Defunctland: The Failure of Disney's Arcade Chain, DisneyQuest
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- čas přidán 3. 09. 2018
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Defunctland discusses the rise and fall of Disney's high-tech, virtual reality arcade, DisneyQuest, located in Walt Disney World's Downtown Disney in Orlando, in Downtown Chicago, and almost in many other places.
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Hey everyone! Hope you liked the video. One correction to sources, "Matt Sonswa" is misspelled. Here is the link to his DisneyQuest urban exploring video: czcams.com/video/zGNc-WxOc48/video.html. Highly recommend checking it out.
I fucking love your Intros. Unique and always fitting. You created something fresh and special with your channel. Thank you!
Nowadays arcades as a whole are a dead breed. Video game consoles and PCs are capable of far better visuals than what were had in 1998 and VR tech has far surpassed what those primitive and very bulky looking headsets with very much the same graphical improvements and much smaller headsets with much higher resolution displays inside them. and gaming visuals have far surpassed what you could get in arcades as well. Those reasons and also the convenience of gaming at home and the less expensive nature that it brings as well cause all those quarters would add up over time. With gaming at home it is still expensive but you can get games as cheap as a dollar in Steam sales that offer more than what you get in an arcade game so nowadays arcades have become a rarity with very few locations across the states in general. Arcades have fallen out of fashion and i think Disney Quest came at a time that arcades were seeing a pretty steep decline so I think bad timing had something to do with the failure of Disney Quest.
Really good video
Keep it up
I mean is it really the same park anymore? Almost everything created during the Eisner Era has been updated or completely replaced and the overall theme of DCA is gone.
Defunctland what's the next video gonna be about. Is it the events if the last 7 years of Michael Eisner as Disney CEO or just about the original Disney California Adventure
I love how 90% of DefunctLand essentially boils down to “One day, Michael Eisner had billions of dollars and a really bad idea”
This one actually seems like a great idea for once lol
@@jsas2047 Right? It actually looks like it was pretty cool!
@@jsas2047 definitely, a lot of these things make me wish I was alive to experience them
well, only 1/10 of all novel company ventures function.
I went to Disney Quest in my teens, and it was hands down one of the coolest experiences I'd ever had. To say I loved it doesn't do it justice, it's so weird to see it described here as a failure. I was so sad when it closed for some basketball gimmick. It, for me at least at a certain age, was Disney's crown jewel.
I love how defunctland is secretly just all about the rise and fall of Michael Eisner
can't talk about failure without him lol
Secretly?
Cant spell failure without Michael 💩 Eisner
Every time I see him I always say "I FUCKIN KNEW IT"
Kevin probably keeps a picture of Micheal Eisner next to him when he goes to sleep and kisses it tonight
“Where’s the exit on this thing?”
This was Disney’s plan all along. Trap Michael Eisner in virtual reality so that his reign of terror over Disney could come to an end.
Man, they were desperate!
@@NoahDaArk I don't blame them
"where's the exit on this thing?"
"Euclid class scp contained, awaiting for furthur orders."
Disney trapped Eisner in the vr world so that the man doesn't do harm to normality
@@ata2485 Can’t wait for Eisner to escape by trapping someone else in there.
@@ata2485 can confirm, DisneyQuest was rigged with a nuke in case of containment breach
DisneyQuest in 2017 still featured the exact same VR magic carpet ride which opened with Quest in 1998. To put that into perspective, we're talking about a 3D VR video game from before the PlayStation 2 was released, available to play in Disney three years after the PlayStation 4 released. Ocarina of Time released in 1998, Breath of the Wild
released in 2017. The gulf in technology is massive, it's really absurd that the attraction stayed open for as long as it did.
It’s especially absurd considering how good Home VR had gotten.
@@PossiblyCat477 That's something we always discussed when we went to Quest. I imagine they could have literally just put a standard home VR setup with a free tech demo (like Valve's The Lab) and it would have been more popular than Magic Carpet.
That's actually awesome, that they kept it the same experience that moved so many in 1998
I visited in 2012 and I thought the VR was pretty damn impressive. But to be fair, I’d never experienced real VR before, so I was easily impressed.
@@KonkeyVG Keep in mind, those consumer VR headsets, and The Lab, only hit the market just in 2016.
