The recently released Disney Infinity 3.0 is all about Star Wars, and a beloved female character, Ahsoka Tano, is part of the starter set.
That’s because half the players of Disney Infinity are girls.
John Vignocchi, vice president of production at Disney Interactive Studios disclosed this fact in an interview with The Wall Street Journal about Disney Infinity and the importance of its success to the long-term fate of Disney’s video game publishing arm. Disney Interactive expected to see a 70-30 split between boys and girls when it conducted demographic research into the Disney Infinity audience. Instead, the audience is much more evenly matched. The company’s reaction in giving Ahsoka such a prominent place is great news to female Star Wars fans who have often felt left out when it comes to merchandise for the franchise.
Disney Infinity 3.0 is the third incarnation of Disney’s entry in the toys-plus-video-game craze that’s making gobs of money for game publishers. You take figurines and put them onto a base that reads a chip inside the toy to unlock content in the game.
Naturally, to get all of the game’s content, you need all of the figurines, hence the wild sales numbers for games like Skylanders and Disney Infinity, and why Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is jumping on board with Lego Dimensions, which will be released on Sept. 27.
Disney Infinity 1.0 focused on Disney cartoon characters. Version 2.0 incorporated characters from Disney’s Marvel Comics empire. Version 3.0 includes characters from Pixar films but is themed heavily toward the Star Wars universe.
Ahsoka Tano factored large in the animated series Clone Wars as a Jedi padawan under the tutelage of Anakin Skywalker, and made her exit shortly before the series finale. Ahsoka returned to the Star Wars universe as a character in Disney’s Star Wars Rebels animated series, which takes place five years before Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
Disney Infinity is popular among different age groups but is arguably intended for younger audiences, which makes it a formative experience. An audience on core consoles split down the middle by gender as children could translate in a few years to an adult audience that is as equally represented.
Illustration via Disney Interactive
