franchise at some point in the not too distant future.

I could see this happening, tho I hope it's not true. The only thing I find odd is them not waiting till after x-mass to make the final decision, I mean sales seemed to pick up majorly on Black Friday. This week most stores ware I live have sold most of there starter packs on Black Friday and my Walmart sold all but one of there PO packs.

aww that would make me sad, would probably also drive up the prices of even the old figures

Quote: Alphawolf

aww that would make me sad, would probably also drive up the prices of even the old figures

I was just thinking that myself. Might need to grab some missing figures sooner rather than later.

It was obvious that it would happen sooner or later.

The figures don't sell well at all...at least here where I live. They are on sale everywhere.

Single area information wasn't proof in Trap Team, isn't proof now. This is much bigger.

please tell me this is a nightmare.
i cant see spyro die again.

Oh no, it's time again to run around mad in the streets, throw rocks though windows and to loot stores. RIOT! N-R-KEY!

Sure the signs are all there that things are not going so well but no one knows how it's going to effect Activision's plans. Them announcing anything official now is rather ludicrous. There is a method, time and place to announce these things to prevent a huge dent in stock prices as well as current sales. Activation will probably delay the announcement until the very last moment and it'll happen most likely at some yearly stock investors meeting (theirs is in March, right?). Even then they will make it a small blurb merely mentioning the fact hidden deeply by tons of self promotion about some new inventive property for the next season and how wonderful their successful properties actually are.

I feel that they'll try some lame gimmick and give us some mumbo jumbo about Skylanders graduating from gaming and going to be a toy series based on the cartoon, etc. etc. I'm sure they have something cooked up but we won't know a thing about it until they are ready for us to know.

i bet all the haters are now makeing a huge party becuse of it.

Well, duh. But here's the catch - if Skylanders gets the Guitar Hero treatment, Spyro is going down with them. This time, his IP would die for real.

Using "the evil is defeated" gifs is pretty innacurate. A closer approximation is Skylanders holding back much stupider and greedier evil.

Quote: omer1698

i bet all the haters are now makeing a huge party becuse of it.

They already are, they think a bunch of standalone Spyro games are suddenly going to appear out of nowhere

We'll be lucky if we get remakes next year. And by lucky, I mean another miracle.

Well this sucks. While I want a proper Spyro game again, there's no saying that Spyro games and Skylander games can't co-exist.

Maybe we'll see something in 2018. I hope Sony jumps on this as an opportunity.

Do you guys remamaber the first time you heard about skylanders? I am. it was in a web ad in a website that i cant remamaber. When i clickd it i saw a dark background with several charcters around: trigger happy, gill grunt, prism breck, chop chop, eraptor, flameslinger, ignitor, zap, stump smash and offcourse spyro. After that day my life changed for i have discoverd my reason to live.

a year later i thogut that skylanders was a one time thing, but just out of curiosity i typed skylanders but then i diecoverd somthing intresting in the options: skylanders giants. i clicked and my love for the games just grow bigger.

the year after i lookt at the new images in the wiki and found two unknow charcters (which now i know as countdown and roller brawl) and the hype and joy were begin again.

at the age of trap team iwas hyped and glad for a new game but was even more hyepd on the discovery of light and dark elements (which might never get the respect they deiserve).

when they reveld superchargers i clapped.

and this year when they relest imaginitors on my birthday i felt i died and came to heaven, and when i found out about the tv show was so hype despit that i had a diffreant idea for skylanders tv show but i enjoyd from what they offerd us.

every relese i felt such joy and hype, but now it seemd i will never feel this way ever again. i guess i foold my self to belive that skylanders will reach to the realm of the video game giants like mario and pokemon, but turns out that skylanders fate is the same fate of spyro the dragons and lagend of spyro.

Quote: omer1698

Do you guys remamaber the first time you heard about skylanders? I am. it was in a web ad in a website that i cant remamaber. When i clickd it i saw a dark background with several charcters around: trigger happy, gill grunt, prism breck, chop chop, eraptor, flameslinger, ignitor, zap, stump smash and offcourse spyro. After that day my life changed for i have discoverd my reason to live.

I remember. For me, Camo, Warnado and Zap looked very cool back then. When I saw Drobot, I knew I immediately wanted the game.

I was here when I first heard about it, first few new articles too.
And if it has to end, guess I'll be here when it ends too. Just like Neopets, the series did so much to me, I should at least pay my respects.

Relax guys, even if it is true, it doesn't take away the games you already have, you should never have invested in this franchise with the expectations of future games that have not been announced. It just means they will park the franchise for a while, and maybe come back down the road (Guitar Hero did). No one is celebrating, but at the same time it is not surprising - people aren't "celebrating" by having the writing on the wall confirmed (at least partially confirmed), sales were obviously down and their biggest competitor hit the same fate. As many have pointed out despite the insistence of others that "no, no, no Sky 7 is coming", making your own Skylanders always seemed like an end game gimmick, sort of an "all in" thing that really can't be topped (or brought forward).

Regardless, my biggest concern now is the wave 4 and 5 content. If they have issues getting the last wave out when another game is coming, it is even worse when one is not.

