According to new reports out of the Casual Connect USA game conference, Disney is going to completely rethink its mobile games strategy going forward with a focus on new partnerships and new titles in the works. The move appears to be motivated by a need to bring established, experienced developers into the mix. The majority of Disney titles for both mobile and consoles have historically been developed by Disney in-house. According to company executive Kyle Laughlin, however, the strategy going forward will be to find developers and partners who have had success before with the kinds of titles it wants to release. As of this writing, the company has announced four new partners that it thinks fit the bill – Ludia, Glu, Gameloft, and PerBlue.
Speaking of the games that Disney would like to publish for mobile platforms, Laughlin was more than a bit vague and only said the company is focusing on new genres and experimenting. Specifically, he mentioned Disney’s willingness to explore role-playing and brawler genres, though he declined to go into any details. The company has also accepted the fact that it is likely to face failures going forward because of that experimentation but plans to take a more patient approach to mobile gaming. According to PerBlu CEO Justin Beck, the partnerships are focusing on taking a longer view of mobile games development. Rather than releasing titles quickly, the companies want to ensure they are building out unique and fun experiences that those involved believe players will genuinely enjoy. That should, in theory, result in more meaningful content and longer-lasting success for the companies involved and their respective titles.
In the meantime, the games that are currently being worked on as part of the new partnerships were not revealed and no timeframe was given for when those would be announced. So, for the time being, it may be impossible to gauge how well any of the titles will fare once they are brought to the Google Play Store. Each of the developers in question has had varying degrees of success across a wide swath of mobile game genres, while some have also faced scrutiny or harsh criticism from Android and iOS gaming communities.