darkSpyro

Use this thread to discuss:

• Activision's Pre Launch Marketing Strategy
  
• Skylander's Trap Team Gimmick and Future Support
  
• General discussions about Activision's Direction in the Franchise and Trap Team
  
• Any general concern/praise you have over how information on this game is being disseminated
  
• Questions / comments on conflicting information received on Trap Team
  

This thread was created out of a discussion in the "All we Know" Thread but is being moved here to preserve the original thread's purpose.

Quote: GothamLord

Quote: ninja9351

See here. Here's the truth, what I have italicized is the truth. The HARDCORE Disney Fans will go for it. Now out of the Skylanders Fans how many do you think are Hardcore Disney fans? That's right only a minority. That's between 5-10%. Granted it's defiantly a difference but it's not a huge wound to the series.

Remember that in what I said the aforementioned Hardcore fans, are those currently non-invested in any game at this point. Thats potential money lost in the market. Thats a bit harder to calculate. When it comes to loses in the series though, lets say your magically created percentage with no actual source to back it is correct. We'll even go with the low ball number side of things. 5% lose of sales to Disney fans moving to Disney Infinity. 5% lose of sales to Marvel fans moving to Disney Infinity. 10% by itself might not seem like a lot but its not the only factor involved. You've got the 5% of Nintendo fans lost to the new Amiibo toys on the block. 5% general lose of kids that just "grow" out of the game and lose interest naturally. 5% lose of parents sick and tired of these toys to life video games. They are a money sink on the family's bank account and now there are a ton of these little plastic menaces littering the household. We're looking at 5% lose of people that are just frustrated with how the game series is being run, and the lack of information we're being provided. We're at 30% lose to the game. That papercut is now turning into a festering wound.


Quote: wideawakewesley

Geez, there's a lot of negativity here. Stop worrying, Skylanders will do fine regardless of how much DI sells. The trap innovation will prove popular with young kids, I've no doubt about that. Unfortunately there's simply nothing Activision can do to compete with the marketing power of the Marvel characters this year and probably the Star Wars ones next. They just need to keep creating fun innovations that take the core game forward in interesting ways and combine that with fun and unique character designs. I'm pretty sure both games have laid all their gameplay cards on the table, with only the characters to be revealed now. The DI2.0 character list is out there for at least 2014 already, so Activision have at least that as a surprise. I'm looking forward to both and I hope both sell well, but while I prefer Skylanders, I won't be upset if it plays second fiddle in sales to DI.

Its a billion dollar franchise at this stage of the game. I dont doubt it'll still do well. Competing against the marketing giant that is Disney is a hard thing. Disney owns their own radio station, they own multiple TV/Cable channels, they make movies. They have theme parks, other toy lines, etc. There however is a different between atleast trying to advertise and cross promote your product compared to just rolling over and dying. They have Marvel this year, they KNOW already they will have Star Wars next year. Actually do some advertising besides the random commercial thrown around for the game.


Quote: Unreallystic

Game development is not 'quick'. Fear of Disney stealing something is a cover up. Let's just call the game what it is

BEHIND...

They didn't release a bunch of info, because they didn't have it. Plain and simple. Proof? Look at Gearshift, a character being tooted as a Pre-Order/Wave 1 figure, who apparently wasn't complete enough to show. That makes no sense that they were still 'working on her', for a character that is being pushed as a Wave 1. For having two years to develop, they are using the same platform developed for Swap force, reusing designs and models for villains (how many mages have they announced so far? OR trolls?), and they only seem to have a handful of characters done. We aren't talking 'playtesting and balance' either. The yare late, which means most likely content will be cut or added on later, and it means they aren't holding info back - its not there.
- Unreall

Yeah. I said something was off when they made everyone play the game at E3 to get the promotional trap, rather than just giving it away for showing up like they'd always done. They were forcing people to demo the game and provide feedback, because they had no idea what to do with certain things on their own. Everything was "no comment" or "we can't talk about it" because frankly they had nothing they could say. The Jeff Poffenbarger interview from E3 is basically ignored by all media outlets as it conflicts against a lot of things stated to the big YouTuber community that gets information out there.

Some comments pulled from the "All We Know" Thread to kick it off.

Quote: Zylek

^ I agree totally, they need to state if the traps are supported in future games asap. They've kind of boxed themselves in though with the traps needing a special slot to read them, so in order to support them in future portals they would always have to have that slot. If they are not supported in Skylanders 5+ then I will probably not be buying any of them other than the ones in the starter pack. It's not worth $40 for me to buy more traps to just be able to use those villains in one game. Part of the built-in value of a corelander or gimmicklander is that can be used in all future games.

But their comments about how their "kid test groups" are most interested in playing only with the new gimmicklanders makes me feel like they are going to support the trapped villains only in this game because the "kids" won't want them anyway in the next game.

Quote: Arc of Archives

Zylek, I'm worried about the exact same thing.

The thing with Skylanders is that there are games wayyy more polished and generally better, which don't include a ridiculous amount of money-locked content. Unless you really enjoy how it uses the toy gimmick and its gameplay, you're better off buying those other games. By this point, I've played Skylanders so much and have so many Skylanders and Skylander games to play, as much as I enjoy it I don't really want more of them over other games. Unless they were more polished and improved in certain ways.

Skylanders could be sooooo good if it integrated its gimmick better and had better replayability such as online. They need to bring back the magic of Toys To Life by improving the storytelling. That made Skylanders a unique experience during SA. It wouldn't make the games much more worthwhile on its own, but at least they would be more interesting again. I think better replayability speaks for itself, but basically, it should be things like new/improved side modes- something I liked about SF- not a higher level cap and more quests that require extra more grinding to achieve. Levels that are more fun to replay (generally achieved by including more levels, giving you a better choice of ones to replay) also help a lot.

I had a couple other paragraphs written, but I decided to omit them.

More comments from the "All we Know" Thread.

Gracias my good sir.