So now the grand plan is revealed. What we thought was a series of mini-documentaries about former theme-park attractions is actually one giant documentary about the collapse of a man.
Dylan Sporrer This.......is........DefunctEisner
@@Mr-Wonderful Eisnerland?
Matthew Shields I’d invest in it
Many Disney related episodes of Abandoned series by Bright Sun Films shows how deep people "love" for Eisner is.
Screw the old master plan, the new (and less racist) one is to tarnish Eisner. Everyone get on board!
Note to anyone wanting to start a theme park: don't publish your estimated numbers for opening day.
Truth
Lmao
I'm hoping one day I'll be able to start one. I'll publish my estimated numbers but I'll make it really low so when it opens, the estimated numbers are smashed and people will think I'm a one shot hit
@@kiwikiwi2483 wouldn't small numbers make people think nobody cares about it?
Serrot304 Not tiny numbers, just smaller numbers than what my team and I would genuinely expect
Special note about that NBA place that replaced Disney Quest, it officially closed for good in August 2021, after being temporarily closed for nearly 1.5 years, meaning the attraction was only open a total of 7 months before it bit the dust.
Dang. Do you know what is there now?
@@ilford6x6 yeah nothing. it's an empty building now
Rip bozo
@@chanhjohnnguyen1867 lmao
Good riddance, it was a stupid idea and people were going to Disney quest until the very last day. A little refurb money would've gone a long way
my family was actually lucky enough to have a really special experience at disney quest! it was somewhere in the early 2000s and my family was on our annual trip to Orlando. during one of our days there it was down-pouring all day so my parents having 2 young kids, off to Disney quest we went! We get there and get into the very long line while it downpours on us. As we’re all standing there shivering and wet a cast member is walking down the line asking people how many are in their party “3!” “Ok have a good day” “we have 5!” “Ok thank you have a good day!” Then he came up to my family “you don’t happen to be a group of 4 do you?” and we were. And then this man looked at us and said “how would you like to skip the line, get right inside and test out a new attraction that’s not open yet?”. I think my brother and just about burst with excitement lol. We obviously agreed and next thing we know we were being escorted inside through the whole building and to the area where we’d be trying out a new “4-D simulator pirate game”. We get to the area where the game is and they explain everything we need to know and then we get on this pirate ship looking platform with screens almost completely around us. There are 4 cannons and we each get behind one and start playing! We got to play it probably 3 or 4 times. It was such a cool experience I only wish I was a bit older so I could have appreciated it more! after that they brought us back out to one of the main areas and gave us some stickers, a couple pins, a pass to the front of the jungle cruise ride, and a certificate making us official game testers lol. If you were a kid that loved technology and video games and virtual experiences and got to go to Disney quest you got to experience a really special kind of magic. Thanks Defunctland for making this video and reminding me of the Disney i grew up with- going to downtown Disney walking around and shopping, getting a massive box of candy at goofy’s candy co, having dinner at rainforest cafe, and then while walking over to go see cirque du soleil passing by all kinds of live music, people dancing, vendors selling cool glow sticks and snowcones and toys. it was a really cool time
YES I'VE BEEN REMEMBERING THE PIRATE ONE FOR SO FUCKING LONG. I MISS IT AAAH
I loved that pirate experience so much 😭
@@HotelBedSheets yessss!
That is so amazing, Lindsey! I’m really happy that you got to have that kind of experience! That truly is a once in a lifetime thing!
I remember the pirate ship game scared me lmao
Defunctland: "WHOOOSE THAT COMPANY!?"
Me: "Disney?"
Defunctland: "IT"S DREAMWORKS"
Me: "Damn it"
It's a Jigglypuff, seen from above!
@@jamesthiel2628 Spider-Man: ......Fuck you.
Before you explode commenters that’s a 60’s spider meme,
I agree
I thought it was dicks sporting goods
@@jamesthiel2628 “All The F**k You! This has gone from arbitrary to just Bulls**t.”
-Gar1onriva PokéSins (The Ultimate Test)
There’s a almost indescribable sadness watching a place of entertainment slowly die in front of you and Disney quest is a perfect example of that
It blows my mind that we've had VR technology since the 70s but only recently has it blown up in the consumer market
To be fair it’s been pretty bad for a while
@@nickl2854 true
I mean, we had electro-mechanical computers all the way back in the 1880s, and all electric computers in the 1930s. It takes time for technology to come home, and honestly, VR still feels like it's a bit too expensive for what you get and can do.