Honestly, i don't give a thing about the games being cancelled, i just want season 2 of Academy to happen :/

I don't know. If there are even the smallest rumblings that Skylanders might be doing badly enough to justify cancellation then that should be a cause for concern. Nobody thought Disney Infinity would go and yet it did, and they even had well established characters to fall back on.

Guitar Hero wasn't parked, defpally, it was killed by the oversaturation and instead of admitting mistakes Acti just shut it down; and when other music franchises started showing promise, went back on that for a quick buck and fell flat on their faces, and shoved the IP on the shelf again.

It's a horrible place for any franchise to be and after Spyro no one deserves that twice over. Spyro wasn't too different actually - underwhelming but good games, disappointing story in DOTD, we were close to getting a movie... Then, cancel everything.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is true (but I have no idea either way), simply because of the sales decline and fast drop in starter pack and figure prices. Equally, there is now heavy discounting of Lego Dimensions, which suggests one of two things:

1. All of toys to life is struggling even more than expected
2. Lego are discounting to kill off the competition

I think it's more than likely #1 and if Skylanders is cancelled, it'll be interesting to see if Lego gets another new year of figures (Star Wars could allow them to milk it for a little while longer).

I personally think we'll probably get at least one more game. If I recall VV is confirmed to have been working on it, and it would probably be a waste of money to cancel it now. With that said however, even if Activision does cancel the series, I doubt there's anything stopping TfB or VV from going to another, much better publisher to continue the series... maybe I'm just being hopeful.

@Wes - and entire game of Star Wars themed TTL didn't save Disney Infinity, so dunno. But weird, was expecting them to be doing better since the Sonic pack got a lot of attention.

Quote: AdamGregory03

I personally think we'll probably get at least one more game. If I recall VV is confirmed to have been working on it, and it would probably be a waste of money to cancel it now. With that said however, even if Activision does cancel the series, I doubt there's anything stopping TfB or VV from going to another, much better publisher to continue the series... maybe I'm just being hopeful.

That is one of the things he seemed most sure of, the 2017 game is cancelled. Releasing it into a lukewarm market would be FAR more costly that burying it, companies do it all the time.

You seem to forget the biggest problem with publishing this game is the need to front the massive investment on the figure manufacturing. Only the big boys can really afford that, and they are all very risk averse. It isn't like they can just go indy even if Activision were to release them (not happening, Activision would rather kill a franchise than give up the rights). TfB and VV do not own Skylanders, Activision does.

The theory does fit with VV being occupied with two other projects - the Crash Bandicoot remasters, and the PC port of Destiny 2. It seems like VV's work on Thumpin' Wumpa Islands may have been their farewell to the Skylanders series.

However, as other people have said, I doubt that Activision will announce anything about the future of the series until Imaginators has run its course.

My main concern is this: I was hunting some Disney Infinity figures for a friend recently, and a sales assistant told me that the writing had been on the wall for that series for some time, long before the general public knew anything. Because of that, that chain of stores simply didn't stock the later waves of Infinity 3.0, not wanting to be left with large amounts of stock when the series was cancelled.

Given that I want three of the five senseis that aren't coming out until next year, I hope that retailers don't similarly start getting cold feet about stocking the later waves for Imaginators.

The amount of unsold Disney Infinity 1.0 and 2.0 figures is crazy. No wonder Disney pulled the plug. Had they made less and sold through more, I think it'd still be going, but my local toy store has huge bins of them and they keep refilling them. Figures are £2 each and 3 for 2 on top of that!

As for Sky 2017. I thought VV were busy with Crash? Either way, if the plug is going to be pulled, now is the time to do it, before you burn a load of money on marketing.

Quote: AdamGregory03

I personally think we'll probably get at least one more game. If I recall VV is confirmed to have been working on it, and it would probably be a waste of money to cancel it now. With that said however, even if Activision does cancel the series, I doubt there's anything stopping TfB or VV from going to another, much better publisher to continue the series... maybe I'm just being hopeful.

This isn't hopeful, it's impossible. Activision owns Spyro, and the Skylanders property. Neither VV nor TfB can make a Spyro game on their own, they were just developers.

As for Disney Infinity, as I understand it, the game was doing well, it was profitable, but Disney decided to shut down their game studio entirely, which likely had little to nothing to do with Infinity specifically.

With LEGO Dimensions, they started with a three year plan, and are doing everything as they had planned. Any discounts you are seeing now are either of year one stuff, or because of the holiday season.

It seems to me like Toys to Life is simply on the way out, with the "exception" being Amiibo, which I think people are buying to collect instead of to use. No one is buying Skylanders just to collect them, but people buy Amiibo that don't even own a console. Whatever that Marvel Toys to Life this is, the sort of real world one, I saw starters on clearane for $12 from $60. Many parents/adults that see me buying Skylanders mention that their kids *were* into it, but now it just sits in a closet or basement. I think Activision tried to squeeze too much out of it, which is what they do.

