Disney Infinity's Toybox Looks a Lot Like Minecraft

Disney Infinity, an upcoming game franchise from, you know, Disney, has a feature that looks a lot like Minecraft, only with even more building and scripting tools:

The Toybox mode will include basic tutorial modes, adventure missions and a huge level-building mode that looks like it is taking aim at Minecraft. Developers working on the game already made a massive Starship Enterprise and another made the Bowser's Castle track from Mario Kart. There's even a "logic editor" which allows for rudimentary programming, which can allow players to create sidescroller games, top-down games... all sorts of things.

At least that's from an early iteration of Disney Infinity (which starts coming out in June). On the one hand, it's a great affirmation of the sandbox building/user-generated content concept popularized by the indie game Minecraft, since it's now being incorporated into a game from the world's largest and well-known media company. On the other, I also suspect Disney management, notorious for being highly protective of legacy IP rights, will freak out and pull this feature at the last moment. ("They're building the Starship Enterprise in our game?!")

Comments

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I think most if not all virtual worlds are now or soon will be moving towards some system of user-generated content, simply because it's the only way to keep up with the voracious appetite of players for new content.

And players will copy IP illegally. Formulate a policy to deal with it and move on. I highly doubt there's anybody in the industry at this point who can credibly say, "oh no! We never even considered that!"

[Shockwave Yareach]

And how exactly does LEGOS avoid getting sued when someone makes a mockup of the enterprise with those bricks?

Answer for Legos -- they don't care. If someone wants to sue, sue the builder.

Answer for Disney -- they shouldn't care. If someone wants to sue, sue the builder.

Honestly. All these corporations need to realize that fans creating fan-made stuff draws more fans and more customers to the company's stuff. And a limited agreement license could easily be created which gives people in SL or Disneycraft or doritoville permission to create user-made versions of $IPstuff so long as income from that does not exceed 100$ a year. And if it goes above that, then a revenue sharing version of the license is needed up to 10,000$ a year. Beyond that, I guess real licenses need to be worked out with lawyers.

Of course we builders can always just say it's our own invention (see the extra engine?) and any resemblance with someone elses stuff is purely coincidental.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

It took the Trek owners years to figure out that the unofficial fan sites, fiction, art and other forms of expression enrich the value of the franchise rather than detracting from it.

Disney is notoriously resistant to the concept. But... we shall see. The House of the Mouse surprises me sometimes with a brilliant, forward-thinking move. Sometimes. Not often enough.