News Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom closing Jan 24th 2021

[jeanericuser001]

Tron really has nothing to do with SOTMK, and if not for the pandemic we'd likely have both this year.

That is wishful thinking. That is the same wishful thinking that some people have about many small attractions that fade away but alas over time things change. Disney was already spending a bloody fortune even before covid and as part of those improvements they were going to need to make some changes. Besides SOTMK was likely never meant to be a permenent attraction. Its similar to the kim possible game over at epcot. That also went belly up as have many other things. If they were to be permanent then much more resources would have been dedicated to that. Tron on the other hand is a major dedicated effort costing a massive sum to build and will undoubtably be at the park for decades while SOTMK will be just a distant forgotten memory of a lost mini attraction like the console game section of innoventions or the communicore before that. Small attractions like this come and go all the time. Who knows, maybe in the new play center at epcot they may have a new version of it there with a different design element. For now is just a relic that will happily reside in the warm memories of some just like the upstairs area of journey to imagination. As for those complaining about disney having unlimited resources, that is alas not true. Disney doesn't have unlimited resources. They don't have unlimited space. They don't have unlimited bandwidth for internet communication. They don't have unlimited funds. They don't have unlimited employee resources. Everything to some extent is budgeted and some times in order to make improvements in one place they often end up sacrificing something else. SOTMK was not exactly a simple free game using no resources. It needed technicians. It needed regular maintenance of its tech. It needed all these other little things that may not seem like much but when you add them all together it actually becomes costly. When something is no longer worth the profit expenditure disney will often close it down. You should honestly feel lucky it lasted as long as it did. I have seen mini attractions at innoventions that went under faster than that game did. Disney has need for new resources and this will just have to be one of those "necessary" sacrifices that will have to be made so new attractions can be brought in as replacements.

 

[thomas998]

That is wishful thinking. That is the same wishful thinking that some people have about many small attractions that fade away but alas over time things change. Disney was already spending a bloody fortune even before covid and as part of those improvements they were going to need to make some changes. Besides SOTMK was likely never meant to be a permenent attraction. Its similar to the kim possible game over at epcot. That also went belly up as have many other things. If they were to be permanent then much more resources would have been dedicated to that. Tron on the other hand is a major dedicated effort costing a massive sum to build and will undoubtably be at the park for decades while SOTMK will be just a distant forgotten memory of a lost mini attraction like the console game section of innoventions or the communicore before that. Small attractions like this come and go all the time. Who knows, maybe in the new play center at epcot they may have a new version of it there with a different design element. For now is just a relic that will happily reside in the warm memories of some just like the upstairs area of journey to imagination. As for those complaining about disney having unlimited resources, that is alas not true. Disney doesn't have unlimited resources. They don't have unlimited space. They don't have unlimited bandwidth for internet communication. They don't have unlimited funds. They don't have unlimited employee resources. Everything to some extent is budgeted and some times in order to make improvements in one place they often end up sacrificing something else. SOTMK was not exactly a simple free game using no resources. It needed technicians. It needed regular maintenance of its tech. It needed all these other little things that may not seem like much but when you add them all together it actually becomes costly. When something is no longer worth the profit expenditure disney will often close it down. You should honestly feel lucky it lasted as long as it did. I have seen mini attractions at innoventions that went under faster than that game did. Disney has need for new resources and this will just have to be one of those "necessary" sacrifices that will have to be made so new attractions can be brought in as replacements.

Considering all the hardware wad installed for it and all that was really required wad having 2 or 3 castmembers to pass out cards this was not costing them much as they rarely made any changes to it. I suspect it had more to do with covid crap than anything else. If popularity of an attraction versus the cost of operation was what really mattered then things like people mover would have been yanked out long ago.

 

[uncle jimmy]

Considering all the hardware wad installed for it and all that was really required wad having 2 or 3 castmembers to pass out cards this was not costing them much as they rarely made any changes to it. I suspect it had more to do with covid crap than anything else. If popularity of an attraction versus the cost of operation was what really mattered then things like people mover would have been yanked out long ago.

The game was created for those who visit MK often or with the 16 month active player time limit(I believe thats what it was). Last time we were there we played for 3 hours and had to wait while others were playing. Which I was surprise by the fan-base that had people meeting up to play the game.
I could see them moving the cards & screens to mobile devices, but have the hidden touch-points throughout the park(s) still.

 

[nickys]

The game was created for those who visit MK often or with the 16 month active player time limit(I believe thats what it was). Last time we were there we played for 3 hours and had to wait while others were playing. Which I was surprise by the fan-base that had people meeting up to play the game.
I could see them moving the cards & screens to mobile devices, but have the hidden touch-points throughout the park(s) still.

They’ve started removing the portals though.

And someone posted here that it’s the maintenance of the game itself that’s the issue, not sure what it’s written in but I believe the designer has moved on.

 

[thomas998]

They’ve started removing the portals though.

And someone posted here that it’s the maintenance of the game itself that’s the issue, not sure what it’s written in but I believe the designer has moved on.

Good chance it was not even the original designer when it was at MK. The first version of it was at DL which was moved and changed a bit when it was pulled out of DL where because of that parks local nature would have a very short lifespan.

 

[JoeCamel]

Good chance it wad not even the original designer when it wad at MK. The first version of it was at DL which was moved and changed a bit when it wad pulled out of DL where because of that parks local nature would have a very short lifespan.

HIs name was Jonathan Ackley

Jonathan Ackley - MobyGames

A long-time game developer, Jonathan has worked as producer, designer, research consultant and programmer. At LucasArts, his game "The Curse of Monkey Island" was a best-seller and won many industry awards. He then worked at Lego Mindstorms, writing...

www.mobygames.com