One of the most uneasy partnerships in games is the one between publisher EA and Disney. For several years now, since the shuttering of LucasArts games, EA has had an exclusive deal with Disney to make Star Wars console titles. That's all well and good—except for the fact that none of those games have been unmitigated successes and there haven't exactly been a lot of them, either. As a result, many have speculated that Disney's deal with EA might not be long for this world—but apparently the Mouse House is fine with things as they are.
In a recent earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger replied to questions about the company's relationship with EA by saying that the deal works well for both parties. "We've had good relationships with some of those we're licensing to, notably EA and the relationship on the Star Wars properties, and we're probably going to stay on that side of the business and put our capital elsewhere," Iger said. "We're good at making movies and television shows and theme parks and cruise ships and the like, we've just never managed to demonstrate much skill on the publishing side of games." Welp, at least Disney is happy. Because, uh, no one else is.
After taking a few days to think about it, though, I've come around to Iger's way of thinking, and not only because Disney doesn't have a great track record when it comes to video games. EA's problems putting out decent Star Wars games are only one symptom of Disney's larger problem: that their entire strategy for Star Wars has been wrong-headed, basically from the very start.
First, the planned pace of Disney's Star Wars releases appears to have been simply too aggressive. True, the flopping of Solo: A Star Wars Story could easily be partly attributed to the boycott espoused by the Star Wars fandom's most toxic and misogynistic elements, but I don't believe that Star Wars fandom as a whole is that virulently toxic or blindly bigoted. After three lacklustre prequels, two more main story films (both of which received decidedly mixed responses from fans), and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a lot of Star Wars fans were simply suffering from Star Wars fatigue.
Second, disregarding the often-expressed desires of the franchise's existing fan base in order to chase consumers who'd shown little interest in Star Wars up to this point really hasn't expanded the franchise's fandom. It has, however, cost them the support of some of their most ardent former fans, many of whom feel a degree of ownership over their fandom that comes from having kept the flame alive by way of the Expanded Universe, especially since they did so through decades of benign neglect from Lucasfilm. George Lucas' light-ish hand when it comes to the SWEU helped ensure that there continued to be a ton of interest in the property, but it also meant that wrestling back creative control over the franchise's direction was going to pose some unique challenges.
With those two headwinds working against them, and very little by way of tailwinds working in their favour, it really wasn't much of a surprise when Disney announced that all future Star Wars "side story" movies were on hold indefinitely, with only the upcoming Episode IX still a certainty to release. Kathleen Kennedy's position as the head of Lucasfilm is seeming a lot more tenuous than it did just a few years ago, and it's pretty clear that Star Wars, while still potentially a goldmine for Disney, is going to be a much more difficult franchise beast to manage.. making it just one of many franchises struggling with franchise management, with nobody showing any sign of knowing how to replicate Kevin Feige's Marvel-ous success.
So, given that Disney are in the middle of regrouping and retooling their entire Star Wars strategy, it's entirely possible that they truly don't want EA to pump out a whole slew of new videogames that are married to this misfiring version for the franchise. EA's incompetence is likely to spit out only two more games, tops, before their exclusivity deal expires, and that might just suit Disney's strategic needs right down to the ground.
Added to that, there's clearly a need on Disney's part to reassure their own shareholders that the Star Wars franchise is in good hands: specifically, their own. This may be partly why Kathleen Kennedy continues to have Bob Iger issuing supportive statements even as her upcoming slate of projects gets trimmed back severly, and as her second-in-command gets demoted from Vice President of Lucasfilm to "a consultant for Lucasfilm." Not only would admitting that Star Wars has been poorly handled likely not help calm shareholder fears, but there's very little that Iger can actually do about either Kennedy or EA at this point: nobody else wants Kennedy's job right now, and there's no clear next option to replace EA, either, with many of the studios that had previously made well-received Star Wars video games having been acquired over the years by EA.
Since breaking EA's contract would likely cost Disney a significant chunk of change, too, there's simply no reason for them to seize control of the Star Wars franchise's video game destiny right now. They can afford to wait, reap whatever trickle of residual income they're owed as part of the EA deal, figure out how to do it all better, next time around... and then cut EA loose. It's not great for fans of Star Wars, who can look forward to many more dry years without any decent Star Wars games to play, but it makes a kind of business sense for Disney. Sticking with EA may not be a good option, but it's the best of the bad options that Disney is currently staring at.
The long-term risk, of course, is that Disney's present-day benign neglect may irrevocably damage the Star Wars franchise for the foreseeable future. I don't know what post-IX strategy Disney will ultimately settle on, but after Lucas's poor prequels and years of fan frustration with Disney's even more heavy-handed stewardship of the property, their new approach is going to have to be something pretty special to win back the trust and goodwill of Star Wars' fans.
One thing they could do, of course, is start all over again... literally. Re-releasing a Blu-Ray boxed set of the original theatrical release versions of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi might just remind Star Wars fans of the entire reason why they became fans in the first place. Just saying, Disney, if you do that, you'll get at least this fan's money for it, whatever it costs.