What Killed the Where's My Water Franchise?

Disney is a pretty popular company since its founding in 1923 by two dead people it's gone on to become one of the most recognizable companies of the modern world within the top 50 depending on who you ask whether it's because of their theme parks their streaming service original IPS or the multitudes of assets they own it's obvious to see that Disney isn't afraid to experiment with new ideas especially when those ideas can make a lot of money but while Disney doesn't need an introduction what might is Disney Interactive being established as a new subsidiary in 1995 its purpose was to publish all computer games tied to the brand you'd know these guys if you've ever played Disney Infinity or most of the older tie-in games this was a pretty successful Endeavor leading to a new division to open in the year 2000 when they decided to create a branch specifically working on apps and games for mobile phones on a completely unrelated note whereas my water was developed by creature feet a development team under Disney mobile which once again is a division of Disney Interactive which is a subsidiary of Disney can you tell that this company is a little big the team started out by making a sequel to 2008's jelly car a game made by another section of Disney mobile the sequel was straightforwardly called jelly car 2. and it played like your standard mid to late 2000s App Store game probably to warm up the team before moving on to its next more original Endeavor that being the first where's my water game released in 2011. at this point the landscape of mobile games had changed the scope went from simple replayable games to more thought out level based experiences the game follows a format that's both original yet familiar very much aligned with the other games from this time period it takes some aspects from both Angry Birds and cut the rope and uses them to be original but not too avant-garde the level system using stars for replayability was modified and turned into rubber ducks you can collect to progress to new levels the gameplay loop as a whole reminds me a lot of Cut the Rope as well they're both puzzle games they both follow a similar formula of a basic goal that needs to be required as well as optional additional challenges where you have to think about what level designers were thinking while choosing the layout of the extra Collectibles While most people have only ever played the first game there were actually a number of follow-ups including a full Sequel and several spin-offs Where's my water quickly rose up to the competition having both a paid version and a free version to play with ads with this newly found yet probably expected success creature fee quickly got to work on the next game the very next year June 2012 they released a spin-off called where's my Parry this is a pretty simple skin using the classic character from Phineas and Ferb it has you needing to get steam or water to Parry so we can power an elevator to get to his next mission it's clear the developers had a lot of fun with the idea of using steam as in May of the next year new levels were added to the base game with that exact same mechanic where you get to use steam to make this new character Ally be able to play her organ when it comes to adding in new content the Where's My Water games tend to prefer updating its older games with newer levels rather than making entire new games this happened with another one of its follow-ups Where's my holiday released in December of 2012.

this spin-off used assets from both Where's my water and Where's My Perry giving assets from both games a holiday theme however it was updated with its name changed to where's my Valentine in February the next year changing the assets around again before the game stopped receiving any updates and was eventually delisted in July 22 16 but this isn't to be confused with where's my summer released in May of 2013 this one was a Where's My Perry spin-off involving the same Where's My Perry gameplay Loop but this time with water as the main focus and you get neat new levels like Sandcastle keep in mind this was a completely different game from Where's my holiday and where's my Valentine so it's weird to see what qualifies as a new game rather than an update unfortunately you can't get the game from the app store today since it was delisted in August 2014. a month later they released where's my Mickey taking their iconic mascot and using it in the format of a Where's My Water game unlike Where's My Perry where's my Mickey is actually a completely new and original installment in the series using clouds wind and other weather to get Mickey as water so he could run a lemonade stand it even has a new art style I'm sure making a game around the mascot of your boss's boss's boss's company would be a serious deal for creature feed so in makes sense that they ensured to give the game as much attention as possible strangely enough though this game was also delisted a few months later September 2013 saw the release of Where's My Water too which is kinda funny since this isn't the second game much like other classic mobile series like Angry Birds Cut the Rope and Temple Run the official sequel isn't the second game released once again it seems they borrowed the strategy from leading figures quickly making reskins and spin-offs to tie people over before the higher effort product then in April of 2014 we got Where's My Water featuring xyy which is another spin-off and the global release version of where's my ji Yang Yang which has popular Chinese characters Yang Yang in his own version of the game this game reminds me heavily of PVZ2 Chinese because it looks cheap as also it was closed three months after its release so it's not like it matters anyways ah so I feel at this point you're starting to think about how many Where's My Water games there actually are and it's actually pretty crazy from 2012 to 2014 we saw the release of seven full-blown games as well as several major rebrandings and updates some of which even completely redoing the levels and Aesthetics of the game not to mention that most wears My Water games had two versions a paid and free release you'll want to know how many of these games are still available today two of them where's my water and where's my water too every other installment of the series including all the Where's My Perry games have been removed from all official app stores leaving apks as the only way to access them today do you want to see how many Where's My Water games were released since then so as it appears there was a Non-Stop development on this franchise for years with several different groups involved until the games just stopped the last game creature feat released was inside out thought bubbles a generic bubble popping game kinda like the ones you'd see on Facebook why does this happen every time it's like the first course of action when an original mobile game company starts going downhill they just make a bubble popping game so what killed Where's My Water Well I think the answer is fairly obvious by now there hasn't been a game in years but that's not when the game started losing traction Disney is a smart company and the last thing they want to do is make games that won't be profitable mobile games tend to make a lot of money especially in the short term but the truth of the matter is that Where's My Water just isn't the kind of game designed for long-term relevance and that's perfectly fine much like supercell if the smaller company goes down it's still carrying virtually no risk since it's owned by a much larger company millions of dollars is chump change compared to the hundreds of billions the company owns in assets so when the money starts to go towards a different thing and that's what happens in an industry as fast as the mobile gaming Market that's where the focus goes Where's My Water was never integral to Disney's success the same way Angry Birds as to Rovio or Cut the Ropes to zepto lab so it only makes sense that they wouldn't be so concerned with keeping it around but I do think there's a pretty easy way they could have made it stick around for just a bit longer when it was still being played the most a Mario Maker style level editor could go a long way in adding some more replayability games like Geometry Dash have only benefited from having more creative expression from players with its most technical achievements only being found in custom levels I will say Where's my water has a lot less open-endedness and variety meaning that eventually the same gameplay Loop would get boring regardless of having an infinite number of levels but I think it would have at least kept people playing for a little longer at this point I think the likelihood of a new Where's My Water game is pretty much Zero To None while they still carry the rights to the series The Game hasn't gotten any new releases in many years with a lot of the older games getting de-listed over time it really seems like someone at Disney Interactive Disney mobile or even creature fee were really eager to capitalize on this trend as much as possible before its inevitable collapse also important to mention Disney Interactive as a whole was shut down in May of 2016.