Junction Point had a too-brief history, and produced just two games. One, Epic Mickey, saw middling critical success, but was a genuine commercial hit as a Nintendo Wii game. Indeed, it was one of the very few third party Wii exclusives that justified the production of a sequel.
It’s no surprise that it was a commercial success of course. Epic Mickey starred the world’s most famous mouse, Mickey Mouse, in a decidedly adult adventure. It was a Mickey game for adults that grew up loving Mickey Mouse.
Unfortunately the sequel not only underperformed in the market – it bombed completely. This is despite it being a cross-platform title, and though the critical reception was even weaker than its predecessor, we here at Digitally Downloaded did not mind it at all. It might not have lived up to its potential, but certainly there was no reason to think Mickey and Disney tragics (such as us) would avoid the game.
And yet the seemingly unthinkable happened and a product starring Mickey Mouse failed in the market. And, as if we needed more proof that the games industry is one of the least healthy business environments to work, a studio with the backing of one of the largest and wealthiest entertainment corporations in the world was shut down for a single failure.
Around the message boards and comments sections I have seen the usual pointing and blaming by gamers at Disney’s allegedly shonky business practices and even joy that the people who worked at Junction Point no longer have jobs. Both groups are missing the point to a lesser or greater degree. The basic reality is that this is yet again an example of the games industry that is so intolerant of failure (because it costs too much to support) that, at the mid-to-big budget end of things, it is headed directly towards a dark ages in terms of creative though and expression.
That’s if it is not already there.
12 comments:
sad news i didn't mind the epic mickey games i kinda liked them
I really liked both of them - I admit it's more because I like Mickey than I liked the games, but they were still a lot of fun, and had flashes of that old-style Disney charm that is so hard to come by now.
i hope they all find jobs at maybe other game companys!
Absolutely - fingers crossed for the entire JP team.
Looking forward to reading Gamasutra's surely inevitable "Why Epic Mickey 2 Failed" article (not being sarcastic, I really want to know! Wrong market? Economy? Lackluster reviews perhaps?)
I found this point in your article the most poignant:
"as if we needed more proof that the games industry is one of the least healthy business environments to work, a studio with the backing of one of the largest and wealthiest entertainment corporations in the world was shut down for a single failure."
That miiight not be true (tho it certainly looks that way). Disney does also seem to be consolidating much of their popular characters under the Disney Infinity service platform game thingy. That aside, yeah I agree hahah. To be even more particular, it underlines the huge financial risk of AAA-budget development.
Curious where Mr. Spector will end up next, Retro and Crytek are both apparently hiring in Texas!
The problem is obvious really. Epic Mickey was worked on by over a hundred people and sold very well upfront but critical reception and sales dropped significantly after the first month. Then instead of being focused with the sequel and concentrating on fixing the issues of the original, they introduced a lot of new elements. In addition to this they expanded the game onto four additional platforms(although the PC release seems to be cancelled) causing the staff number to balloon to over 600 people. It was bad project management, top to bottom.
Of course, when any company goes bust there is an element of poor management somewhere along the line. Well run companies don't fall over.
That said, healthy industries allow companies to make mistakes. Epic Mickey was not a mistake. Epic Mickey 2 was. It wasn't a mistake to expand it to additional platforms (600 people for a multiplatform release is not so bad, and if the game had have sold as well as a Mickey Mouse game should have it would have generated a profit - especially when the majority of those 600 were contractors and Junction Point dropped back to 160 after the game was released), but it was a mistake to not fix the previous game's criticisms.
Junction Point made one mistake, as was closed down. Regardless of the reason, that's a clear sign of an unhealthy industry.
In an ideal world, I'd love for Warren Spector to head over to Shanghai and join up with American McGee's company, Spicy Horse. Those two would collaborate very well, I suspect.
Oh I don't think the industry is healthy at all and it's only going to get worse going forward, especially when budgets increase again for Orbis and Durango. The big companies have pushed team sizes and budgets too high for others to compete and it's not sustainable.
However in the case of Epic Mickey 2 I'd definitely say that staff size is ridiculous. The only games with comparable staff sizes are Assassin's Creed and Resident Evil 6, both of which sell several times what the original Epic Mickey sold.With better management they should have been able to produce ports with a lot smaller workforce, they weren't exactly doing anything special.
In theory Mickey Mouse is marketable enough to justify the investment in a game comparable to Assassin's Creed 3. He is the most recognisable character in the world, with the possible exception of Mario, after all.
Of course in practice the game was mismanaged but, well, I would have liked to see it deliver on its promise, that's for sure.
True, I wonder if someone in management assumed that because it was on five times as many platforms that its sales would be several times higher?
I did enjoy the first game but I haven't tried the second one yet.
Almost certainly. Disney/ Junction Point's line of thinking would have been along the lines "Well, the Wii game was a success, and third party games always do better on the other platforms, so let's take advantage of that in the sequel."
I enjoyed the second, despite its flaws. It was nothing groundbreaking, but certainly I thought it deserved better than both its critical reception and its commercial failure.
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