Disney Announces Unholy Video Game/Trading Card Hybrid, World Cringes
Disney's upcoming handheld game, Spectrobes, will not only feature Pokemon-esque gameplay, but will also make use of physical trading cards to unlock in-game content. Spectrobes, which is due out for the DS in March, will use the codes on the game's corresponding trading cards to unlock all sorts of content within the game:
The game features two junior Planetary Patrol officers named Rallen and Jeena who must save the galaxy by awakening, training and collecting prehistoric creatures called Spectrobes. These creatures hold the key to defeating merciless enemies known as the Krawl. Spectrobes fully utilizes aspects of the Nintendo DS, such as its revolutionary touch screen and microphone, through creative gameplay that includes excavating and awakening dormant creatures with the stylus and voice commands.Included in each Spectrobes game is a pack of four translucent lenticular code input cards, perfect for collecting and trading. Once players unlock the special ability in the game, they can fit a code input card over the Nintendo DS touch screen and use the stylus to consecutively tap numerical holes in the cards, unlocking new content, which includes creatures and minerals. Along with inclusion in game packages, additional trading cards will be available after the game’s release.
This isn't the first time Disney's done something like this with a game, though: Virtual Magic Kingdom, a kid-friendly MMO designed by Imagineers to get players to explore Disneyland in both a physical and virtual sense, utilized free trading-cards in order to unlock extra content which players could place within their own in-game domiciles. In VMK, it was actually successful at getting people to interact with each other, trade information, and added an entirely new level of fun to the game. Let's hope the same amount of entertainment gets carried over here.
Buena Vista Press Release [Business Wire]
Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 25 January 2007
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: buena vista, disneyland, nintendo ds, Spectrobes, trading cards, virtual magic kingdom, walt disney
I think the idea is cute, but what's to stop someone from making a copy of the cards and posting them on the web for anyone to download and print?
From what it sounds like, anyone with a printer could download a copy (or bitmap look-alike) of a rare card, print it, cut it out of regular printer paper, punch holes and use it like a regular trading card...
Not that it wouldn't be "illegal"... but I couldn't buy a game where I would have to pay for additional content... sounds like that controversial aspect of XBox Live... I forget what it was called though...
Microtransations?
They were having the problem at VMK of people selling the cards on ebay where the code was already used (and was useless). I am not quite sure how (or if) they resolved it, but they have to have some idea up their sleeve.
I just remember one of the castmembers at the VMK booth in Disneyland telling me that. Sadness.