darkSpyro

Quote: Bifrost

Hey, it's Pokégods and Pikablu. Kids love to make up their own lore and lies if it gets them friends, I don't blame them.

My issue is people who are clearly over 13 making videos about this knowing they're decieving them. A certain fellow who'd post (NEW LEAK) at an article with a confirmed character or similar. Or those users having youtube/insta as their personal battleground.

And Zap, not the place for this. Vent all you want on S&N but you just said a bunch you can't take back.

Well, I may have started it so, sorry

Quote: Bifrost

Hey, it's Pokégods and Pikablu. Kids love to make up their own lore and lies if it gets them friends, I don't blame them.

My issue is people who are clearly over 13 making videos about this knowing they're decieving them. A certain fellow who'd post (NEW LEAK) at an article with a confirmed character or similar. Or those users having youtube/insta as their personal battleground.

And Zap, not the place for this. Vent all you want on S&N but you just said a bunch you can't take back.

It's ok Bifrost Zap doesn't need to take anything back I had it coming tbh

Quote: defpally

People often forget that Skylanders requires a HUGE upfront investment. Pressing discs is pretty cheap, but Skylanders has the physical toys that must be anticipated, paid for and made months in advance. Imaginators is pretty well known to have sold poorly, particularly in comparison to other games. Skylanders requires lots of attached sales to stay afloat. That follows Superchargers that also did not do well, and the general decline of all TTL franchises. People are over it.

As far as future use, you cannot get around the fact that to do the franchise as it is now, it means they have to dump a ton of money into it before the first game sells. Stores have to commit to ordering stock. I'd say the franchise as a TTL product is toast. We might get a vastly slimmed down roster in a year or two (Activision does love to give killed franchises a test revival), or maybe something that is toy free and maybe has characters as cheap DLC.

Call of Duty didn't kill Skylanders (although the leaner sales of their top product makes it harder to take risks). Skylanders and TTL killed Skylanders.

As I was reading through this thread I was almost waiting for you to chime in with something of a reality check. Unfortunately you are right on many of these points. With shops seemingly getting out of TTL now I wonder how easy it would be to get them to take them back up in 12 months time.

Personally I'm hoping for disc only games that allow for all existing characters to be played, even if they're purchased cheap as DLC. But not sure how likely that would be. It's already a MASSIVE roster. I have no idea how much work would be involved. But I live in hope that the huge number of Skylanders I've collected will able to be used in some new games in the future.

Quote: Bifrost

Kids love to make up their own lore and lies if it gets them friends, I don't blame them.

Many years ago, in the glory days of the original Nintendo Entertainment System (back when I was just a wee McMurderpup), a friend of mine told me there was a game coming out called "One Man Band" about a guy who fought crime with musical instruments. I spent weeks looking for info on the game and calling stores to find out if it was in stock or planned to come in soon, only to eventually discover that he lied about the whole thing.

So yeah... corroborating from experience that kids are d***s and/or gullible idiots.

Quote: kaosmumishot

As I was reading through this thread I was almost waiting for you to chime in with something of a reality check. Unfortunately you are right on many of these points. With shops seemingly getting out of TTL now I wonder how easy it would be to get them to take them back up in 12 months time.

Personally I'm hoping for disc only games that allow for all existing characters to be played, even if they're purchased cheap as DLC. But not sure how likely that would be. It's already a MASSIVE roster. I have no idea how much work would be involved. But I live in hope that the huge number of Skylanders I've collected will able to be used in some new games in the future.

I may seem like a downer, but I've been playing games since the days of the Atari 2600, so I've been around the block a few times. I love Skylanders, but I hang around here mostly these days just waiting for someone to finally find RO-BOW/LIM in store in the US so I can go spend more money on Skylanders. My sons and I have every figure and non-chase variant all the way back to the first game. It isn't that I don't want it to continue, it is that the reality is right in front of our faces. I've seen when Skylanders was doing great, and this is an incredible low point - I just don't see it going back up. At least not to the point where they can justify a full new game with a full toy lineup - too much risk involved for the whole retail supply chain.

