Spaceship Earth Post Show

The Disney Blog has some information on the new post-show area coming to Epcot’s Spaceship Earth in the not-to-distant future. Siemens and Walt Disney Imagineering have teamed with students at Carnegie Mellon to develop arcade games to help fill the long abandoned former Global Neighborhood area.

The games are described as being, “a fun and exciting look at how Siemens technologies make our lives better.” From that one line, it would certainly seem to be right up the Epcot purist’s alley, and I would expect the reaction to be positive from most of them. The whole concept of “edu-tainment”, is one that Imagineering is clearly getting away from, and these type of interactive areas have often been the victim of cost cutting measures.

Corporate sponsorship has a long history with the Walt Disney Company. From early is Disneyland’s history, corporate dollars have been involved. If not for these partnerships, Walt may not have made the same history he accomplished during the 1964 New York World’s Fair. But I for one have been happy with the trend away from the sort of in-your-face style commercials that Futureworld was filled with when it opened. I want to experience a Disney attraction, with as few “corporate pitches” as possible. Let’s hope these games are more fun and informative then they are blatant attempts to get me to give my money to the sponsor. Disney lightens my wallet enough as is.
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sounds like a great way to utilize all the stuff left over from when they closed some of the disneyQuests
 
I'm glad they're finally putting something in that space. There is so much wasted (empty) space at Epcot. I think leaving so many empty buildings it is only contributing to the dumbing down of Epcot. :sad2:

With Epcot's educational mission everything should be filled with "edu-tainment" for children young and old.:goodvibes
 


anyone know when they will have the post show area filled? It was empty in januray 2006 when we were there last.
 
We were there last week and it still looks the same. Didn't seem like they were working on anything either.
 


MJM, looks like you've got some bandwidth issues, which I guess makes you both happy and sad.


As for the post-show, I'm glad they are doing something. "Arcade" games sometimes make me nervous because if they are any fun, and one has to hope that these will be fun, then I have visions of having to wait 15 or 20 minutes to try one of them. But that aside, it is a positive that something is happening.

But I for one have been happy with the trend away from the sort of in-your-face style commercials that Futureworld was filled with when it opened. I want to experience a Disney attraction, with as few “corporate pitches” as possible. Let’s hope these games are more fun and informative then they are blatant attempts to get me to give my money to the sponsor. Disney lightens my wallet enough as is.

We'll see how this goes, especially since Siemen's isn't a huge retail brand for individual consumers, but you maybe in a bit of a catch-22. Disney doesn't do a whole lot at Epcot without sponsorship, and if sponsors are going to be contributing big $'s, they are going to want some in your face stuff going on.

I agree with you in principle, but for it to happen, Disney is going to have to be willing to say no to sponsors. Even if it means investing more of their own money. That wasn't an option most of the time for Walt, but today's Disney at least has that choice.
 
Good news for everyone,
Half of the post show is going to open on April 25, we are getting new people to fill the positions in our rotation.
 
OK, let me get this straight....they are going to put a bunch of video games in there? Didn't they already try that in innoventions east and/or west, and the games hardly ever worked because of how badly they were abused by guests?
I don't know, Im not going to be impressed by a bunch of freaking video games, especially when they break down, and they do not bother to fix them. I don't know, I guess I always thought that Disney was above filling unused space with pinball machines...:sad2: :confused3
 
I don't know, I guess I always thought that Disney was above filling unused space with pinball machines...:sad2: :confused3

At Disneyland, They didn't have pinball machines in unused space......They had it smack in the middle of a store.
They had the Indiana Jones Pinball game (one of the absolute best made) in the store across form Temple.

The problem is that pinball, being electro-mechanical takes a lot of TLC to keep in playing condition.

I'd say over the three years I went that they had it, it was reasonably functional on maybe 6 occasions.

They finally gave up.
 
OK, let me get this straight....they are going to put a bunch of video games in there? Didn't they already try that in innoventions east and/or west, and the games hardly ever worked because of how badly they were abused by guests?
I don't know, Im not going to be impressed by a bunch of freaking video games, especially when they break down, and they do not bother to fix them. I don't know, I guess I always thought that Disney was above filling unused space with pinball machines...:sad2: :confused3

I wouldn't necessarily think of these as video games in the usual sense. We're not talking about video games mass produced to try to maximize corporate profit here. If I read it correctly, these are games coming out of one of the top academic programs at a research university in the country (I'd probably rank it #2, after USC's program). The students could end up producing yet another first person shooter, basic puzzle game, or whatever, but I'd be willing to bet that something a lot more intersting will come out of it. At least, there's certainly the potential for much more to come out of it.

That is, there is the potential for getting something truly cutting edge out of this. This may be a chance for the CMU students/researchers to experiment with ideas for game approaches and interaction beyond what you've seen before. Honestly, this is exactly the type of thing I think belongs at Epcot, assuming it gets handled correctly.

There is still the issue (in fact, probably far more so) of things breaking down from use. I also don't expect the games to have the polish and robustness of regular games. But, I think this could turn out to be a really intersting addition.
 

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