On the 13th of October, 2016, Activision released Skylanders Imaginators which is the sixth entry in the series in the span of about six years; that’s a Skylanders game every single year. That in and of itself is a problem; annual releases of the same series are something that tends to bother me because when that happens most of the time the developers take shortcuts in order to capitalise on the “Toys to Life” genre. Because of this, they reused assets and engines creating a mockery of what came before it. The majority of the time, annual releases like the Call of Duty franchise for example are depthless and made to just capitalize on the success of their predecessors. The common business model seems to be to keep the hype train rolling so you can rake in as much money as you can before this figurative dries up.
This is precisely what Activision did with Skylanders. They wanted the series to remain in the spotlight as other “Toys to Life” games such as Lego Dimensions, Amiibo, and Disney Infinity series hopped on the bandwagon. They needed new toys to keep pumping out so kids, collectors, and parents keep buying them. This created an oversaturated market that heavily inflated the “Toys to Life” genre.
For someone who’s invested in Skylanders as a game series, I would imagine they would see this as sort of scummy and insulting. I know if I kept up with the series only to see its creators pumping out sequel after sequel every year it would get pretty tiring. Even though I’m not a fan of the series this still annoys me. This sort of greedy behavior for Skylanders is like a tumor in the gaming industry it paves the way for other developers to follow in Skylanders’ footsteps and lose any emotional attachment to their product by creating a hollow shell for the sake of generating money alone. That even brings into question the whole gimmick of Skylanders that bothers me; it’s the entire “Toys to Life” concept.
Amiibo’s success came from the sense of nostalgia that it gives to players as they collected and played classic characters such as Donkey Kong and Mario. Unless you were a hardcore fan and bought these characters, you would not have recognised a single creature you see here:
You would think that purchasing these characters would add something substantial to the gameplay. Nope. This brings into the purpose of collecting these figures if they mean almost nothing. These figures unlock the ability to play as different flat characters that ultimately don’t change anything about the gameplay.
Why did Activision even create this “Toys to Life” genre in the first place if the toys do almost nothing worthwhile to modify the content of the game?
It just seems like another way to trick kids and collectors into buying more of their Skylanders junk. Junk I guess I can see the appeal for those who enjoy collecting them just for the sake of collecting them but personally it’s a very greedy business practice and one that makes me believe that every Skylanders game is a bad game. Every Skylanders game seems to mesh together creating one glob of mediocre unchallenging boring platformers that exploit the “Toys to Life” concept.
References:
Why Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventures is a Terrible Game
https://www.destructoid.com/reviews/review-skylanders-spyros-adventure/
Beyond Interpretation 