Quote:

Quote: ShaneK

Quote: GothamLord

DI is kinda past the limit on adding new features before release short of them delaying. I can see them holding out on some things to try and steal Disney's thunder. It is Activision afterall. However its a risky move. GotG playset images are starting to leak now. The movie is getting ready to release. Kids that dont have to wait until the holidays for stuff are going to be hounding their parents to pick up all the Superhero stuff. The comic collectors and fanboys are going to snatch everything up. People on the fence might bite on Infinty based on the tie-ins and the fact its out first and we have had little to no information in a positive light lately on Trap Team. People that dont have an unlimited cash flow to burn on this stuff are going to be tapped out early. Then they have less or even no money to spend on Trap Team. Especially given the heavy implication of needing multiple traps at this point in time. Waiting at this point is becoming a double edged sword that might end up cutting Activision more than helping them.

I think they will release a lot of info 1 or 2 weeks before the release of DI 2.0 just to try prevent the above.

I think if they had released most of the info at E3 they would struggle to create a big enough buzz to compete with The DI release.

the damage have already been done, it started at e3. never in the 3 years of skylanders games, have i seen this kind of lack of enthusiasm in people. when it comes to the new skylanders trap team game. the game was not nominated, journalist only doing side note about the game. compared to disneys new infinity2.0 its on fire and everywhere. that disney could get on track with one year beyond and one game out, is just an amazing accomplishment. with the marvels figurines they gonna do big this time around, there is no doubt. activision have been resting on their laurels to much this time around. like it took two skylanders game before we got "jump", its just silly. disney had everything from the start, jump, online etc. i hear disney are going to bring back the classic disney figurines and duckburg, they are going in for the kill. i fear we have seen the last of skylanders, a trap gimmick and 30 second play time of villains will not do much impact...

More comments from the "All we Know" Thread.

Honestly, I'm never getting the Disney Infinity games, but I can see why Skylanders won't be doing well with the lack of info and underwhelming gimmick. Still, I'll probably end up buying that before I ever buy a single DI game. (Not a Disney fan, sue me.)

Personally the reason they may end up losing business is not from DI but simply the lack of info.

Mugo and Ninja, I agree completely. My wife and I are not interested in Infinity regardless of what happens with Trap Team. We will have it preordered and pick it up on day 1 as well as any Wave 1 figures we like. Our great memories with the first 3 games warrant giving Activision the benefit of the doubt here. If S:TT ends up as alarmists are predicting, however, and Skylanders 5 does come out in 2015, we wouldn't extend the same trust then.

More info is vital, plus some extent of progress in game development. Sixteen-ish levels of linear walkthrough rehashed yearly isn't the key to longevity.

So who is moving to DI2.0? Thankfully, I don't need to choose between them, but if I don't see anything from TT that seems new or notably improved and like DI2.0 a lot, I might drop it so I'm not spending on 'landers any more. Already wrote about why I'm gradually warming up to DI more.
I didn't mention there that the DI figures come out in Aus at almost the same time they do in other countries, which is not the case with Skylanders (something that makes me less interested in TT, as I don't see it getting fixed).

And to the post about how Favourite/Vote topics are fluff, I agree. There've been so many of them now and many people respond with generic responses rather than anything interesting.
I might be kind of elitist- but people say X is their favourite or vote for a Skylander without explaining why or mentioning their gameplay, which would be more interesting and make the topics more worthwhile. Some fluff topics are totally fine, but the favourite/voting threads pretty much run the boards now. With the occasional critique after we find news tossed in. Certainly better than no new topics, but in general there's still not many interesting posts.

Thanks GhostRoaster for creating a separate thread for this discussion. We'll be getting both DI and STT this year but probably not much more than the starter pack for TT. I love that DI gives you new content every week to play, it keeps it fresh and even though the levels are short it's still new. TT REALLY needs to incorporate something to make you want to play past the story and portal master level stuff. I really don't feel like I got value out of the waves 3+ of SF. By the time the later characters came out we had already finished the game and hit pm level of 80.

If they really said development wouldn't be done until August that is very troubling because it gives a very short window for glitch/bug fixing because they would probably have to send the gold code to get the discs made in early September. But maybe they'll wow us with some last minute feature that makes all our major concerns go away.

I'm going to try and balance my purchases between DI2.0 and STT this year. However, this is probably not going to work, as I'm probably going to be buying a lot more DI toys this year, as they've got 3 playsets dedicated to Marvel characters. I've been buying one of every Skylander for the past 3 games, so I might not buy all of the Skylanders this year.

Then again, I've been saying that for the past three games.

Quote: AzureStarline

More info is vital, plus some extent of progress in game development. Sixteen-ish levels of linear walkthrough rehashed yearly isn't the key to longevity.

I think you struck a nerve with that comment as it expresses very succinctly my concern on how they're handling future games in general. I'd personally like to see the gimmick AND a gameplay mechanic innovation as well for me to qualm my fears and anxiety on the next entry. I don't see how they're going to do it by keeping the game itself to a linear path story-based game infinitely, and the gimmick doesn't do enough to make it warranted for me to jump onto the next train--rather it's the fact that I have over 200 figures that will compel the starter purchase--but perhaps little else. Btw, jump and jump attack isn't a gameplay mechanic innovation...I'm talking about refreshing some element of the core experience, not a "bolt on". You could tell from the E3 videos that the game itself felt very repetitive for old schoolers.

Again, in their mind, this may be perfectly acceptable, as they WANT to lose the battle-weary and gain new recruits who aren't fatigured on the format. I'm not sure if they have that figured out, and if they can indeed continue to succeed with this approach. They may have more turnover than what they're replacing eventually, perhaps as soon as this game. Zylek, I think we're saying the same thing with the content. It's never REALLY justified a completionist collection getting value, and perhaps they could successfully argue that the average skylander customer only purchases 10 figures....dunno. I can tell you that comparing my friend's collections in Swap Force the average number appears to be around 50.

Can this thread get stickied until launch?

Quote: ninja9351

Personally the reason they may end up losing business is not from DI but simply the lack of info.

The lack of info at the moment means I'm not going to buy the game, but even more than that is the fact the game is not available in any of the shops I usually go to.

I would expect that when the game is available we will have a lot of info, and I'm saying that is their plan.

Quote: Unreallystic

Quote: ShaneK

By "competitive advantage" I wasn't suggesting Disney would stea the trap mechanic (it's not something they hid anyway), but more the smaller mechanics, pricing, packaging, and marketing techniques.

