With the recent closure of the Skylanders: Ring of Heros servers on mobile we have to admit it seems like this franchise has reached the end of its life however, now is the perfect time to petition Activision and Toys For Bob which have been newly acquired by Microsoft to revive a much beloved series.

Skylanders was the first of many platforms to use the awesome technology of NFC devices to create a figurine that’s capable of unlocking in game content through the use of a ‘Portal’. This technology was far ahead of its time and shortly after several companies followed suit. This was the start of a new innovative era of gaming. Many gamers also collect figurines so the creation of these ‘toys’ was genius. Each game sequel had its own gimmick with Giants being larger more powerful figures, Swap Force being swappable tops/bottoms to create hundreds of unique combinations, Super Chargers with cars, Trap Team with trap-able villians and Immiginators with custom creations through the use of ‘creation crystals’. 

There has been several attempts to revive this series through petitions however, here’s why this attempt is different: I will be laying out to Microsoft clearly how reviving this series is significantly profitable to them as a company, the outcry for a revival is at an all-time high with the closure of Ring of Heros (mobile spin-off) as well as the uptick in collection of the physical toy figurines becoming popularized again. 

Several platforms that these games were released on have reached the end of their lives as well as becoming rather outdated. Nintendo has announced the closure of online services on the Nintendo 3DS family (3DS, 2DS, 3DS XL, New 3DS, ect) as well as the Wii U. The Wii was from my understanding the franchise first started on has been long discontinued. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are arguably outdated by today’s standards, leaving the only supported systems to be the Xbox One, Playstation 4 and the Nintendo Switch which have very limited releases and are becoming increasingly harder to find as well as their only games playable on these systems are the last couple games. There was never an official release of these games on PC leaving many of them as relics lost to time.

The figurines are still very collectable with many of them now selling for $100-$350+ for a single figure. It would be a shame if many of these figures are left to collect dust or worse end up in a landfill. There is still clearly a market for these Toys to Life style franchise now that Disney Infinity has also stopped producing games leaving a rather large hole in the market space. 

Below are some soft sales number I could find for this franchise to remind Microsoft/Activision how profitable this franchise is/could be for them:

Spryros Adventure (2011): 30 million toys sold by 2012, over $500 million in Sales by 2012

Giants (2012): In the first 2 weeks 500,000 starter packs/portal packs sold, over $195 million in Sales in 2012

Skylanders Creator (2016-2017): Over 1 Million Downloads

Ring of Heros (2018-2022): Over 1 Million Downloads

As of February 2015 the franchise generated over $3 billion in sales and as of 2016 over 300 million toys have been sold making Skylanders the 11th biggest console franchise to date. Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure had become the number one best-selling console and handheld video game title for its era with Skylanders: Giants taking over that title upon its release. 

As fans of the franchise we are asking that Microsoft, Activision, Toys For Bob and other related parties to consider the revival of this franchise so we may again be able to enjoy the series and what it has to offer. 

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:

When Skylanders: Spryo’s Adventure was released in 2011 I was about 14-15 at the time and begged my mother to buy me the game and several figures in order for me and my 7 year old sister to play together. The technology at the time for a child was mind-blowing, here you have these physical figure that magically appear in the game (and later talk to you) each with their own personality. What was even cooler is that you could use one figure, level it up, nickname, give it a hat and go play at a friend’s house with it and it retained all of this information. At the time I had it set in my mind to collect them all because previously Pokemon was my favorite franchise which promoted collecting. Now that I am 25 years old I want to follow up with that goal and collect them all and relive the nostalgia of this awesome franchise, however finding it very difficult to locate games for platforms that I still own. Saddly if you want to enjoy the entire series that can only be down on the Wii platform which lost support roughly 10 years ago now. I am sure that many people share a similar experience where they played the game hours on end or with their siblings bonding over funny pieces in the games or co-operative adventures or even just playing around in the PVP arenas just like me and my sister. I know for certain now that many people have started to collect the figures again looking for that nostalgia boost and unfortunately are in the same position as me and my sister. As someone who never really got into the Spryo’s franchise this was a great starting point to appreciate that series.