Skylanders & Disney Infinity Figurines Are DLC Too

[owsf2000]

I just had a laugh for myself when I was reading Kotaku (Something I rarely ever do because I hate their god awful page layout.) when they were talking about Amiibos.

Anyway, he was going on about facts and all this about them that were mentioned in the video he linked. But at the end he decided to speak for himself, and in my opinion he took the opportunity to stick his foot in.

"I am not an Amiibo collector myself, which is odd considering I collect just about everything else under the sun. I think it’s because I’ve been spoiled by games like Disney Infinity and Skylanders, where the toys become actual playable characters in a game designed for them rather than functioning as glorified DLC codes."

I'm not arguing that Amiibos aren't anything more special than glorified DLC codes. That's exactly what they are. I do like having the figurines though. Some of them are quite well done.

But! There's a very old type of DLC that he's apparently not aware of. Extra Character Unlocks.

So instead of having figurines that add extra things to the game - while having all the characters essentially included - you have figurines that you must buy if you want to utilize the character at all in the game. And if you want a full cast, you better empty your wallet.

Sorry, but I think if I go with any figurine collecting, I'll stick with Amiibos. (Although I must admit there are a couple of Disney figurines I wouldn't mind buying - although that's simply because I like the characters. I have zero interest in actually buying Disney Infinity. If I see a starter kit for Disney 3 being liquidated for 20 bucks or less, I may pick it up. But other than that... yeah, no real interest in playing the game.)

In another article on Kotaku, they mentioned that Disney Infinity 3 decided to rip off of Splatoon by making their own 4 player paint war mini-game to include with it. Yeah, I'd agree that paint wars aren't really something you should assume only one person will ever think up and implement but it's kinda telling what they were going for when the object of the game is to paint as much of the battlefield in your color as you can before time runs out (The goal in Splatoon) and they called the minigame Squid Wars. There are no actual squids in the mini-game.

Comments

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

The Kotaku article said:

"For better or worse, Amiibo are now an integral part of Nintendo’s business, the release of the most recent wave just as important to company and fans as the latest big Wii U title, Super Mario Maker."

Yep, and that's one of the many reasons I still don't have a Wii U as of yet, and if it's truly the case that it's getting more and more tied up with this Amiibo crap, then my interest in ever getting a Wii U is falling ever lower. I have zero interest in collecting physical statuettes or whatever it is an Amiibo is, even (or, perhaps, especially) if they have influence on games themselves.

By the same token, I do not have and never had any interest in Skylanders or Disney whatever or any other game that might do this shit in the future, either. I just miss the good old days when you bought a game and that was it, you got a game, a full game, and didn't have to worry about it being chopped out into DLC, be it in the form of just an unlock code or in the form of one of these figurine things. The only possible redeeming quality of the figurines is that some of them might actually be decent simply as collectible figurines in their own right, ignoring the "tied to games" aspect of it. It's just that I personally have no interest whatsoever in such things, either as stand-alone collectibles or especially as accessories to games. As such, it is merely yet another bullet-point on the ever growing list of reasons why I think the modern video game industry as a whole is going to the dogs.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

Well, as far as I can tell, the things Amiibos add to games aren't anything really integral to the game itself. You're not losing full characters and shit by not buying up every Amiibo ever made. I don't know what every amiibo does for each game, but for instance the Smash Bros series adds in a computer controlled character that levels and whatnot. It fights for or against you. Not entirely sure what the benefit of this is really - but it doesn't prevent you from selecting the character yourself to play as. In Splatoon it unlocks additional challenges.

I tend to like them more as figurines anyway.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

As for Disney ripping off Nintendo's Splatoon thing, well... that's just how vidja gaem companies roll these days. Every time there's something that is even remotely "new and innovative" in video games, you'll have a million johnnies-come-lately trying to cash in on it, running it into the ground and making it seem banal, sooner rather than later.

See also: all the millions of copycat games out there these days with "crafting" and "mining" and "minecrafting" in them. Hell, for that matter, even Minecraft itself was simply a better-done imitation of Infiniminer, as we already know and as Notch freely admits. Not all "rip-offs" are bad things, sure... but... most of them are. Most of them are indeed just blatant, cash-grab, poorly made clones of whatever is popular at the time.

Which is, of course, once again, yet another reason why the video game industry is spiraling down the toilet. It's just that this particular reason has been around for as long as there has been a video game industry (or, hell, for as long as there has been industry, period).

Why, yes, I am indeed feeling particularly jaded and cynical today. ¬_¬