Far example with the forward compatibility, if they don't carry support for the traps into the next game, why would they let Disney know? Disney could use that in their favour in promotions, interviews, etc.

Any game mechanics the they might copy or more likely counter would turn up in DI 3. This gives them less time.

I don't buy the idea they are not on track, but I could be wrong.

Nah.

Think about it. DI is already forward and backward compatible. If anything, it's Activision that is behind on that front.

I think you've missed my point, I'm saying Disney will use what you've said against Skylanders, but Activision haven't given details which makes it a bit harder for Disney's marketing crew.


Quote: Unreallystic

Pricing? There was only ONE mystery - we knew about how much the figures would cost, and due to sales, most of us won't pay that amount anyways - its a mute point. The traps at $6 is way too expensive, but puts them on the same price point as the already existing DI disc. Most likely, the promotional prices will mirror the disc as well.

I just can't buy there being something they really need to worry about 'competitors' stealing. Anything that would be worth stealing would be legally protected.
.
- Unreall

The info Activision have not given doesn't include the trap mechanic or $6 price tag, I can't give examples of what we don't know because, well, we don't know.

Disney don't have to steal ideas to use the info, my point was there are so many different ways Disney can use info on the new Skylanders game to gain an advantage. An example (although reversed) is Activision guys saying "there won't be blind packs for Traps", at the moment Disney can't say "don't forget, all our items are forward compatible, without specials portals each game". But I bet they will next year.

I would love to know how Legal Protection can be used here? There was no legal action taken when Disney brought toys to life, they are increasing level cap from 15 to 20, will Acti sue? Not likely.

P.S. Good job GR setting up this topic, and well done NINJAsk for the suggestion.

The lack of info for the most part should be alarming that they know they're kind of at a wall after this. Pulling out the traps was like a hail mary play near the end zone. My football lingo's a little rusty but the fact is I'm a little surprised they had anything left of a gimmick this time around.

I'm thinking this will be the last one they'll allow the old figures to be used as already mentioned about the turn around that they'll be doing something far different for skylanders after trap team. I don't think they're going to go as far as reinvent the wheel, but they need more open world integration and the usage of online in one way or another to keep going.

I'm speculating another romp of 12-16 chapters, the gimmick of the traps to wear on people's minds if the villain doesn't shut up while playing. there's only so much kaos i'd bother to listen to for that. catching him or not, i have a plethora of figures i'd send to fight without using him. i've found the 3ds bosses worthwhile to fight instead of him. kaos was great in SA but that's it, he was just annoying the other times.

in a nutshell, unless anyone's collection here is under 50 figures, there's not much of a reason to hype this game. though the use of traps in one way saves space from so many figures, it's kind of a breather. trap team isn't a day one purchase and best left to any bargains like black friday or coupons or waiting mid year to get a better deal as there hasn't been any sightings of special starter packs for it.

Skylanders right now is falling into what I'd call a Dynasty Warriors funk. Anyone that isnt familiar with the series, its a button masher / beat 'em up set in ancient China. The games One Piece: Pirate Warriors and the upcoming Hyrule Warriors are based on the same game formula. The game is up to its eighth release now. Its primarily been the same game though since the second title. The game has continued to add characters. Its continued to add levels. Its gotten better graphics. The story has expanded a bit here and there for the new characters, but its still the same repeated Romance of the Three Kingdoms storyline again and again. There has been very little innovation to the game in terms of real mechanics. They've tried to add and modify the weapon system several times. Add in some other random features. I'd compare these to the different "gimmick" options that Skylanders has had every game. Dynasty Warriors tried to reinvent the game series with DW6. It didnt end well and is generally considered the worst game of the series.

I have a feel that Skylanders 5, whatever name it ends up with, is going to be them trying to reinvent the game. "Skylanders: Wi-FiVE" as they introduce the blasted online feature already. The story needs to progress beyond Kaos being the stereotypical Saturday morning cartoon villain. There needs to be something as stated to keep the players coming back after beating the highest difficulty and maxing out the Portal Master ranking. I do think if they start to ignore any older figures I'll be done with the series, as will a large number of people.

As it stands I will still get the game on release day. I have the pre-orders already. I however am not going to empty the store of all the available figures on day 1. I'll be sitting back a bit and taking the game in a bit slower and judging things differently. Now things could change if we get more information here soon. Sadly though I have a feeling that even Toys for Bob is short on info, because they are still trying to find direction. I feel we're going to get something slapped together. I feel we're going to get a game that doesnt get finished until last minute. I think we'll have a bunch of bugs. I really hope I'm wrong. I do think there are a bunch of non-disclosures keeping people from mentioning some things. I think depending on how major those facts are is going to end up hurting things more than helping them.

Ghostroaster, I'll disagree about jumping not being a big change. The more I think about it, the more I realise- jumping did let VV add things that were impossible in past games. You wouldn't have been able to avoid a Geargolem's shockwave the same way, for instance- in order to do so you'd need to stick right next to a jump pad. It also made the level design feel a lot more organic, in general. As often as I speak about the negatives of SF, I think jumping was done very well. While it makes the platforming a bit too easy, I even don't mind how you just get teleported in if you fall. You can jump off a cliff to avoid attacks that way, which I think is kinda interesting. Jumping didn't change how the levels are pretty linear and exploration is merely a bonus- which they should avert more often, as almost every level in the series is that way- but I think it was still a great addition and refreshing enough.

Right now, I think they need to change the level design up and stick less closely to tropes, more than change up mechanics. SF's game mechanics are actually pretty good- everything feels nice and weighty and if you learn how your character's attacks knock back you can become much more efficient at fighting. They don't really need to adjust those things, outside of rebalancing it some characters... But give us more interesting worlds to explore, and an "Impossible" difficulty that requires knowledge of knockback and how each enemy moves in order to survive. SF's mechanics are very good, but they could be making better use of them.
There should also be more levels where you search around large areas for objects to progress. I was going to say SF did this well in its later levels, and I think it does give a better feel of exploration than levels from past games, but at the same time most are still linear and feel that way somewhat. I can't explain why I feel that way. I'd also like to see levels with branching paths... We had that in Giants and it was called The Oracle and it was possibly the best level of the series.

