Disney Ends Infinity Franchise

Well, competition is healthy, but sometimes the competitor ends up losing and is forced to pack its bags. Take, for example, the Infinity game line from Disney. Disney announced today that it will be discontinuing Disney Infinity and will be shutting down Avalanche Software. I guess it didn't do all that well against Activision's Skylanders franchise. According to an official statement, Jimmy Pitaro, Disney's chairman of consumer products and interactive media, confirmed that Disney changed its direction in concerns to console gaming and will be transition "exclusively to a licensing model."

"This means that we will be shutting down Avalanche, our internal studio that developed the game. This was a difficult decision that we did not take lightly given the quality of Disney Infinity and its many passionate fans."

It will be costly, considering that it Disney will be slammed charges of $147 to offset the cancellation, and that the employees will be offered severance, alongside other assets.

Funny enough, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars did keep Infinity afloat. For collectors, there will be four new playsets released this year, so Infinity isn't gone quite yet.

Back in March, according to vice president of Disney Interactive John Vignocchi during a conversation with Polygon:

"Disney Infinity will support all of the major events and theatrical releases at Walt Disney in 2016. This year we will release four new playsets, each introducing unique gameplay for the platform. Each of the playsets will represent new content from our core properties."

But during that time, the line was still considered "safe."

Guess not anymore.

Senior vice president and general manager of the Infinity franchise John Blackburn, said that there will be two final releases from the line, including three more chapters from Alice Through the Looking Glass and the Finding Dory playset in June.