Epic Mickey Sales Not Epic, But Still Pretty Good
posted Thursday Jan 20, 2011 by Jon Wurm
If we dare to think back to 2010 for a moment, some of us will remember one of the happy times called E3, which is where Disney first debuted Epic Mickey, a game that had been in development for almost 6 years. For those of you who don't own a Wii console then odds are you don't remember what I'm talking about so here's a refresh for you.
The premise is that a terrible tragedy has befallen the Disney universe and left it in shambles. It is Mickey's duty to travel around the befuddled world assisting other familiar characters in reshaping things by completing quests. Oh yes, I almost forgot, besides helping characters, Mickey has a paint brush and an endless supply of "paint thinner" to reshape the broken universe as he sees fit. One unique feature of the game is the "transitory zones," which connect you to various parts of the universe. The zones themselves are modeled after old black and white Disney cartoons they have adapted for you to play as a 2D level. This game is also good for multiple playthroughs as there are so many combinations of actions and resulting consequences it would be impossible to have the same experience twice.
To find out exactly how much cheddar Mickey made, hit the break.
Epic Mickey boasts the largest marketing campaign ever for a Disney video game. The game also started out at a disadvantage with a November 30, 2010 release that missed the coveted Black Friday weekend and originally wasn't scheduled to release until early 2011. It also had some tough competition over the retail season, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, which sold 3.6 million copies in North America, bringing in $193 million for Activision Blizzard. Ending 2010 as the 5th best selling console game, Epic Mickey sold 1.3 million units in North America and scored Disney $64.2 million.
Disney reports this is their fastest selling game yet and analyst Doug Creutz of Cowen & Company expects it will sell over 4 million copies world wide. The exclusive release on the Wii console reflects Disney's focus on social games. In July 2010 they acquired Playdom, which focuses on social Internet gaming, for $563.2 million.
The game may have taken almost as long as Gran Turismo 5 to develop, but for a casual Wii game I did enjoy my experience and despite it's darker tones it is still very much a family-oriented game that fit in well with the Wiimote controls. Check out the official trailer below and let us know your experiences as well.
