Disney has always been stingy with its holdings, but that may change with its new plans for gaming. At the [2020 DICE Summit, Sean Shoptow, Disney's senior vice president of games and interactive experiences, said he wants to "empower [developers] to do really unique things" with Disney's vast assets. He encouraged developers to "come and play" with the Disney franchise in his DICE talk.

This new approach is inspired by recent notable successes with Disney properties: Insomniac's "Spider-Man" and "Jedi": in particular, Shoptaw said he wants games that "reimagine" Disney properties in new ways.

Disney moved away from direct production of its own games in 2016 with the closure of Disney Interactive Studios and the demise of Disney Infinity.

Since then, it has had some success in the mobile space ("Disney Heroes" is very good for all its gumshoe-ness), but has lent its most successful properties to other companies; since the closure of LucasArts in 2013, EA has had Star Wars games exclusively, and has had success with games like "Star Wars: The Old Republic" and "Jedi": it has also suffered major setbacks, such as "Battlefront 2."

The old approach of largely controlling games with Disney stories and characters has also caused friction with Square Enix, thanks to the Kingdom Hearts series. In an interview with USGamer, Tetsuya Nomura, head of the series, said that "it's getting harder and harder to get approval from Disney," especially in the way they use recent movies like "Anna and the Snow Queen" and "Tangled" in their games.

And Marvel vs. Capcom. Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, its latest installment, was widely criticized for featuring only Marvel characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe; many of the series' main characters, such as the X-Men, did not appear at all, leading to accusations of meddling from Disney.

Given that, this new way of working with developers could produce some very interesting results. When Disney has loosened its grip on games in the past, the results have been fantastic. Monolith's "Tron 2.0" was an excellent sequel to the series before "Legacy" came along seven years later. The "Epic Mickey" games remain some of the most visually appealing, if not the best games to play. Just recently, the X-Men-filled "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3" was released to mixed reviews.

If Disney loosens the reins on the developers who work with them, great things could happen, and hopefully Shoptaw will actually follow through on his statement and deliver a strange and creative new Disney game soon. My vote is for "Bully," but it takes place in "Monsters University."