darkSpyro

What is the real reason Activision made Skylanders?

It's been explained a lot of times in interviews of SSA:

http://gamasutra.com/view/news...ders_Flight.php

"Toys for Bob was given the opportunity to revive a Vivendi franchise, and they chose the Spyro the Dragon franchise. It was mentioned by Toys for Bob that attempts to revive broad-audience mascot franchises haven't seen predictable success in the game industry. 'Just creating a new Spyro game after the traditional fashion was unlikely to work', says Paul Reiche. And reinventing the character as a "really gritty, strange otherworldly Spyro" didn't seem like a promising idea. Spyro needed a radical new idea. Reiche says he 'had considered integrating technology with toys and games for a while, and it was the kind of concept that was so outlandish that it was the most promising idea the team sketched out for the brand.'"

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06...bes-in-toyland/

"Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure was originally going to be a mature Spyro game that included blood, but the developers of Toys for Bob lost their enthusiasm and felt that this direction didn't feel like 'Spyro', before saying that making a dark game isn't what their passion was about. They spent six months on a variety of different directions with Spyro, and with the time and budget given by Activision, Toys for Bob eventually came upon the idea of Skylanders."

Skylanders was created after Helios's game Spyro's Kingdom (M rated game) was rejected by Activision. Spyro's Kingdom later was developed by Toys for Bob. Then they changed title to Skylanders and removed blood.