My kids love Disney Infinity, but I won’t buy Disney Infinity.

My middle boy would often come from a friend’s house telling me about all the wacky adventures he had in this virtual world. If you are new to Disney Infinity, the idea is that it is a virtual toy box that exists in your gaming console. It is a bit of a sandbox where any characters from any Disney property can play with any item in any world. It is like the toy box you don’t have to clean up when you are done. There is only one problem. Everything costs extra! For this reason alone, I won’t buy Disney Infinity
Update: It looks like I have single-handedly overthrown an empire! Today Disney Interactive announced they are closing down and ending Disney Infinity.

By now you may have heard the news that we have made the difficult decision to discontinue production of Disney Infinity.

This week Disney is launching Disney Infinity 3.0, featuring Star Wars. If you are a new reader, you must understand that we love Star Wars! If we weren’t Mormon, we would probably join the Jedi Order. I was watching the trailer for the new release and started to get really excited. It looks like so much fun.

As I thought about all the fun adventures going I started to realize that there are a lot of characters being shown. How much of an investment are we talking about here? Like I said before, Disney Infinity makes you pay for EVERYTHING!
Remember FarmVille? They had a genius pricing model. Give the game away for free, but require micro transactions for everything little thing. It is no coincidence that while Clash of Clans is one of the most popular free games on the iOS App Store, yet also brings in the most revenue. $.99 here $2.99 there, it all adds up.
Like FarmVille, Skylanders pioneered a tweak to the micro transaction gaming model; Disney, then legitimized it. Rather than give away their base model of the game, they charge full price. Then, if you want to get access to everything the game provides you have to purchase additional characters, worlds, items, etc. These additional items usually run anywhere from $9.96 – $34.96.
Let’s look at a cost break down if we wanted to fully enjoy everything for Disney Infinity 3.0 Star Wars.
 

Toy Price
Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition Starter Pack $64.96
Original Trilogy
Rise Against the Empire Play Set $34.96
Darth Vader Figure $13.96
Han Solo Figure $13.96
Chewbacca Figure $13.96
Rise Against the Empire Power Disc Pack $9.99
Sub-Total $86.83
Prequel Trilogy
Twilight of the Republic Play Set ($34.96 if you don’t need starter set)
Obi-Wan Kenobi Figure $13.96
Yoda Figure $13.96
Darth Maul Figure $13.96
Twilight of the Republic Power Disc Pack $9.96
Sub-Total $51.84
Current Total $203.63

 
$203.63 for a kids game! And that is just for the initial launch. We still have the Star Wars Rebels and The Force Awakens Toys coming out later and additional character not offered yet. Not to mention getting figures from other Disney universes. I love the look and idea for the game, but I just can’t justify supporting this type of business model.