I cut this from one of my posts, but since GothlamLord mentioned forward-compatability, I think it's appropriate to post now:
I'll be frustrated if, in Sky5, we're forced to use a new Portal that locks out Traps and we're unallowed to use the Traptanium Portal- one game after Traps' debut. Especially if they give no story explanation for it. While I hate how Battle Pieces no longer unlocked arenas in SF, at least those were a couple of Magic Items rather than the central gimmick of a game. If the next Portal is forced-use and has no slot for Traps, it'll just feel like they didn't even try to keep them in.

Speaking of Battle Pieces, I hope TT has a better Battle Mode than SF. SF's Battle Mode was just bad. Too few arenas and half of them were locked behind Battle Packs. I loved playing Battle Mode with my dad in Giants and we still return to it over SF's Battle Mode... Because we can't stand SF's.

I am of similar mindset to you in that I'm not as excited about this round as I was for previous rounds. I am not sure if it's Activisions's or just the natural growth of Apathy. I will get the game day one, but I seriously doubt I will stock up on wave 1 as I have done previously. Partly, I want to make it more of a hunt to wait for the right sale, and partly because I just don't think getting a new character is really worth it this time around. We have over 200 like most of you all, so it's not like we don't have plenty to use already.

In comparison to DI 2.0, I find it interesting that a big complaint with Skylanders is that it's more of the same, while DI isn't really innovating at all. I recently got the DI 1.0 for Wii, and though it's fun to be doing something new, and the building aspect is nice, it's not as good of a game as Skylanders in my opinion. DI 2.0 looks to be the same, just new characters. They don't even have to be creative with the characters since they are already established and well known through the Disney marketing machine. DI itself is a part of that marketing. It's no coincidence that GotG (who's no one really knew before this summer) gets a movie and characters in DI. The movie will help sell the game while the game will help sell the movie. The Incredibles, a movie that's probably a decade old now, gets characters because there is going to be a sequel soon. Disney is great at this, selling the brand.


Although Skylanders is a better game IMO, Activision is not going to invest in their characters. Yes, what's new sells better, but Activision has an opportunity to build a brand here, but they're blowing it by bringing in too many characters with little development. DI doesn't have to do anything new. They can make a cheap version of skylanders crossed with a cheap version of minecraft and it will sell well because they have brands to sell. I'd rather Skylanders work with the characters they have and give me new ways to experience them (even if it's in a old concept like a shooter) then new characters all the time that I'll get bored with after an hour. IMO, they could spin off a carting game, shooter, or whatever, and only include the top 16 characters and it would do well.

^ I'm less concerned about DI2.0 not adding anything particularly new, though, because they seem to be addressing issues had with the first game. I haven't looked into it much yet, so forgive me if any of this is wrong info, but I've seen some posts about the things that have been improved.

For example, many people felt the figures were useless, but now they store your character's skill tree. People also felt levelling was useless after you got enough spins from levelling to unlock every object- fixed since you spend points from levelling to upgrade your character (I'm the least sure about this feature). I still don't think the addition of upgrades totally justifies the toy gimmick and it could be done nearly exactly the same without the toys, but the upside to it is that if anyone else plays the game I can go to their house and play with my character with the skill tree I decided on. (I don't like how that seems to be becoming the token excuse for adding TTL to a game.) That also solves another common criticism, that the characters play too similarly, because you can now upgrade them uniquely.
Also, play sets now have checkpoints, so unlike DI1 you won't respawn exactly where you died if you run out of health and death now has a penalty. DI2.0 also seems like it'll make toy box building easier and better (see: quick-built pre-made toy boxes you can insert and the ability to make only specific items available to people who play your toy box, so they don't jetpack past a hedge maze, for example).

hopefully they add the ability to swim soon, though

There is no speculation here, just people talking about moving away from Skylanders... This topic should be renamed "Concerns about Trap Team due to lack of infos".

Actually it should be called war zone trap team vs infinity 2.0

^ "Discussion and Speculation"

You guys made a war zone

Quote: melvimbe

Activision is not going to invest in their characters. Yes, what's new sells better, but Activision has an opportunity to build a brand here, but they're blowing it by bringing in too many characters with little development. DI doesn't have to do anything new. They can make a cheap version of skylanders crossed with a cheap version of minecraft and it will sell well because they have brands to sell. I'd rather Skylanders work with the characters they have and give me new ways to experience them (even if it's in a old concept like a shooter) then new characters all the time that I'll get bored with after an hour. IMO, they could spin off a carting game, shooter, or whatever, and only include the top 16 characters and it would do well.

here we have the core problem, but with ssa they did actually invest in the characters. then it just fell apart half way though sg. after sg they should had released a new game for figurines you had and no new figurines. then build up the characters that was out with cartoon series, comics,serials,plush's etc etc. then they should have released swap force with its figurines. one year new gamme and figurines, next year a new game only for use with the figurines you have and build up the characters that was out with cartoon series, comics,serials,plush's etc etc.

as it is now with a new game and new figurines every year, its like you cant breath and enjoy it, before there is new stuff coming. people dont get to know the characters before next new bunch arrive, its just to much.

i must be honest here i dont care about characters in swap force, they just feel dull and boring, except for a few. when i got the 3ds swap force game and played volcanic eruptor. something just clicked, i hadn't played ssa 1,5 year. i realized one thing the older figurines are awesome in design and much more enjoyable to play.

something got lost between the release of ssa/sg and swap force that is for sure. with the trap team game what is lost just get even more lost. with these traps at $5.99 that is just bit of colored plastic, the whole skylanders franchise is going on the wrong path. its enough buying the figurines and now we have something that just feel like a cash grab than a innovation and fun.

Quote: CountMoneyBone

Quote: melvimbe

*snip*

*snip* after sg they should have released a new game for figurines you had and no new figurines. then built up the characters that were out with cartoon series, comics, serials, plush's etc etc. then they should have released swap force with its figurines. one year new game and figurines, next year a new game only for use with the figurines you have and build up the characters that was out with cartoon series, comics,serials,plush's etc etc.
*snip*
something got lost between the release of ssa/sg and swap force that is for sure. with the trap team game what is lost just get even more lost. with these traps at $5.99 that is just bit of colored plastic, the whole skylanders franchise is going on the wrong path. its enough buying the figurines and now we have something that just feels like a cash grab than innovative and fun.