New figures/level packs would be great, but that whole "Future Plan" thing people got so worked up over is such a small crumb compared to the massive reasons pointing to the contrary. It goes against all business logic I can imagine. I personally think E3 is going to make some Skylander fan hopefuls pretty disappointed.

Quote: defpally

Quote: kaosmumishot

As I was reading through this thread I was almost waiting for you to chime in with something of a reality check. Unfortunately you are right on many of these points. With shops seemingly getting out of TTL now I wonder how easy it would be to get them to take them back up in 12 months time.

Personally I'm hoping for disc only games that allow for all existing characters to be played, even if they're purchased cheap as DLC. But not sure how likely that would be. It's already a MASSIVE roster. I have no idea how much work would be involved. But I live in hope that the huge number of Skylanders I've collected will able to be used in some new games in the future.

I may seem like a downer, but I've been playing games since the days of the Atari 2600, so I've been around the block a few times. I love Skylanders, but I hang around here mostly these days just waiting for someone to finally find RO-BOW/LIM in store in the US so I can go spend more money on Skylanders. My sons and I have every figure and non-chase variant all the way back to the first game. It isn't that I don't want it to continue, it is that the reality is right in front of our faces. I've seen when Skylanders was doing great, and this is an incredible low point - I just don't see it going back up. At least not to the point where they can justify a full new game with a full toy lineup - too much risk involved for the whole retail supply chain.

New figures/level packs would be great, but that whole "Future Plan" thing people got so worked up over is such a small crumb compared to the massive reasons pointing to the contrary. It goes against all business logic I can imagine. I personally think E3 is going to make some Skylander fan hopefuls pretty disappointed.

All I can say is nothing is confirmed either way. It's not confirmed that the year 2 leak is real and it's not confirmed that the year 2 leak is fake. We'll have our answers in 13 days.

Quote: SkyFan91

All I can say is nothing is confirmed either way. It's not confirmed that the year 2 leak is real and it's not confirmed that the year 2 leak is fake. We'll have our answers in 13 days.

It is also not confirmed that Vulcans will land in 13 days and offers us technology to travel greater than light speed and herald an era of space exploration. That has not been confirmed as fake. The body of evidence in front of us indicates it will not, but there are some "aliens are among us" conspiracy theorists that would probably debate it.

See how that works? You have your desire to see more Skylanders and an interpretation of a chart that hasn't even been confirmed to be accurate or official. The sales reports, stores downsizing or showing lack of interest in stock, Activision cancelling a yearly game, Activision giving reports that the franchise has done well below expectations and the general death of TTL in general against it.

Quote: defpally

Quote: SkyFan91

All I can say is nothing is confirmed either way. It's not confirmed that the year 2 leak is real and it's not confirmed that the year 2 leak is fake. We'll have our answers in 13 days.

It is also not confirmed that Vulcans will land in 13 days and offers us technology to travel greater than light speed and herald an era of space exploration. That has not been confirmed as fake. The body of evidence in front of us indicates it will not, but there are some "aliens are among us" conspiracy theorists that would probably debate it.

See how that works? You have your desire to see more Skylanders and an interpretation of a chart that hasn't even been confirmed to be accurate or official. The sales reports, stores downsizing or showing lack of interest in stock, Activision cancelling a yearly game, Activision giving reports that the franchise has done well below expectations and the general death of TTL in general against it.

Well I'd beg to differ on that first part but I'll go with it.

Matt, you have disillusioned yourself in the past and I'd be careful to not do it again. But I do have to say if the franchise is really about to die entirely, why is new merchandise being created and distributed?

We'll have to see that merch, though. Skylanders Academy has <2 free years no matter what happens to the main series.

Would it be worthwhile financially for them to release a game that supports existing characters with no new characters? Or would programming in all those move sets for the huge roster of existing characters make it too expensive without new toy sales to support it?

Quote: ninja9351

Well I'd beg to differ on that first part but I'll go with it.

Matt, you have disillusioned yourself in the past and I'd be careful to not do it again. But I do have to say if the franchise is really about to die entirely, why is new merchandise being created and distributed?

