Disney Infinity’s PC Version Faces an Uncertain Future
Story has been updated with comments on mobile and AppleTV versions as well.
It’s not a great time to be a fan of Disney Infinity on PC. The PC versions of the game have always been inferior to their console counterparts, with missing features and ‘mixed’ performance. As you can probably tell from my attempts to provide information on the PC release in our FAQs, the PC version of 3.0 in particular is quite a mess, with three different versions available with their own quirks, and the Steam version featuring a confusing DLC delivery system as opposed to the simpler systems of the console and, to a lesser extent, mobile versions. The PC version doesn’t even have multiplayer of any kind, which is one of the game’s big draws. This drawback was especially worrying for the fans because of the upcoming Marvel Battlegrounds playset, which is the first playset that is effectively designed around multiplayer gameplay. Most fans were assuming that multiplayer functionality would be patched in ready for this playset’s release, but the reality is quite worrying.
An update posted for the Steam version of Disney Infinity 3.0. Confused? Me too!
Reports started coming in on reddit of PC players being told that Zootopia and Marvel Battlegrounds content wouldn’t be compatible with the PC version of the game, and being given replacement webcodes for different characters as compensation. This was a worrying sign, because the compensation implied that this content wouldn’t be available in the game for a while. But you know, the PC version took a lot longer to release, and gets updates less frequently than the console version, so maybe it was just a bit slow getting the updates.
Then the official Disney Infinity Twitter account replied with this to a fan inquiring about the state of the PC version:
@halcyonforever At this time, the new content will only be available on console. We will certainly make the community aware if that changes!
— Disney Infinity (@DisneyInfinity) March 12, 2016
Welp. “At this time” gives the implication that the content could come to PC eventually, but for fans playing on this platform it’s some extremely disappointing news, especially when the Battlegrounds playset is launching this week in the US, and some of them might have bought webcodes for the Zootopia characters before this information even came out!
Things got worse, with the Producer of the PC version of the game saying the team are “continuing to evaluate which content will be a good fit for each platform”. This could be referring to the lack of multiplayer in the PC version making Battlegrounds less of a worthwhile investment, but that wouldn’t affect Nick and Judy.
Nick and Judy are currently not available on the PC. We are continuing to evaluate which content will be a good fit for each platform.
— Jason Moffitt (@jason_moffitt) March 13, 2016
John Vignocchi, the Vice Producer of Production at Disney Interactive, is now posting this in reply to people asking about the PC version.
Moffitt has posted an apology to PC players on Twitter this morning, which is nice. Well, actually, it’s probably fair and accurate to say it’s expected and justified. But it’s an extremely disappointing situation for those playing the game on PC. This version of the game has been plagued with issues from the start, and now they’re missing out on content without an official announcement until mere days before a new playset release. And even then, if people hadn’t heard this from customer support, would we have even heard about this before Battlegrounds’ release?
I apologize to frustrated PC players. Bigger Picture stuff I do not control. I appreciate all your support. Can’t say much more then I have.
— Jason Moffitt (@jason_moffitt) March 14, 2016
Things do change (and go wrong) during game development, and the PC version is no doubt not as profitable as other platforms – but it’s really disappointing the way the team has communicated to the fanbase about these releases. The future of the PC version is now up in the air without concrete details, and it has lost them some goodwill from portions of the game’s community. If a platform’s support has been dropped altogether before all the content has released, that would be a real disservice to the fans who’ve been supporting the game on PC. The ideal situation would be to continue at least a base level of support until everything is available, and then not releasing future games on PC. But at the very least, if support was going to be dropped then much more warning should have been given as a courtesy to the customers. If a PC player has been playing by buying webcodes or DLC rather than buying the figures, then it will be very costly for them to now move to a console version of the game, and I can’t imagine they’d be too happy about that. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but fingers crossed for the best outcome.
UPDATE: Looks like the Apple TV version might be losing support too. Wuh-oh.
@ericschultheiss At this time, Marvel Battlegrounds is only compatible with gaming consoles. If you have any questions, please email us!
— Disney Infinity (@DisneyInfinity) March 15, 2016
UPDATE: The moderator on the Infinity forums has confirmed that “there are currently no plans for futher [sic] updates to the Apple TV version of the game”. The same is presumably true of the PC and mobile versions as well. So not just Battlegrounds, but any future content. This is the closest thing to an official statement and it was made after the new content was already released in the US. Not a fair move to customers on these platforms at all.