Agreed, but you have to consider greed, which dictates how companies operate (in general).

More characters = more money

I think for longevity as well as high profits they should have limited characters to about 16 per game. This would have encouraged more families to collect all figures, and lessened this overwhelmed feeling because of the amount of figures.

For us it feels like new characters are not so special, just another to add to the collection and I think Activision will suffer for this in the long run.

As I said before in the other thread, that didnt get brought over here, Activision is a video game company that has found itself trying to be a toy company. I really dont think they know how to react. Activision has a business model on successful game series like Call of Duty. It works because its a single disc release every year. It also didnt exploded in the popularity it has today until around its 4th game when it went from a WW2 shooter into a modern day military shooter. They've also taken into the habit of rotating the setting yearly as its not completely rehashing things.

Skylanders on the other hand exploded far larger and faster than they ever expected. I fear we're going to go down the road that was seen before by the Guitar Hero franchise. Guitar Hero was great. It was something new, it was something we'd never seen before. It was an original concept and it sold like crazy. Activision then decided to bring in other develops to the mix beyond the original Harmonix, they tried to expand in all directions. Competition came on the horizon with the Rock Band series and at that point it just went downhill. Rock Band added drums and a microphone to expand gameplay and come across as bringing something more to the table. Activision followed suit.... However is making Band Hero they lost sight of the original hard rock/metal elements of the game. They tried to expand the game to cover all genres of music. We got things like DJ Hero with a turntable controller.... Guitar Hero 7 never saw the light of day and was shut down 1 year into its 2 year develop cycle, while Activision was trying to "reinvent" the game from the ground up again.

Disney has brand recognition with all its figures that Skylanders doesn't. They are characters people know regardless of playing the game. Activision and Skylanders NEEDS to focus on getting this if they want to not follow the same path of Guitar Hero. The game premise is pushed that its about all these toys that come to life. Why should I want to bring "random character" to life if I dont know anything about them? What motivation do I have to become emotionally invested in hundreds of little plastic characters if they are all interchangeable beyond their two paragraph origin story. Its one thing to drop $60 a year on a CoD game and maybe a few DLCs until the next game when you don't know the characters. Its another to expect people to drop $300+ on a game and dozens of figures (that are just really unlock codes for information already on the disc). The game was a cash grab from the start but it had a certain heart to it that allowed you to look past it and be willing to spend your money. When the heart is gone and all you can see is the cash grab again, people are going to go somewhere else.

Guitar Hero has a six year lifespan. Skylanders is coming up on four. This game *IS* the tipping point.

Disney isn't really a toy company either. They buy up franchises, ideas other people and companies made, then market the heck out of them, selling movies, toys, whatever they can. Pixar, Marvel, and Lucas all made their top selling brands. Even their 'original' stories are fairy tales that have been around forever.


But anyway, yes it would be nice if Skylanders somehow could put more emphasis on the older characters. I don't know if they could even pull off a cartoon of sorts with so many characters to highlight.

Disney is most certainly a toy company at this point. A toy company, a movie studio, a TV studio, a radio company, a theme park, video game developer, a cruise line, etc. Yes, they have purchased other properties such as Marvel, Lucas, or whatever. They have have had decades of selling toys to know how to do it though. Activision not so much. Disney knows how to market a brand.

Quote: GothamLord

Disney is most certainly a toy company at this point. A toy company, a movie studio, a TV studio, a radio company, a theme park, video game developer, a cruise line, etc. Yes, they have purchased other properties such as Marvel, Lucas, or whatever. They have have had decades of selling toys to know how to do it though. Activision not so much. Disney knows how to market a brand.

we should at least expect they have learned from the guitar hero fiasco by now...

Quote: ShaneK

The info Activision have not given doesn't include the trap mechanic or $6 price tag, I can't give examples of what we don't know because, well, we don't know.

Disney don't have to steal ideas to use the info, my point was there are so many different ways Disney can use info on the new Skylanders game to gain an advantage. An example (although reversed) is Activision guys saying "there won't be blind packs for Traps", at the moment Disney can't say "don't forget, all our items are forward compatible, without specials portals each game". But I bet they will next year.

I would love to know how Legal Protection can be used here? There was no legal action taken when Disney brought toys to life, they are increasing level cap from 15 to 20, will Acti sue? Not likely.

No, we don't know what we don't know, but we can make speculation based on what we know and our previous experience with the franchise. What we don't know at this point is
"Final Villain"
"Repose strategy"
"All figures"
"Adventure packs & items" (though known SKUs have shed light on this)
"Plans for expansions and mini-games"
"Skylander Toy Box Mode"

Disney won't care about the villains or the repose strategy. Disney won't care about the figures unless there is a blatant rip-off character which would end up a legal issue. Adventure packs? Disney already does those as well as the items. Plans for expansions and mini-games, well that's obviously not new to gaming. Toy Box Mode? Disney already did that. It's just a BS response to cover up 'we aren't ready yet'.

And Disney won't 'sling mud' at Skylanders...directly. TThis isn't a console war. If they want to do something, it will be undercutting price and touting features that even if they add to the new Skylanders, Disney already has been doing.

As for legal action, the items you listed aren't legal action items. Nor are they "news worthy" or "new". If disney took the TRAP idea? Or if Disney took a figure like say Gearshift and tried to beat them to market with it...that would be a legal battle. Not game mechanics.
- Unreall

That's a good point above about Guitar Hero and the music game saga. I remember being fascinated with Guitar Freaks and then the original Guitar Hero came out. Then Rock Band was the Disney Infinity of that arms race. The two shot to the top...and fell off the back side of the mountain.

Well the thing about that genre, it didn't get burned out by just Activision, EVERYONE jumped in - degrading the quality. It wasn't just one or two titles a year, then the competition drove speration, so like my fav song on Rock Band 1 - Enter The Sandman, I couldn't play on RB2.