The first part is a joke, the point is that saying "prove it doesn't exist" is an unsound argument, you cannot prove a negative. The burden of proof is on proving something does exist. It is not an equal argument in a debate. Pseudo-science nuts do that all the time.

Figures are manufactured months in advance. They rev up for production runs in China, and it is not financially worthwhile to have them to hold around and make them on demand for waves. Those Blaster-trons and Tidepools we just got were probably manufactured last Summer or Fall. The delay we saw in getting the wide release of CTT was due to the time taken to repackage the figures. Wildstorm and RO-BOW were probably already made and packaged as a single before they made the changes. As far as distribution, well when you have all this stock made up and paid for, you want to try and sell it or you have to eat a loss.

Quote: Bifrost

We'll have to see that merch, though. Skylanders Academy has <2 free years no matter what happens to the main series.

I saw an interesting article on this just last night. The Netflix founder was talking about how reluctant Netflix has been to cancel a series, particularly after a first season. "The Get Down" is the only original series they have ever done that to. He believes their bar is set too low for follow up seasons. It also helps that Activision/Blizzard is footing most of the bill on making the shows.

http://www.ign.com/articles/20...ncel-more-shows

Skylanders Academy surpassed the Disney/Dreamworks shows last year, it wouldn't get cancelled save some extraordinary event. Netflix has only cancelled shows that are really bad and not worth it, or far too expensive(Marco Polo), and as great as it looks TeamTO isn't as high budget as some other kids' shows iirc.

I have always had a feeling that if people are starting to abonden the TTL genre skylanders will become a regular RPG that doesn't support toys.
For some reason I Want them to shift skylanders academy to Disney or Cartoon Network after season 3...I feel like it's going to be much more successful.

Quote: KingMed

I have always had a feeling that if people are starting to abonden the TTL genre skylanders will become a regular RPG that doesn't support toys.
For some reason I Want them to shift skylanders academy to Disney or Cartoon Network after season 3...I feel like it's going to be much more successful.

i want that to, the way i see it is that if skylanders want to succed once again they need to find a way to leave the TTL ganere, but its not easy.

Quote: kaosmumishot

Would it be worthwhile financially for them to release a game that supports existing characters with no new characters? Or would programming in all those move sets for the huge roster of existing characters make it too expensive without new toy sales to support it?

Part of the development of Imaginators involved them making a "cloud server" (the term doesn't make any sense in this context, but that's what they said) that contains all the data for all Skylanders characters, so they can be imported into future releases easily without additional development time.

However, it's foolish to think they'd do a major game release without new figures, because that's where most of their money is made--it's the whole point of Toys to Life as a genre. This is a fact regardless of and separate from the fact that they're making less money on figures over the last two releases than they were in the first 4.

(I'd posit that raising the price on the figures from ~$10 to ~$15 is a major cause of lowered sales numbers, but buyer burnout and competition from Lego/amiibo have to be up there too.)

I think the price increase has fastened the decline. It takes more weeks of allowance to buy a figure. But the quality is great, so people wait for the discounts. That way Activision misses the profit, because the buy it more at the orginal price it was.

I hope next year they release Sky7 in summer 2018.

Toys to Life is dead, unless they revolutionize it again. Considering it was really all downhill since Swap Force (probably the best technical enhancement to the TTL genre), I'm guessing....no?

Quote: Pokemon2

I hope next year they release Sky7 in summer 2018.

Yeah Sky 7 will come in 2018 for sure. This isn't the first time Activision has done this to one of their Billion dollar franchise's

Quote: SkyFan91

Quote: Pokemon2

I hope next year they release Sky7 in summer 2018.

Yeah Sky 7 will come in 2018 for sure. This isn't the first time Activision has done this to one of their Billion dollar franchise's

i prefer that there will be a confirmation of sky7 first before jumping to conclusions. i dont care when there will be sky7 i just hope that there will be one.

Quote: omer1698

Quote: SkyFan91

Quote: Pokemon2

I hope next year they release Sky7 in summer 2018.

