Take the toys away, and the game part of Skylanders never would have made a dent when it debuted in 2011. It used a static overhead camera and simplistic levels with uncomplicated combat, and some very minor puzzles and platforming. Subsequent games improved on this, the peak probably being Swap Force, which greatly improved the visuals, storytelling, and gameplay variety. Even still, without the toys, no one would have given it a second glance among youth-oriented competitors like The Legend of Zelda, Fable, or even Bastion.
Instead, Skylanders as a series relies on "good enough" gameplay, the sort you might find in a decent movie tie-in, which they've ducktaped to a gimmick that then becomes the main selling point. The novelty of collecting colorful figurines with fun sculpts and designs, and being able to bring them to life in a video game that will make them stronger the more they're used is enough to make many child and adult collectors turn into excited puppies with bladder control issues.
It's a potent combination, and one that publisher Activision has done well to capitalize on. Employing their signature annualization model with their vast financial resources, they've created yearly installments while flooding the shelves with new characters and variants on a constant basis. The series has seen steady popularity due to the introduction of new gimmicks and ideas, keeping things fresh while keeping fans hungry.
And the series has retained its value for consumers due to one very important decision: All figures can be used in all subsequent games. This has kept franchise fatigue at bay by allowing collectors to import their toys from previous games into the next one, continuing to play with their favorites while feeling excited, not obligated, to buy the new ones. Thus each new entry feels like it's adding to the experience rather than replacing it, and avoiding the sense of artificial obsolescence.
Even in cases where a character is reissued, they're not inherently more powerful than the older one, though they might receive a powerful or interesting new ability. So it goes for every new introduction. Their appeal for players isn't in getting stronger fighters. All Skylanders are (loosely) balanced with each other even across generations. Rather, their appeal is in the creativity of their designs. All characters have completely unique movesets from one another, and part of the fun is discovering what they are and how they work. In some cases a character might be fun because of the strategy needed to best utilize them. Other times a Skylander might be a little weak, but their moves are wacky and amusing in some way.
It's these choices that keep collectors interested in Skylanders, and it's in most of these areas where competitors will usually suck a fat dick. Disney Infinity was supposed to be the first major push to compete in the toys-to-life market, taking all the beloved characters from Disney's nearly 100 year history out their disparate universes and turning them into a nearly endless (infinite?) suite of toys and environments. In the end, the toys were about the only thing they got right.
The problem started from the very inception. These characters were loved...but in their own stories. Take them out of those stories and the thing that makes them tick begins to disintegrate. While Activision can create hundreds of characters for a single universe, all of them combatants and all of them fighting together, Disney has to create artificial barriers to stop all the dissonance from turning into madness. Certain characters can't play in certain playsets, which makes sense as you probably couldn't imagine Cinderella in New York helping the Avengers battle Loki. But it also means Infinity ends up fracturing into a bunch of smaller games inside of one big game-verse with very little consistency or unity.
These playsets also aren't often fun. They're usually shallow, repetitive, uninspired, and dull. It's like minigames that happen to work with toys, only those toys won't work with their own minigame unless you buy a character pack that contains the playset token. Very often you might buy a character that you can't do anything with, aside from the Toy Box. In my limited experience, downloading and playing Toy Box creations shared by the developers or other players ended up with a myriad of glitches and problems. Even still those adventures weren't even as interesting as the playsets, and creating your own little world with streets and buildings and decorations is out of the question without an insane amount of free time and patience.
So most likely you'll only look at Infinity to collect the figures and put them on a shelf. Same with Amiibo, which may work with a handful of games but usually only to unlock extras, often without even saving data to the figure. Without a compelling core game experience to drive the "life" aspect of the toys-to-life product, your only entertainment is making a mad-grab to find the colorful hunks of familiar-looking plastic. Something considered a rare feat with certain Amiibo characters.
With all other companies either failing to capitalize on demand for their figures with more supply, and more ways to utilize them in the digital space, Skylanders in all its deceptive simplicity has largely remained untouched in its four years on the market. All we need is another developer with a suitable track record making a game for a rich IP with tons of usable characters.
Aaaand suddenly there's Travelers' Tales with Lego Dimensions. It's a studio that's had more than its fair share of creating fun "good enough" adventures among a crazy amount of franchises within the blocky lens of the Lego aesthetic. Since its reveal, many properties not owned by Disney and their subsidiaries (Back to the Future!) have been announced with characters, vehicles, and Level Packs. Aside from maybe Ubisoft (shudder) it's hard to imagine a more qualified contender in a largely monopolized battlefield. While it's important to remain reserved in judgement until it's in the hands of normal people, they're launching with a massive offering out of the gate, and it's hard not to get excited at the ridiculous potential.
Skylanders found a nerve with their unique recipe. Its ingredients seem basic on the outside, and easy to pinpoint. The magic however, is in the execution, and it's a shaky skill no other company, even the most well-endowed, have been able to master. Maybe that's pathetic, or maybe it's just a testament to the substance behind Skylanders' genius. Create a toy with an NFC chip, make a game around it using a standard adventure formula, save relevant data on said toy and try not to make decisions that screw people over. It's beautiful in its simplicity, and it makes an assload of money. It's about time someone else figures out the recipe too.
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