Disney closes Epic Mickey studio Junction Point
Sad news overnight as it was revealed that Warren Spector’s Junction Point Studios, the developer of Epic Mickey have been closed down by Disney. Unfortunately that means that over 150 employees have also been made redundant. Not a good couple of weeks for game studios.
The news was confirmed to Polygon, here’s what they had to say;
[quote]It was with much sadness that we informed our teams today of changes to our Games organization, which include the closure of Junction Point Studios. These changes are part of our ongoing effort to address the fast-evolving gaming platforms and marketplace and to align resources against our key priorities. We’re extremely grateful to Warren Spector and the Junction Point team for their creative contributions to Disney with Disney Epic Mickey and Disney Epic Mickey 2.[/quote]
At the same time Warren Spector will be leaving Disney Interactive and in a open letter published says that;
[quote]Yes, it’s true. The Junction Point journey is over. To all those who’ve asked, or want to ask, I’m sad but excited for the future.
JPS had a good eight year run. I got to work with some amazing people on some amazing projects. I’ve had some of the most magical times of my life, fulfilling several life-long dreams. I’ve gotten to know Disney fans and Disney cast members, gotten hands on with Disney’s history, walked where Walt walked… “Magical” really is the only word.[/quote]
Junction Point’s fate was likely set when Epic Mickey 2 sold poorly, even on more platforms the game didn’t sell as well as its predecessor. Disney retains the rights to the Epic Mickey franchise but has no plans for it for the time being.
Yeah they had 150 permanent employees and upwards of 800 working on Epic Mickey at any one time, the stakes where way too high. While its sad to see this happen it wasn’t much of a surprise to see it happen. Expect to see a lot of these big studios crumble in the next few years especially in the rush to support the Xbox 3/PS4’s higher hardware requirements.
im confused, if there is a rush to support the xbox3/ps4 wouldn’t they need more employes?
Yeah more employees means higher budgets and thus higher risk of failure. There is more pressure to have a big multi million seller simply to survive rather than keep a sustainable future for game companies. Around about 130-140 large studios have shut down in this past generations simply due to the cost of game development, larger budgets just means more of the same is around the corner, the Wii U seems to be the only machine this next generation that has it’s head in the right place. Big ideas not big budgets.