Yeah Sky 7 will come in 2018 for sure. This isn't the first time Activision has done this to one of their Billion dollar franchise's

i prefer that there will be a confirmation of sky7 first before jumping to conclusions. i dont care when there will be sky7 i just hope that there will be one.

He is just really fond of confusing his "wants" with "reality".

Quote: defpally

Quote: omer1698

Quote: SkyFan91

Yeah Sky 7 will come in 2018 for sure. This isn't the first time Activision has done this to one of their Billion dollar franchise's

i prefer that there will be a confirmation of sky7 first before jumping to conclusions. i dont care when there will be sky7 i just hope that there will be one.

He is just really fond of confusing his "wants" with "reality".

Just saying this has happened before with COD and a few others but ok you say what you want

Call of Duty was never ended and brought back, or even skipped a year since it has been on yearly iterations.

You mean Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk. One was brought back for a disastrous second showing that just reminded them why they cancelled it in the first place. The second ditched the plastic peripheral, went digital and then also train-wrecked. Not exactly the examples you are looking for to support your desires.

Say or believe what you want, but stop trying to confirm stuff that is in no way confirmed or even likely. It confuses people and just contributes to disappointment from those that are not as up to date on what is happening. You aren't helping make it happen.

Quote: defpally

Call of Duty was never ended and brought back, or even skipped a year since it has been on yearly iterations.

You mean Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk. One was brought back for a disastrous second showing that just reminded them why they cancelled it in the first place. The second ditched the plastic peripheral, went digital and then also train-wrecked. Not exactly the examples you are looking for to support your desires.

Say or believe what you want, but stop trying to confirm stuff that is in no way confirmed or even likely. It confuses people and just contributes to disappointment from those that are not as up to date on what is happening. You aren't helping make it happen.

if only these boards had a "like" button

Tony Hawk showed that Acti can't even do shovelware right anymore :I you can go back to the older games and they probably aged better than that dumpster fire ever will; no wonder they started losing licenses(and both of Platinum Games' truly meh/bad games are from them).

Quote: defpally

Call of Duty was never ended and brought back, or even skipped a year since it has been on yearly iterations.

You mean Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk. One was brought back for a disastrous second showing that just reminded them why they cancelled it in the first place. The second ditched the plastic peripheral, went digital and then also train-wrecked. Not exactly the examples you are looking for to support your desires.

Say or believe what you want, but stop trying to confirm stuff that is in no way confirmed or even likely. It confuses people and just contributes to disappointment from those that are not as up to date on what is happening. You aren't helping make it happen.

COD world at war was originally supposed to release in 2006 but they decided to skip a year and release it in 2007. Why they did this? Most likely because of sales of the previous COD

**EDIT** wait wait nvm it wasn't world at war I made a mistake it was another COD that I don't know about I confused it with world at war

Quote: SkyFan91

COD world at war was originally supposed to release in 2006 but they decided to skip a year and release it in 2007. Why they did this? Most likely because of sales of the previous COD

You might want to check your magical crystal ball again, because you are wrong. Call of Duty hasn't missed a yearly release since Call of Duty 2 in 2005, and World at War is actually from 2008. Stop presenting "facts" that are no such thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty

Matt, this is the problem. You present pure speculation and desire as """fact""" and it's really starting to piss me (and everyone else) off. You're setting your hopes too high, and when anybody tries to rationally disagree, you get defensive and throw out bull****. This kind of behavior is why people look down on our fanbase. This kind of behavior or why Liam Robertson has a bone to pick.

Just stop, man.

Quote: defpally

Quote: SkyFan91

COD world at war was originally supposed to release in 2006 but they decided to skip a year and release it in 2007. Why they did this? Most likely because of sales of the previous COD

You might want to check your magical crystal ball again, because you are wrong. Call of Duty hasn't missed a yearly release since Call of Duty 2 in 2005, and World at War is actually from 2008. Stop presenting "facts" that are no such thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty

Did you not see my edit from earlier or did you just skip it??