The main roadblocks were display technology and rendering capability. It's taken a long time to get a satisfactory resolution picture out of a display small enough to fit in a reasonably lightweight and compact headset, the Aladdin VR headsets were ludicrously massive and heavy compared to the headsets of today, to the point they needed a special support gantry overhead just to stop em breaking your neck from your head falling forward lol. And of course the massive exponential leaps in 3D rendering capability that we've seen over the last 25 years, especially drastic in the jump from the mid 90s to the early 00's. Compare the 3D graphics of 1995's Jumping Flash, which was a landmark for its time, to 1999's Shenmue. Just 4 years between, but the jump in polycount, texture resolution, etc, boggles the mind. I have to admit, the Magic Carpet graphics really were impressive for 1998, I experienced it myself in the late 00's and even with the PS3 generation out, the graphics didn't feel particularly dated and were handily offset by the marvel of experiencing it in head-tracked 3D. The polycount was definitely low compared to contemporary graphics, the texture quality middling, and the lighting was quite rudimentary, but solid texture design, clever use of Baked-shadows (directly applying the shadow as part of the texture to simulate one being cast in absence of a real time shadow renderer, ideal when light sources aren't changing) and so on kept the experience surprisingly immersive. Still, of course, it hardly holds a candle to today's VR experiences like Half Life Alyx, but it was a huge and amazing first step.
It often takes time before any invention/technology is developed enough to scale down and be able to be mass-produced. Once it is, the pace speeds up considerably and the slow progress beforehand seems hard to believe. You see that in pretty much any field you look into. Hey, completely different field, knitting machines were a thing since _the 16th century,_ but they were basically only used for stockings for ages, before other inventions made their use much faster and in the end made them also much more programmable. And look at how we dress now...
I want to believe that this project failed entirely because of that extremely ugly Q.
Hey man just wanted to say love your work and keep it up
Quinton Reviews I wish it could still be in DownTown Disney... by unfortunately it’s gone or will be gone
Irony
Hey man just wanted to say love your work and keep it up
Hey man just wanted to say love you work and keep it up
michael eisner almost single handedly destroyed the world's largest media empire. that's pretty impressive in its own right.
I mean he also helped save it.
And now his successor, Bob Iger, is now almost making the same mistakes.
WhattaDay He saved it, and then he destroyed it.
@@Yeen125 Even worse, shoving purchased IP's into every park instead of naturally introducing them to new lands.
Michael Eisner is basically Emperor Valkorian from Star Wars.
I think another issue was they leaned too hard into being "Cutting edge" with all the VR stuff. It's the Tomorrow land issue all over again. In that every time they installed some brand new game, it was obsolete and dated a year or two later.
At least youre not Six Flags their Justice League ride had PS3 graphics in 2017
Or at least use stylized graphics. Those hold up best over time
Or maybe, just maybe, ditch VR alltogether. It has been brought back from the dead _several_ times, and shows clearly this is NOT the future of gaming. Despite this, some idiots still keep bringin' it up, in hope that people forgot all about the previous failures, thus, becoming another failure themselves.
NO
@@TheLambdaTeam Pretty much, until you drill a hole in your head and get some kind of true insertion tech it's all pointless. There is zero reason to want to play a game with the screen 1 inch from your face.
It's not VR, it's just sitting too close to the TV.
It’s a shame how much of these games/videos are just lost now. I’d totally pay for a collection of all these VR games exactly as they were (just with higher framerates and resolution) on steam for our modern VR headsets.
disney vault
This is an inherent problem with preserving digital art: you can't just take the data and stick it in a newer machine. It would take a lot of legwork to make an experimental, proprietary VR arcade game from 20 years ago work on modern consumer hardware. And even if you do that work, it isn't feasible to recreate the props, unique controllers, moving seats etc., so it's never going to be the full experience.
@@ProjectThunderclaw It would be more than nothing, and it wouldn't be out of the realm for dedicated fans to recreate their own props and set pieces.
Having most of it preserved is better than having none of it preserved.
