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Sean Shoptaw, Senior Vice President of Walt Disney Games, recently sat down with gamesindustry.biz to speak on Disney’s current strategy of licensing off its IPs to external parties, and during this interview, he affirmed the company’s willingness to work with smaller development teams.
It was nearly two months ago that the mega-corporation presented the Disney & Marvel Games Showcase as part of its bi-annual fan convention, the D23 Expo. This showcase did, of course, feature various games from AAA developers, most notably the Black Panther and Captain America team-up project, but it also announced a smaller title called Disney Illusion Island. The latter is a four-player co-op platformer that features Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy, traversing through a mysterious island each using their own unique abilities.
This title is being developed by English studio Dlala, and while it’s no slouch, having developed the 2020 reboot of Battletoads, it’s an indie studio through and through. When discussing if some IP could be deemed as off-limits to indie developers, Shotpaw stated, “We don’t view it that way at all,” and directly referenced Disney Illusion Island, as it’s a game based on Disney’s mascot himself, Mickey Mouse.
Shoptaw expressed how pleased the company is with its current licensing business model, as it allows the people at Walt Disney Games to work with numerous talented developers around the world. He specifically declared Disney’s commitment to working with indie developers, stating that, “if we just narrow our focus to the bigger shops, we’d be missing great opportunities to work with a lot of really talented creatives.” He reiterated that the size of the studio is irrelevant and that the most important things are “passion and creative excellence.”
It also doesn’t matter to Disney if you’ve never worked on licensed projects before. As long as a studio has a strong vision for a Disney IP project, he states he’d be “very open to that conversation.” Shoptaw admits that Disney does reach out to publishers and developers for certain projects, but he claims that the most successful projects are the ones that developers pitch to him and his team, as they often comes from a place of creative vision.
It’s not all about passion, though. Shoptaw admits that Disney needs teams that can “land the plane,” meaning, partners that have the expertise to see a project through and have proven themselves in doing so. This strategy seems leagues better for business than the more limited licensing deals Disney had previously done, such as giving EA the exclusive Star Wars license for ten years, which infamously resulted in only three games. Hopefully, we’ll soon get to see some iconic Disney IPs in the quirky and creative indie space.
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