Quote: SkyFan91

Quote: defpally

Quote: SkyFan91

COD world at war was originally supposed to release in 2006 but they decided to skip a year and release it in 2007. Why they did this? Most likely because of sales of the previous COD

You might want to check your magical crystal ball again, because you are wrong. Call of Duty hasn't missed a yearly release since Call of Duty 2 in 2005, and World at War is actually from 2008. Stop presenting "facts" that are no such thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty

Did you not see my edit from earlier or did you just skip it??

You edited it as I was typing, but you are still wrong. There has been no year gap in Call of Duty since 2 was a launch title on the XBox 360.

Quote: defpally

Quote: SkyFan91

Quote: defpally

You might want to check your magical crystal ball again, because you are wrong. Call of Duty hasn't missed a yearly release since Call of Duty 2 in 2005, and World at War is actually from 2008. Stop presenting "facts" that are no such thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty

Did you not see my edit from earlier or did you just skip it??

You edited it as I was typing, but you are still wrong. There has been no year gap in Call of Duty since 2 was a launch title on the XBox 360.

Huh. Well then I'll need to go tell Alpha Ambush about this since he was in fact the one who told me all that (and he also told a couple others) sorry about that

Quote: SkyFan91

Well then I'll need to go tell Alpha Ambush about this since he was in fact the one who told me all that (and he also told a couple others) sorry about that

How about instead, you do a little research yourself before you post something that someone else told you, instead of assuming that they're accurate? Especially since they seem to keep telling you *ahem* "alternative facts" repeatedly.

Quote: TakeYourLemons

Toys to Life is dead, unless they revolutionize it again. Considering it was really all downhill since Swap Force (probably the best technical enhancement to the TTL genre), I'm guessing....no?

I don't agree with the part about it being dead, but I will say the second part is 100% correct. A lot of people say it was Superchargers that ruined the franchise, but I still blame it on Trap Team. The Traptanium gates coupled with the lack of Battlemode and an actual story left a bitter taste in the mouth of less dedicated fans,

Quote: ninja9351

Quote: TakeYourLemons

Toys to Life is dead, unless they revolutionize it again. Considering it was really all downhill since Swap Force (probably the best technical enhancement to the TTL genre), I'm guessing....no?

I don't agree with the part about it being dead, but I will say the second part is 100% correct. A lot of people say it was Superchargers that ruined the franchise, but I still blame it on Trap Team. The Traptanium gates coupled with the lack of Battlemode and an actual story left a bitter taste in the mouth of less dedicated fans,

It was the fault of trap team 100% no doubts about it

Trap Team got me more into the series than ever, but SuperChargers was so bad that I almost quit until I found out that Imaginators would let you make your own characters. It's very much a YMMV thing.

I don't doubt that raising the price on the figures in the Swap Force/Trap Team years, coupled with the fact that there were over 100 figures to buy to have one of every character by that point (in other words: burnout) caused some strain in the casual player base.

(I also haven't beaten Imaginators yet, but based on what I've seen up through the Guacamonster fight, I'm inclined to say that Trap Team had a much better story. And SuperChargers barely had a story at all.)

Quote: McMurderpaws

Trap Team got me more into the series than ever, but SuperChargers was so bad that I almost quit until I found out that Imaginators would let you make your own characters. It's very much a YMMV thing.

I don't doubt that raising the price on the figures in the Swap Force/Trap Team years, coupled with the fact that there were over 100 figures to buy to have one of every character by that point (in other words: burnout) caused some strain in the casual player base.

(I also haven't beaten Imaginators yet, but based on what I've seen up through the Guacamonster fight, I'm inclined to say that Trap Team had a much better story. And SuperChargers barely had a story at all.)

That's how I thought about trap team! It literally ALMOST made me quit until Superchargers was revealed and it saved me from quiting. As for the story in SSC it had the best one in my opinion. VV always makes the better games (just my opinion)

Quote: McMurderpaws

Quote: SkyFan91

Well then I'll need to go tell Alpha Ambush about this since he was in fact the one who told me all that (and he also told a couple others) sorry about that

How about instead, you do a little research yourself before you post something that someone else told you, instead of assuming that they're accurate? Especially since they seem to keep telling you *ahem* "alternative facts" repeatedly.

