How Disney Consistently Botched the Kingdom Hearts Franchise
Alright, so after waiting nearly an eternity, we finally see the official third installment in the Kingdom Hearts franchise. Skipping the entire PS3/XBox 360 era, Kingdom Hearts will finally make its way to the Playstation 4 and the XBox One after a decade of rumors, speculation, delays, frustration, and spin-offs that didn’t quite satisfy the appetite for a third chapter. It’s finally here. It will probably sell a cool 4-5 million copies and make enough money to consider a fourth chapter in the future.
Now that it’s here, I can shout this:
WHAT THE HELL DISNEY!?!?!!?
The Walt Disney Company is the biggest company not named Apple that has yet to fully utilize its powers and connections to establish a firm presence in the gaming industry. The Disney brand has one of the heaviest ownership lineups in the history of entertainment---ranging from animated classics to Marvel to LucasArts to (now) Fox to even the darn Weather Channel. Disney owns the four biggest American box office success stories, and 4 of the 10 films in the all-time worldwide box office. Even crazier, of the 10 highest-grossing movie franchises in history, Disney owns four of them including the top two entries. And despite this, Disney has hardly flexed its muscles to improve the gaming scene.
Two generations of gaming separating Kingdom Hearts 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3 is inexcusable to a point in which it’s baffling. Kingdom Hearts had all the potential to becoming the biggest RPG franchise since Final Fantasy if they had kept up a consistent schedule and done a better job streamlining the franchise entirely. Instead, Kingdom Hearts became a running joke for a decade, and many action RPGs had taken over the gaming market. We had three Smash Brothers games between Kingdom Hearts 2 and 3. But Disney’s lack of focus on this series remains a mystery, considering all the marketing outlets that can be used to propel it into the pop culture stratosphere.
There are four countries with Disney parks, and some of these parks could have used some Kingdom Hearts love to enhance the experience. The Studios parks in Orlando and Paris definitely could have used some KH love---imagine replacing Fantasmic with a Kingdom Hearts show. The Japanese parks waited until nearly two decades since the release of the original to even offer anything Kingdom Hearts themed. Not even the Japanese pavilion at Epcot has a Kingdom Hearts section. And the infamous Disney Quest, oh why oh why didn’t it get a Kingdom Hearts attraction, show, experience, section, restaurant, special event, anything?!?!
Side-Note: This one is a little more farfetched, but boy a Kingdom Hearts theme park just oozes potential, considering nearly every environment involved in the franchise is connected to the Walt Disney plethora of films.
This is not a knock on any of the games, but Disney’s lack of marketing, power, and money towards the series is a misfire on their part. So many universes to explore within the Disney stratosphere, it could have wielded a dozen full-length video games much like what has happened to Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest over the years. Part of Kingdom Hearts’ appeal is the tie-ins to Disney, and the different approaches to familiar movies in the Disney branding.
Of course, all of you can argue that this should be blamed more on Square Enix as opposed to Disney since Square are the developers and publishers. However, if Disney is willing to toss 250 million towards an Avengers movie, then adding 50-100 million to help budget Kingdom Hearts and speed up the process and maybe even improve the game is a very feasible option. Even if Disney has frayed further away from gaming with the removal of Club Penguin, Disney Infinity, and a lack of hustle to strip the Star Wars series from EA’s greedy and quality-killing ways, just simply backing this series alone would have been great for the consumers as well as the investors.
Kingdom Hearts could have been an RPG titan, it could have been one of the biggest names in this current generation of gaming. Instead, the entire franchise has only a quarter of the sales of ONE Grand Theft Auto game (Kingdom Hearts and all the spin-offs sold 25 million total, GTA V has sold over 100 million). This is because despite the fanbase, despite the games being good, and despite Square Enix catching its stride after years of ineptitude, Disney has yet to fully invest and participate towards an IP that could be a game-changer for the parks, their brands, and the industry overall. Kingdom Hearts 3 like I said will sell, but it won’t hit the astronomical numbers of a Zelda, a Final Fantasy, or even a Monster Hunter.
Disney’s potential with all their other IPs is a discussion for another day, but for now let’s celebrate the long, loooong-anticipated third chapter’s release, and ponder what could have been if Disney spent Star Wars money on a group of games that could net them Marvel profits----while continue to cry about Disney Quest’s unnecessary abandonment and death.