Jam City and Disney Announce Multi-Year Mobile Games Development Partnership
Jam City has announced a multi-year mobile games development partnership with Disney that includes Jam City taking over Disney’s popular mobile game, Disney Emoji Blitz.
Members of Disney’s Glendale Games Studio will join Jam City and continue to operate and grow Disney Emoji Blitz as part of the Jam City team. Jam City will also have the right to develop new mobile games based on iconic characters and stories from Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. The first game Jam City and Disney plan to develop is a mobile game based on Disney Animation’s Frozen sequel.
“Jam City is proud to be teaming with Disney,” said Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and CEO of Jam City. “Disney is the world’s leader in beloved characters and brands that have engaged generations of fans for decades. Jam City’s leadership in mobile entertainment based on iconic entertainment IP, makes our company an ideal partner to develop a lineup of new mobile games with Disney’s most popular franchises.”
“While our licensing business for Disney Animation and Pixar games has grown over the last year and we have several top developers creating Disney games, this deal with Jam City represents a significant long-term opportunity for our games business and for the future slate of Disney and Pixar games,” said Kyle Laughlin, Senior Vice President of Games and Interactive Experiences at Disney. “We can’t wait to see how Jam City and the incredibly talented team behind Disney Emoji Blitz will grow the already successful game and franchise, and how Jam City will bring their global reach and expertise in developing successful, enduring mobile games to the upcoming titles.”
Through Disney Emoji Blitz, players collect and match hundreds of Disney Animation, Pixar and Star Wars emojis. The game’s players also earn prizes, complete missions, and discover new emoji characters from Disney Animation’s Wreck-It Ralph, Mickey Mouse & Friends, Disney Villains, Pixar’s Toy Story and more. Disney Emoji Blitz engages users by combining a unique match-3 blitz game with a deep emoji collection mechanic.
Disney Emoji Blitz is currently available on the App Store and Google Play. Other free-to-play mobile titles developed under the Jam City and Disney agreement will be available worldwide on the App Store and Google Play.
Jam City already has a number of other titles including Avengers Academy plus many games based on Fox animated series including Family Guy and Futurama, so this move will bring together a lot of Disney’s franchises into one company.
A couple of years ago, Disney changed its strategy for how it produced video games, cancelling titles like Disney Infinity, removing a wide selection of mobile games from the market and outsourcing as many titles as possible to other companies.
What do you think of Jam City taking over Disney’s mobile games?