As I mentioned in the last post, with Disney Interactive Studio's upcoming Epic Mickey game, they seem to be capitalizing on the retro trend by redesigning the iconic mouse to more closely resemble his Steamboat Willie roots with longer, more slender limbs.
The idea is to bring Mickey up to a more current market and new generation of texting and tech savvy kids, and "create more relevancy for Mickey and pull him into the fastest-growing entertainment medium." In the new video game, the player can choose to play on the straight and narrow, or "you can misbehave and even be a little selfish," according to developer Warren Spector. Developers want to emphasize the fact that Mickey can be more wickedly playful, just like his debut as "the Bart Simpson of his time." He is "adventurous, enthusiastic and curious."
The new design is meant to improve domestic sales since apparently only 20% of Mickey's $5 billion for 2009 coming from the U.S. isn't enough. As part of this revamp for Epic Mickey, Disney plans to monitor its response, and based on that "rethink the character’s personality, from the way Mickey walks and talks to the way he appears on the Disney Channel and how children interact with him on the Web — even what his house looks like at Disney World" (which I guess will be written into the Magic Kingdom expansion).
Personally, it really saddens me and I'm kind of offended that Disney doesn't care about it's core customers and older audiences, dismissing the alienation as "it’s a risk they have to take" in favor of generating more profits. And what does it say about kids today and our society when to make a character more appealing you have to make him more wicked?
Get ready because the sweet, rounded Mickey you know may soon become obsolete.
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