I also question whether it was a 'fiasco'. Yeah the genre is dead (ecause I'd love to play it now, but finding the gear again would be a nightmare), but Activision made money hand over fist with it. They lost the revenue stream, but it kept the company in good standings during a large financial downturn that swallowed up alot of other video game companies. For how much Activision is making on this title - I could envision something similar. This COULD burn out *easily*, but then it will simply be on to the next one. The profit on the series is insane, so even if they kill it because the profit starts to dry up, its already been super successful to the point of creating a true secondary revenue stream to the COD series.
- Unreall

Quote: GothamLord

As I said before in the other thread, that didnt get brought over here, Activision is a video game company that has found itself trying to be a toy company. I really dont think they know how to react. Activision has a business model on successful game series like Call of Duty. It works because its a single disc release every year. It also didnt exploded in the popularity it has today until around its 4th game when it went from a WW2 shooter into a modern day military shooter. They've also taken into the habit of rotating the setting yearly as its not completely rehashing things.

Skylanders on the other hand exploded far larger and faster than they ever expected. I fear we're going to go down the road that was seen before by the Guitar Hero franchise. Guitar Hero was great. It was something new, it was something we'd never seen before. It was an original concept and it sold like crazy. Activision then decided to bring in other develops to the mix beyond the original Harmonix, they tried to expand in all directions. Competition came on the horizon with the Rock Band series and at that point it just went downhill. Rock Band added drums and a microphone to expand gameplay and come across as bringing something more to the table. Activision followed suit.... However is making Band Hero they lost sight of the original hard rock/metal elements of the game. They tried to expand the game to cover all genres of music. We got things like DJ Hero with a turntable controller.... Guitar Hero 7 never saw the light of day and was shut down 1 year into its 2 year develop cycle, while Activision was trying to "reinvent" the game from the ground up again.

Disney has brand recognition with all its figures that Skylanders doesn't. They are characters people know regardless of playing the game. Activision and Skylanders NEEDS to focus on getting this if they want to not follow the same path of Guitar Hero. The game premise is pushed that its about all these toys that come to life. Why should I want to bring "random character" to life if I dont know anything about them? What motivation do I have to become emotionally invested in hundreds of little plastic characters if they are all interchangeable beyond their two paragraph origin story. Its one thing to drop $60 a year on a CoD game and maybe a few DLCs until the next game when you don't know the characters. Its another to expect people to drop $300+ on a game and dozens of figures (that are just really unlock codes for information already on the disc). The game was a cash grab from the start but it had a certain heart to it that allowed you to look past it and be willing to spend your money. When the heart is gone and all you can see is the cash grab again, people are going to go somewhere else.

Guitar Hero has a six year lifespan. Skylanders is coming up on four. This game *IS* the tipping point.

I too am worried that they will milk the franchise to death. The glimmer of hope that I have is that they have learned from the demise of Guitar Hero. For example, they now have 3 devs working on Call of Duty on 3 year cycles. This gives each dev more time to innovate and keep things fresh.

And as for the brand recognition with Disney, I agree that can be a plus. However, personally the art style of DI just never resonated with me. Also, and I am not going to count the actual number, but lets say Disney has 100 major, well-loved characters. The others are B-team members. I am sure they will try to make them more popular with their movies, but I think in the back of everyone's mind they will still be the B-team. And even if they introduce a new franchise every year, how many new characters will that be? 15? With Skylanders, they have over 150, with 34 new characters coming with Trap Team. I feel there is more potential to invent new heroes. Sure, there will be some hits and some misses, but I think it will be easier to find characters that you like.

Quote: DM235

I too am worried that they will milk the franchise to death. The glimmer of hope that I have is that they have learned from the demise of Guitar Hero. For example, they now have 3 devs working on Call of Duty on 3 year cycles. This gives each dev more time to innovate and keep things fresh.

And as for the brand recognition with Disney, I agree that can be a plus. However, personally the art style of DI just never resonated with me. Also, and I am not going to count the actual number, but lets say Disney has 100 major, well-loved characters. The others are B-team members. I am sure they will try to make them more popular with their movies, but I think in the back of everyone's mind they will still be the B-team. And even if they introduce a new franchise every year, how many new characters will that be? 15? With Skylanders, they have over 150, with 34 new characters coming with Trap Team. I feel there is more potential to invent new heroes. Sure, there will be some hits and some misses, but I think it will be easier to find characters that you like.

Activision has 3 developers on Skylanders now. Toys for Bob has had since the end of Giants to be working on Trap Team. The lack of information and details on the game gives heavy implication that they are scrambling to throw things together at the end. If this isnt the case, they sure are doing a good job shooting themselves in the foot giving off that vibe. We dont need to keep inventing new heroes. We need to develop the characters were already have. These arent just nameless Pokemon that we throw out into battle, these are meant to be actual characters. They have lives, and backstories. They risk their lives in the name of protecting the Skylands. Its slowly just turning into "Just hand me a "pick random element" character", because I need one to open that game.

Quote: GothamLord

Quote: DM235

I too am worried that they will milk the franchise to death. The glimmer of hope that I have is that they have learned from the demise of Guitar Hero. For example, they now have 3 devs working on Call of Duty on 3 year cycles. This gives each dev more time to innovate and keep things fresh.

And as for the brand recognition with Disney, I agree that can be a plus. However, personally the art style of DI just never resonated with me. Also, and I am not going to count the actual number, but lets say Disney has 100 major, well-loved characters. The others are B-team members. I am sure they will try to make them more popular with their movies, but I think in the back of everyone's mind they will still be the B-team. And even if they introduce a new franchise every year, how many new characters will that be? 15? With Skylanders, they have over 150, with 34 new characters coming with Trap Team. I feel there is more potential to invent new heroes. Sure, there will be some hits and some misses, but I think it will be easier to find characters that you like.

Activision has 3 developers on Skylanders now. Toys for Bob has had since the end of Giants to be working on Trap Team. The lack of information and details on the game gives heavy implication that they are scrambling to throw things together at the end. If this isnt the case, they sure are doing a good job shooting themselves in the foot giving off that vibe. We dont need to keep inventing new heroes. We need to develop the characters were already have. These arent just nameless Pokemon that we throw out into battle, these are meant to be actual characters. They have lives, and backstories. They risk their lives in the name of protecting the Skylands. Its slowly just turning into "Just hand me a "pick random element" character", because I need one to open that game.

