PUXELS OR MAGIC
THE RISE OF DISNEP GAMES THROUGH THE EIGHTIES AND NINETIES
IN THE EIGHTIES, DISNEY GAMES WERE ALL ABOUT SMALL EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES AIMED AT CHILDREN. TEN YEARS LATER, GAMERS OF ALL AGES WERE IN AWE OF DISNEY GAMES’ STATE-OF-THE-ART SOUND, GRAPHICS AND GAMEPLAY. SO HOW DID DISNEY PROGRESS FROM SMALL PRODUCTIONS TO AAA GAMES?
WORD BY DAMIANNQ GERLI
DAVID MULLICH
■ David joined The Walt Disney Company as its first software producer in 1987, creating several titles based upon Disney films, tv shows and characters. Later, he also produced games such as Darkseed 2 and Heroes Of Might & Magic. Today he works as a consultant for aspiring game developers.
Today, it would be easy to think that Disney videogames have been around since the dawn of home computers. Can one even imagine a time without games starring Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck? But even a huge, universally recognised company like Walt Disney had to start from scratch when it came time to approaching the world of gaming.
Its first titles were a series of simple educational games aimed at kids, developed by Sierra On-Line for home computers. While Sierra CEO Ken Williams does not recall these first experiences with Disney as particularly pleasant in his book about his years at Sierra, he was again approached for a game for the 1985 movie The Black Cauldron. He convinced his wife Roberta Williams to work on it, since this way they could also speed up the development of AGI, the new adventure designer that was going to be used for King’s Quest.
“ONE OF THE QUESTIONS I GOT AT THE DISNEY JOB INTERVIEW WAS IF I COULD NAME ALL SEVEN DWARVES. AND I DID!”
DAVID MULLICH
The first ideas by Sierra were almost all rejected by Disney, as the company did not like to include “things that didn’t happen in the movie,” such as the character dying. The executives seemed not to understand the difference between a film and a videogame. Roberta Williams mentions threatening to leave the project until her husband stepped in. In the end, Disney was convinced and let Sierra do its thing. Ken Williams concludes in his book that the movie bombed, but the game was a huge success for them.
Since Disney wanted to continue working with third-party developers, it needed more experience in the gaming sphere. “Disney was looking for a software development specialist,” recalls David Mullich. “I had been a longtime fan, ever since Mary Poppins. I remember one of the interview questions, from the vice president, was actually if I could name all seven dwarves. I did!”
David was the first to join the company with videogame experience, as he mentions that everyone else at Disney came from an educational background. It seemed Disney was learning from past troubles, as David recalls being at GDC and meeting “Someone who had worked with Disney on a cancelled Dumbo game, he told me he argued with them non-stop because the colour of the elephant wasn’t right. Of course it wasn’t his fault, those were the only colours he could work with!”
PATRICK GILMORE
■ Patrick began his gaming career in 1989 at the Walt Disney Company, where he built the first internal game teams, working on such original projects as Maui Mallard In Cold Shadow and Gargoyles. Today, Patrick is vice president of studios for Foundation 9 Entertainment.