It's a common thing, called "confirmation bias". People tend to be MUCH more likely to accept evidence and not investigate further if it supports their current views. It's part of why glaringly obvious indicators are often ignored around here, as fans of the franchise would prefer to believe the franchise is still going to continue. I don't want it to end, but I tend to be much more logical about things like this in general.

Dude, there is ZERO evidence that the Skylanders series is cancelled. There is also still some small evidence that points to an additional Imaginators content release (or releases) in Q4. And even if there isn't further Imaginators development, there's still no reason to assume that there won't be another full release in 2018.

I'm a pretty harsh realist myself. But I also don't accept a lack of information as any sort of confirmation or closure. Activision's marketing team is among the worst in the business, so "no news" is literally nothing but no news. And anyone one Twitter/Facebook/Instagram wanting to be internet famous for 15 minutes can photoshop a blurry photo or say "I have a friend that works at the developer," so I don't listen to social media posts that aren't thoroughly vetted first, regardless of whether they're purportedly good news or bad.

Ultimately, we know for a fact that Toys to Life as a whole is making less money than they were a few years back, but they ARE still making a profit. It's not as wide a margin as Activision would like, but it's still bringing in more than they're spending on development and production. And as long as there's profit to be made, someone will continue in that market. We also know that Activision likes to straight up KILL a market, because they have no foresight--see Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero, both of which still have fans but hated the most recent releases that Activision crapped out just to shut them up (note: I also expect this to happen to Skylanders someday... maybe next game, maybe the one after that, maybe the one after that if we get that far... but definitely someday). And given what we do know, we absolutely do not know with any concrete or confirmable evidence, that Activision has decided to axe Skylanders at this time.

But above all: if nothing else, we'll know the fate of the series for sure by the end of next year's E3.

Quote: McMurderpaws

Dude, there is ZERO evidence that the Skylanders series is cancelled. There is also still some small evidence that points to an additional Imaginators content release (or releases) in Q4. And even if there isn't further Imaginators development, there's still no reason to assume that there won't be another full release in 2018.

I'm a pretty harsh realist myself. But I also don't accept a lack of information as any sort of confirmation or closure. Activision's marketing team is among the worst in the business, so "no news" is literally nothing but no news. And anyone one Twitter/Facebook/Instagram wanting to be internet famous for 15 minutes can photoshop a blurry photo or say "I have a friend that works at the developer," so I don't listen to social media posts that aren't thoroughly vetted first, regardless of whether they're purportedly good news or bad.

Ultimately, we know for a fact that Toys to Life as a whole is making less money than they were a few years back, but they ARE still making a profit. It's not as wide a margin as Activision would like, but it's still bringing in more than they're spending on development and production. And as long as there's profit to be made, someone will continue in that market. We also know that Activision likes to straight up KILL a market, because they have no foresight--see Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero, both of which still have fans but hated the most recent releases that Activision crapped out just to shut them up (note: I also expect this to happen to Skylanders someday... maybe next game, maybe the one after that, maybe the one after that if we get that far... but definitely someday). And given what we do know, we absolutely do not know with any concrete or confirmable evidence, that Activision has decided to axe Skylanders at this time.

But above all: if nothing else, we'll know the fate of the series for sure by the end of next year's E3.

I think we'll know the fate when they have their Q4 2017 financial earnings report in February when they confirm their 2018 line up if that makes sense

Except for the fact they cancelled this year's game, reassigned VV on other projects, downsized TfB as well as have them working on other stuff and have been plain as day about the severely disappointing sales this year. Oh and retailers are minimizing and/or eliminating their Skylander sections. But no, ZERO evidence at all.

Activision is bleeding red, their flagship COD franchise had a really bad year and Skylanders has been in decline for the past 3 years and trainwrecked in sales the past 2. It takes a good two years to develop a new game and a TON of up front investment in manufacturing. You really think they are going to take a chance on another console TTL version of this game in 2018?

Defpally, we later discovered they were downsizing several dev teams and not just TFB - while that's worrying, teams that had nothing to do with Skylanders were included as well. The retailer stuff is on point tho because of the EB Games statement.