I wish this forum had a 'like' button.

Your post makes me think that I would like a Skylanders RPG, because you are right, there IS a backstory to all the characters, but they are treated just like pokemon.
- Unreall

Quote: GothamLord

These arent just nameless Pokemon that we throw out into battle, these are meant to be actual characters. They have lives, and backstories. They risk their lives in the name of protecting the Skylands. Its slowly just turning into "Just hand me a "pick random element" character", because I need one to open that game.

Bingo. Skylanders have long since become a "play a few favorites and use the rest randomly to open a gate". It took me a while, but looking at the mass of figures we have I realize that they are most sitting unused. I like to try new/different characters, but I have a whole stable of different options by now. I really liked the Swapper mechanic. I'm really not enthused about Trap Team's "mechanic". I'll get it, and some of the new ones - after all new content is a good thing, I like playing the game. I've always thought they should release "level pack" expansions that don't introduce new figures or new mechanics mid year, but only simply new content. Trap Team is felling more and more like it will be that for me - just more levels.

I should be more excited. I have a full stable of figures from the first three games. If they have lost my interest, it isn't good - because many no doubt feel the same. I know my kids aren't asking about Trap Team like they did the previous two years. If you can't get excitement from your most invested fans, how is that going to translate to those that don't get all the figures? Will they even bother at all? Neighborhood kids used to all want to see the new figures when they came out and try them out - and Skylanders as birthday presents were always welcome. Not anymore. Will the masses of Wave 1 packs still on shelves turn into a massive glut this year if interest drops off again? Will Activison respond by lowering expectations and shipments or will they keep ramping up until retailers go "no thanks, our shelves are already full and we are tired of having to discount to move product"?

I don't want to see the franchise die. The game isn't making huge changes that are sparking continued interest and making new people investigate like it once did. When is the last time it was actually difficult to find a figure? The hunt is an important part of this all working.

^ That's pretty much how I feel. I think I'm more optimistic about the Trap gimmick than most because I like the lore of Skylanders and it seems like it could be good lore, but then they did these changes which they showed at E3 like the villain timer, etc. which they offered no explanation for.
GothamLord said the game had a certain heart at the beginning and, while I've said this dozens of times, I really think it felt that way because of how it integrated its lore and made the player a part of the experience. In Giants and SF, the story just wasn't as good as SA's and TTL is not integrated well.

Now, with what we've last been told about TT's villain timer and the lack of any extra news on the story, I'm worried the story will end up the same as SF's. I've also said this before... But I'm so upset about the storytelling as well as the gameplay because I think if we got a Skylanders game with the features added after SA and a heart similar to SA, we would have the best game in the series. The biggest reason SF isn't my favourite game, even though I like its mechanics best, is because it lacks the magic TTL had in SA. A lot of that comes down to the storytelling. And there's only so much willing disbelief I can exert on the problems in the story.

And I just can't get excited about the gameplay because I have so many figures already and I've played it so much. It feels like TT will largely just be extra levels to me, too. At least SF offered interesting new mechanics (outside of the SWAP gimmick!), but when it boils down to it, it seems like TT won't have any interesting extra mechanics- the Trap mechanic is basically extra characters and it only looks particularly interesting in terms of lore, which as I said, I'm worried they won't take advantage of.

It's still kind of difficult to get figures in Aus, though... Better than before, it seems, buuuut I haven't seen half the SF figures restocked lately. And we're still waiting for several.

Just an idea but maybe we will be seeing more prototypes in this game because they brought krypt king from giants

I only got into skylanders about 2 months ago and all this 'skylanders dying out' talk is scaring me a little. I have over 40 characters already and I'm still interested in growing my collection. I own all three games and started with swap force (haven't even finished). I hope they can pick it up and successfully continue the franchise because it will really suck for it to die right after I put tons of money and excitement into it.

I love the games, especially Swap Force. They always feel special, but it's way too many chAracters. I bought all 32 from SF but when I look at them I only like about half. I'm a collector, but I'm seriously just thinking of cutting TT in half and getting one of each element for the cores and trap masters. There's no reason to have 2 gimmick characters per element. I thought giants had it spot on when it came to character count. And I will buy one trap per element, meaning I only buy 6 outside of the starter. And just like with Swap Force, I will wait until blAck Friday to buy the starter pack. But I know I will have fun with this game Nd enjoy most of the characters, I just need more info.

Quote: stealth

I only got into skylanders about 2 months ago and all this 'skylanders dying out' talk is scaring me a little. I have over 40 characters already and I'm still interested in growing my collection. I own all three games and started with swap force (haven't even finished). I hope they can pick it up and successfully continue the franchise because it will really suck for it to die right after I put tons of money and excitement into it.

Don't worry. don't let talk from others derail how you currently feel about something. As well, being new, you can get great deals on older figures, so you aren't spending as much as some of the more established players.

Also, dying out is exaggerated. Its more 'self interest' is dying out, when you have a large stable of characters with limited content, you burn out on the content and find that you ahven't used most of your characters. I've almost 3-stared all of Swap Force and I only have 2 level 20s - Rattle Shake & ugh forgetting name...oh bumble Blast. their needs to be a renewed focus on 'content' as opposed to figures and gimmicks.
- Unreall

For me, the removal of heroics in SF really exacerbated the too many characters because that took away one of the most dramatic and obvious way to individualize your characters. By switching over to the "treasure on platform" model it lumped all the minor boosts/buffs together. Hats are cool as a way to minorly buff your individual toys but if their aren't going to have HCs they need boots, gloves, or whatever as ways to boost stats because hats aren't enough.

I loved being able to take the slow lumbering characters and run them through all the speed HCs and see a dramatically visible change in the way that character moved. Right now the only real tangible things you can do to mod your character is the path you pick and the hat you pick. There needs to be much much more. Sorry to make another DI comparison, but the skill tree they are introducing in DI 2.0 is a much better solution. You make choices at every level-up which aspect of the character you want to upgrade and even if you max out to level 20 you cannot get all the upgrades, so you have to decide how YOU want character to be.