Everyone take a deeeeep breath. I'm not saying it can't happen that that Skylanders gets cancelled, after all plans do change, but Activision just sunk a fair amount of money into two seasons of Skylanders Academy on Netflix. A company doesn't usually do that unless they have longer term plans around a franchise.

if only a batter game companey that respact thier franchises would publish skylanders and not activison...

activision can thank themselves, i said it many times they release to many figurines. customers and retail get tired of it. but no activision just had to push out even more, and raise their prices for their imaginators game. the greed and idiocy by activision is beyond repair, and everything fall apart as every other big games before activision try to milk to death.

i guess they will not ship the rest of the figures,adventure packs and crystals now. it all will become the yawn trap.

Heeeeeey! I was wondering when you were gonna show up.

well countmoneybone you surly took your time.

I'm in the skeptical team. The video is just speculation and as long as there is no official word from Activision I won't start building my apocalypse shelter. Sure this guy, has had some trustul info in the past, but the list of this "smart people with good industry contacts" who got it right once and then got it wrong is long, veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long.

Not saying it won't happen, I'm just saying we are still in the same place before imaginators was released: with no clue of post-christmas sales figures and with no word of any truly reliable source. I'm not scared, because I have not been given any strong reason to be that way A youtube guy who's supposed to know a lot and a few sales pictures is not enough, specially when we get this kind of discussions year after year.

I'm sorry but no, this is far of being a strong, reliable argument. Give me some post-chrsitmans low sale figures and I'll start building my shelter, but as for now, this is just another youtube guy willing to get some attention.

Uh, what prices did they raise for Imaginators? Since Giants, we have had a $10 price point and a $15 price point, which is what we have. Imaginators are even being sold for MSRP at TRU this year, instead of at a TRU markup. So, what raised prices are you referring to?

Well, if this does happen, they created a most devious formula.

1. Poorly rush your first entry on someone else's franchise.
2. Get too few old devs for the reboot to the point the character has none of the features old fans liked, discard them at the first sign of bad reception.
3. Deliberately reintroduce every new game to the new fanbase, reinforcing the old fanbase's belief it's the same every time and wasting time with marketing and game content.
4. Half-ass the marketing up to eleven.
5. Treat the new fans like toddlers and ignore focused requests over what the chart says(more stealth elf!)
6. Ram development time into the ground by tight small schedules and poor release schedule, and expecting the same quality for less time every new entry.
7. New fans leave out of frustration, old fans don't recommend the games out of fear of mockery, older fans keep pushing the outsiders out due to initial bad impression.

Congrats, you killed a franchise and possibly the genre.

Quote: LordElohim

Uh, what prices did they raise for Imaginators? Since Giants, we have had a $10 price point and a $15 price point, which is what we have. Imaginators are even being sold for MSRP at TRU this year, instead of at a TRU markup. So, what raised prices are you referring to?

Because all the toys are Giants priced, people are less willing to buy a bunch of toys to go along with it. Even Trap Team had Core Skylanders that parents could buy in addition to the big Trap Masters

Quote: GinjaNinja

Six years of great games and awesome toys. Can't be upset at that. It's as the old phrase goes: Don't cry that it's over. Smile because it happened.

i dont cry at all, the end will be here someday. but the thing i worry the most about is, will i be able to get all the rest of the stuff that havent been released yet in wave 3,4,5???... 12 figures and the last adventure pack(adventure piece+figure) is what i need to complete the imaginators.(dont need the variants, and the crystals i have already given up on after i got the 10 needed.) thats the big question now, i just hope everything left dont end up as the yawn trap, when retailers cant be arsed to order the the 3 last waves.

activison if you would just care more about your players and less about money this franchise could have been immortolized.

Quote: omer1698

activison if you would just care more about your players and less about money this franchise could have been immortolized.

if it dont sell as good as 'call of duty' they dont give a crap clearly. DAMN YOU ACTIVISION!!!

watch this....

Quote: CountMoneyBone

Quote: GinjaNinja

Six years of great games and awesome toys. Can't be upset at that. It's as the old phrase goes: Don't cry that it's over. Smile because it happened.

i dont cry at all, the end will be here someday. but the thing i worry the most about is, will i be able to get all the rest of the stuff that havent been released yet in wave 3,4,5???... 12 figures and the last adventure pack(adventure piece+figure) is what i need to complete the imaginators.(dont need the variants, and the crystals i have already given up on after i got the 10 needed.) thats the big question now, i just hope everything left dont end up as the yawn trap, when retailers cant be arsed to order the the 3 last waves.

The other waves are definitely releasing.

1. This is still a rumor and by no means officially announced.

2. If it's real it likely won't be officially announced until next year around June, when the new game is typically announced.

3. To cancel half the figures of the entire series, they would definitely be making an announcement by now.

4. Disney Infinity still had its final announced figures come out before it was cancelled; the only ones that were cancelled were the ones that were still merely a concept.

5. You can still find DI on the shelves too. The same will likely go for Skylanders for a year or two after its cancellation would be announced.

If it is cancelled, you can expect the latter waves to have considerably reduced stock.

I, I, I

THIS COMPLETLY RUINS MY THEORY