----

Did I hear the fact that someone takes information from Alpha "Every screenshot is a leak" Ambush/Fire Fiesta/He changed his youtube handle a few times now?


That explains a lot.

[quote=[url=http://forum.darkspyro.net/spyro/viewposts.php?topic=136786&post=6261130]Bifrost[/url]]Defpally, we later discovered they were downsizing several dev teams and not just TFB - while that's worrying, teams that had nothing to do with Skylanders were included as well. The retailer stuff is on point tho because of the EB Games statement.

----

Did I hear the fact that someone takes information from Alpha "Every screenshot is a leak" Ambush/Fire Fiesta/He changed his youtube handle a few times now?


That explains a lot.[/quote]


The unfortunate thing is he never believes any of that crap. He knows others (i.e. 7 year olds) do and thus makes videos that they will watch.

That's one of the reasons I try to say in my videos, look, some people might see this as significant, but honestly I don't know.

Well, that's the entire problem. I'm suuure he mentioned how he dislikes me and other DS users in plenty of videos, but the umpteenth user asking about stuff he makes up, or posting his videos despite the sheer lack of news in them(record a video on a phone, bad quality, from another phone, very useful), made General Discussion a mess far too many times.

Quote: Bifrost

Well, that's the entire problem. I'm suuure he mentioned how he dislikes me and other DS users in plenty of videos, but the umpteenth user asking about stuff he makes up, or posting his videos despite the sheer lack of news in them(record a video on a phone, bad quality, from another phone, very useful), made General Discussion a mess far too many times.

Actually he doesn't do the whole phone thing anymore. In fact he hadn't since May 2016. He really did improve the quality of his videos now though that's all I'll say in defense of him

Don't care. He did it knowing that he was purposefully obfuscating info and no one could stay on topic in here whenever he posted something.
I think I'll leave the topic on that note though, it's just a back and forth of the same subject at this point.

Alpha Ambush is the REAL burden of this community. THE mistake of eon.

Quote: defpally

Except for the fact they cancelled this year's game, reassigned VV on other projects, downsized TfB as well as have them working on other stuff and have been plain as day about the severely disappointing sales this year. Oh and retailers are minimizing and/or eliminating their Skylander sections. But no, ZERO evidence at all.

I have not seen this. GameStop has condensed all their TTL stuff to a wheeled peg display, yes, but Target, Toys R Us, Walmart, Best Buy, etc all still have full sized (if not fully stocked) sections.
Quote:

Activision is bleeding red, their flagship COD franchise had a really bad year and Skylanders has been in decline for the past 3 years and trainwrecked in sales the past 2.

Activision actually had a good, profitable year. It just wasn't where they wanted to be, i.e. their most profitable year EVAR. They aren't bleeding anything. (I'd make a joke about them bleeding business sense here, but they really don't have much to lose on that front. ... Dammit, I still made the joke.)
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It takes a good two years to develop a new game and a TON of up front investment in manufacturing. You really think they are going to take a chance on another console TTL version of this game in 2018?

It actually takes about THREE years for a good team to properly develop a modern, polished console game (which is why the last few Skylanders releases have been considered so light... but Acti looooooves rushing release dates).

And figures don't all get manufactured up front; they make the first two waves a few months in advance, then the third wave around the time the game releases (to hit shelves about 2 months later), and so on. If they made everything up front, they'd have to store everything in warehouses, which would add extra cost... and Acti is as cheap as they come. It'd make no sense to do the releases in waves if production were all handled up front; they'd release everything within the first 3 months to score that sweet holiday season revenue.


And yes, I do currently think there's a greater chance of there being a Skylanders game release in 2018 than not. It's not like I'm 99% sure, but I feel like odds are somewhere between 80/20 and 70/30 in favor of another sequel right now. Like I said in my last post, if we get to E3 2018 with no news of a Skylander game in the works, I'll assume then that the series is "archived."

(I use "archived" instead of cancelled because, as they've shown in the past, Acti likes to sit on franchises for years and then suddenly rush out a buggy, broken mess of a non-game to validate their decision to have stopped regular releases.)