But as stated above, the other major issue is content. They either need to sell a mid year sizeable expansion pack or sell at least 8+ adventure packs over the life cycle of the game. If there was still an adventure pack or two of SSF that were going to be released still this summer, it would have made it fresh and fun to break out the toys again.

^
That's an excellent point about upgrades, and has just got me thinking about future developments.

If Actavision wants to follow suit with more complex upgrade paths they may need to increase the storage on the toys, or at least change the format.

They could do this and maintain compatibility with older toys, but have two separate upgrade mechanisms. If you wanted your Stealth Elf to use the newer upgrade format you would need to buy the latest repose. This may be how we see the old figures discontinued; first they make them less exciting and then people won't care about them - in fact they could always maintain support but they would be legacy type characters.

I'm not sure if a change like this would be good or bad, what do you guys think?

Alternatively they could use the available memory on the current toys but reformat the data, meaning you couldn't use the same save data in the older games.

Quote: Unreallystic

I wish this forum had a 'like' button.

Your post makes me think that I would like a Skylanders RPG, because you are right, there IS a backstory to all the characters, but they are treated just like pokemon.
- Unreall

I agree with you that I would like a Skylanders RPG, but I don't mind the Diablo / Gauntlet approach that they have taken. I also think that an RPG would make it too complicated for its target demographic (which is young kids).

Quote: Zylek

For me, the removal of heroics in SF really exacerbated the too many characters because that took away one of the most dramatic and obvious way to individualize your characters. By switching over to the "treasure on platform" model it lumped all the minor boosts/buffs together. Hats are cool as a way to minorly buff your individual toys but if their aren't going to have HCs they need boots, gloves, or whatever as ways to boost stats because hats aren't enough.

I loved being able to take the slow lumbering characters and run them through all the speed HCs and see a dramatically visible change in the way that character moved. Right now the only real tangible things you can do to mod your character is the path you pick and the hat you pick. There needs to be much much more. Sorry to make another DI comparison, but the skill tree they are introducing in DI 2.0 is a much better solution. You make choices at every level-up which aspect of the character you want to upgrade and even if you max out to level 20 you cannot get all the upgrades, so you have to decide how YOU want character to be.

But as stated above, the other major issue is content. They either need to sell a mid year sizeable expansion pack or sell at least 8+ adventure packs over the life cycle of the game. If there was still an adventure pack or two of SSF that were going to be released still this summer, it would have made it fresh and fun to break out the toys again.

Don't give Activision any ideas. 8 adventure packs would set us back $200

Although I would prefer to have everything available at launch, I know that retailers would not have the shelf space for it. Releasing characters throughout the year is also how they "keep it fresh". I guess they could always delay the release of the adventure packs until mid year.

If you look at Activision's other big franchise, Call of Duty, they release 3 map packs about 3 months apart. 3 months after the last map pack the next iteration of the series is released. However with CoD, the map packs are $15 each, and they contain several maps each. I think I wouldn't mind that if they released a $15 adventure pack with 2 magic items every 3 months, that unlocks several new story levels.

I very much agree with all that's been said on figures vs content. In Swap-Force, they introduced way too many characters. They should either have halved the amount of swappers, normals, or even both. Continuing this trend in Trap Team, where the larger characters aren't even the main gimmick, is something I don't see as beneficial. One of each element, like in Giants, would be perfect. Maybe two for normals, if the characters are done well.

As for HC, the problem is that while they would add content and a way of upgrading the stats available for HC-upgrades, the repetitiveness would be pretty horrible. SSF would be bad enough with 80x80=6400, but 112x112=12544 is just insane. One solution could be that only figures of the same element (14 as of Trap Team) can try another's challenge. That would put it at 112X14=1568.

The other possibility I see is only having challenges from the new characters, but allowing everyone to play them, resulting in 32x112=3584. This gives people much more reason to buy the new characters, but I'm leaning towards the former option, because doing the same 32 challenges 112 times would a lot more repetitive than doing 112 challenges 14 times.

EDIT: If they want us to buy more characters, they should give us reasons to do so, and there were barely any in Swap-Force. Implementing either of the HC solutions here would at least help their situation.

^ I like your idea of making Heroics limited to characters by element. There may be a better solution, but I think that's a good one, since we'd get more with each game without having an insane amount.

If they kept the current Heroics system, I would have just left it at 50 Heroics. The only reason to add more would be to give old character more to do, but it'd just reach the pint where it would get far too grindy and old charatcers already get a higher level cap and new quests. Besides, 50 Heroics didn't match up with the amount of characters available in Giants- there were two extra ones- so adding 30 more so that it matched up with the amount of Skylanders seems dumb.

You know what would have been interesting? If reaching certain Portal Master Ranks would have unlocked extra Heroics. You wouldn't be forced to buy extra toys to play them all and there would be a better incentive to get Stars (mini-levels) than for the sake of completion.

I feel like, yet again, disney has their crap together.

Puny God.

Forgot about the non-figure ones . Glad you like the elemental idea, I felt like that would be a nice twist on the heroics. Having heroics as progression rewards, nice idea.

Also, one important reason I think heroics were removed from SSF is the addition of the jump button (also applies to SSA adventure packs + SG battle packs). It's pretty obvious that levels designed for non-jumping characters are not going to translate well into a game where all the characters can jump. Hopefully TfB will re-implement those removed features with adjustments to better fit the new mechanic. After all, they were the ones who made them in the first place.

John Coyne said they'll reveal more in a few months (see the "Skylanders 4 is a Game-Changer" topic). However, we only have a few months until release. If they're not going to be revealing the "game-changer" for a few months, then we're probably not going to get a lot of news if most of the game revolves around the game-changer.

As for DI: Disney are revealing a lot of things that they didn't include in DI1. On the other hand, if that's all the things that DI2.0 is introducing, then they won't have anything to reveal while Activision reveal STT's game-changer. In my opinion, the best things come last.

Basically: Disney are going to have a hard time keeping their hype up if they have nothing to reveal, and Activision reveal their game-changer.