Disney Mobile, the maker of Where’s My Water? (plus a bunch of games tied to Disney films), has some big plans for the next couple of weeks, with four updates to existing games and the launch of three new games scheduled for the next week or so.
Bart Decrem, who runs Disney’s mobile division, told me that he’s hoping the mix of updates and new titles will move his team back into Apple’s charts for the top 20 free and paid apps. Thanks to the purchase of new mobile hardware and gift cards, the holidays have always been a period of rapid growth for Disney (and for other app developers). For example, last year the company saw a 421 percent increase in downloads during the peak holiday period from December 20 to January 3, compared to the two weeks prior. But Decrem said this is the first time his team has coordinated such a big holiday push between all of its titles — in previous years, he said, “We just didn’t have the network.”
Here’s what Disney is planning for tomorrow:
- The launch of 40 new levels featuring the character Dr. Doofenschmirtz in Where’s My Perry?, which will cost 99 cents, plus 20 new free levels
- The addition of a new character, King Fergus, to Temple Run Brave, which will cost 500,000 coins
- The addition of a new mini-game, Turbo Time, to Wreck-It-Ralph
- The launch of the second episode of Avengers Initiative, featuring Captain America (the first episode focused on the Hulk)
- The launch of a new game called Monster’s Inc. Run, a side-scrolling game made in partnership with Get Set, the developers of Mega Run (Disney used a similar partnership to create Temple Run Brave)
And here’s what Disney is planning for December 20:
- The launch of a reef-building game called Nemo’s Reef, tying in to the 3D rerelease of Finding Nemo
- The launch of Where’s My Holiday?, a holiday-themed variant on Where’s My Water? and Where’s My Perry?
Decrem also talked shared some stats about the success that Disney has already seen this year. It had five number one games in the App Store: Where’s My Water?, Where’s My Perry?, Temple Run Brave, Tap Tap Revenge: Tour, and Wreck-It Ralph. Where’s My Water? alone has been downloaded 100 million times, and total daily active users across all the games peaked at 6.1 million in November (compared to 1 million in June 2011).
Since I was talking to Decrem, I couldn’t help asking about Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm. After all, Disney CEO Bob Iger has said that the company will be focusing on building mobile and social Star Wars games. However, Decrem said that the acquisition hasn’t closed yet, so there’s no news to discuss, except that he’s excited about working with the Lucasfilm/Lucasarts team.
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