You must have some special Best Buys, Targets and Walmarts, because all three of those in every one in my area have condensed all TTL down to less than the size of what a single product used to occupy. And Toys R Us used to be an entire half aisle plus some end caps. Now it might be a third of an aisle with everything all the way back to the first game haphazardly thrown in.

"Profitable" is not good enough for Wall Street. They have had some seriously disappointing releases in the past year. If it weren't for Blizzard and upcoming Destiny 2 they would be in serious trouble.

Three years from the ground up, usually two for a new game in a franchise with an established engine.

Figures are absolutely made almost entirely up front. There is a minimum 3 month lead time on those, remember they have to come over on a slow boat from China. Remember Nightfall? Screw up in September and he barely made it out before Christmas, and that was a rush job of a single figure - one they probably just did a chip replace on. You don't contract out a figure manufacturing plant for a year to make figures on demand - warehouses are cheap compared to doing that. It's also why Nintendo had such a hard time nailing down demand, and why the first year of Skylanders we had such a drought - they had to scramble to get more made.

We will see about next year, but don't get your hopes up. Like I said elsewhere, if we do get something it will be pared down and either have a small roster of figures, or none at all with paid DLC characters. Console Skylanders as they exist today is pretty obviously not going to continue. Even Lego is giving it up after the next wave and they had a much superior marketing plan - most of the toys use pre-existing parts, they had a well defined release schedule allowing pre-orders and didn't rely on selling new Starter Packs to parents every year.

TTL is not viable outside of what Nintendo is trying to do, which is only a couple figures at a time tied into whatever the latest game they have just released. And even then, the only real success they have seen lately is tied into Breath of the Wild.

Outside of the fact I still think calling both the TTL genre and Skylanders "dead" is beyond ridiculous, it was really interesting reading all those facts.

Just dropped by to express a personal opinion.
If Trap Team's terrible management of Elemental Gates and lack of Battle Mode (let's also include bad traps distribution) certainly didn't help, then SuperChargers was not only the final nail on the coffin, but also the wreath and the funeral.

We are talking about a game which forced you to constantly have a specific type of toy on the Portal, along with your Skylander, to simply play it, which forced you to frequently use one out of roughly 20 figures which made the choice of your character completely useless, and also consequently reduced the areas where you could actually play as your collection.
A game which also basically ditched the previous gimmick because reasons, which introduced the first (and thank Eon only, so far) console-exclusive figures, thus alienating a lot of customers who wanted to get them all, and had the marvelous idea of making half of the roster out of older reimagined characters.

It certainly wasn't the only reason why the franchise is where it is today, and most of that wasn't the developers' fault, but I think it hurted the series much more than Trap Team.
Nuts and Bolts probably didn't taught anything, after all.

Quote: Drek95

Outside of the fact I still think calling both the TTL genre and Skylanders "dead" is beyond ridiculous, it was really interesting reading all those facts.

Just dropped by to express a personal opinion.
If Trap Team's terrible management of Elemental Gates and lack of Battle Mode (let's also include bad traps distribution) certainly didn't help, then SuperChargers was not only the final nail on the coffin, but also the wreath and the funeral.

We are talking about a game which forced you to constantly have a specific type of toy on the Portal, along with your Skylander, to simply play it, which forced you to frequently use one out of roughly 20 figures which made the choice of your character completely useless, and also consequently reduced the areas where you could actually play as your collection.
A game which also basically ditched the previous gimmick because reasons, which introduced the first (and thank Eon only, so far) console-exclusive figures, thus alienating a lot of customers who wanted to get them all, and had the marvelous idea of making half of the roster out of older reimagined characters.

It certainly wasn't the only reason why the franchise is where it is today, and most of that wasn't the developers' fault, but I think it hurted the series much more than Trap Team.
Nuts and Bolts probably didn't taught anything, after all.

To add to the console exclusive thing...
People who want every figure: I guess I had better buy the same game for a console I don't have twice.
Activision: Lets wait a few months, then announce a separate pack with these characters
Everyone: UGH
Nintendo owners: Hey where is Spitfire
Activision: Screw you