@@bitwolfy Yeah, never underestimate the power of the online community to get that kind of stuff done at no cost. There is absolutely no shortage of people talented in such things willing to work open source on such projects purely for the love of it and the simple recognition of their efforts.
why is always "umm i want these old games but with higher FPSs and 4k graphics
Michel Eisner is starting to sound more like a Kingdom Hearts villain
He's one beautiful bastard.
Michael Eisnort
Mickey... you’re too late!
Shhh don't spoil KH3...
EISNER WAS NORTED
I didn't realize it before but Michael Eisner is what happens when someone with unbridled influence, spite, and too much money has a series of midlife crises.
nicely described !!
I mean, at least he was willing to take risks.
Granted, some of the greatest attractions Walt oversaw were fueled by a midlife crisis. Monorails and the country bears come to mind. But Walt got lucky because concepts like epcot which would have been disastrous ended up falling through.
For all his faults, eisner, even at his most incompetent, fills me with more confidence in creativity and entertainment than the current company. Then again, im not a shareholder, and I'm not scrutinizing the financial returns of every project, or how best to squeeze more out of people who are going through midlife crisis' of their own, by exploiting nostalgia
Like George Lucas, but slightly less sad and insulting.
So it's what happens when a CEO has a midlife crisis.
It finally happened. The NBA Experience closed down for good. I knew it was going to happen.
People will say it's mainly the pandemic's fault. But in reality, it was such a niche and specific thing. Disney Quest had more mass appeal. They should have updated it instead of closing it down.
Pandemic just gave them a convenient excuse to reevaluate it, They should have never shut down Disney Quest in favor of NBA Experience. Disney Quest could have been even greater if they put even the slightest bit of effort into updating it.
@@NethTech I definitely will make a video about it. You earned a subscription not only because you love Disney Quest, but Donkey Kong Country 3 as well!
The NBA Experience only sounds fun if u get a Slam Dunk Contest simulator or something like that
It wasn't niche, it just appealed to very few people.
@@zvgamingandstuff7633 ...What... do you think... niche means...?
Now I can’t wait for the NBA Experience Defunctland episode. All 6 minutes of its history.
inject them themeparks directly into my brain defuncty
wow im surprised this has 236 likes but no comments
oops i just ruined it
The last time I went to DisneyQuest, my family took my sister there for her birthday in 2013. It was really fun seeing it again after a few years... until I couldn't help but notice how outdated a lot of the games were. Don't get me wrong, they were still plenty of fun, I especially loved Cyberspace Mountain. But one of the shops still sold VHS tapes.
VHS tapes. In 2013
What shop still sold VHS tapes? I'm telling you, it's a portal to 1998!!
Maybe they wanted to be hipsters.
Cyberspace mountain was my all time favorite. I always put so many loops the attendants had to ask if i was sure that i wanted to ride it lol It's really sad that DisneyQuest is gone but im glad i got to visit while i still could.
Personally, I would have taken the VHS taoes. Though only at a discount.
Did you buy one?
Defunctland has taught me that Michael Eisner is the kind of guy to go to a Coca-Cola machine and buy water
Honestly all of these attractions seem really fun, I think I wouldve enjoyed a lot of this as a kid
I know it’s been a while but Hi Pinely! Love your content!
As someone who had experienced it personally, heck yeah it was a blast. The attractions like the raft ride and the pirate ride were my personal favorites. Really wish it got updated instead of axed, I would have loved to see the modernized versions of many attractions
"You control when you return to reality"
Seconds later
"Where's the exit on this thing?"
Michael Eisner: Stuck in VR
Michael Eisner entered the virtual world, but who returned, we were never sure.
He's trapped in the vr zone
X'D Poor guy.
DisneyQuest's true purpose: training simulators so they can send someone to rescue him.
Sept77 maybe they wanted to get rid of him
Oh my god, the amount of attention to detail put into that opening sequence! Seriously this feels like a big budget TV show documentary series sometimes and is just more proof that indies are going to take over the mainstream someday. This is quickly becoming one of my all time favorite CZcams channels.
InFiniTos Honestly this is what kept me to this channel. I work on film and corporate sets, some of the projects I work with on big teams and budgets do not come close to his production quality.
I know! I feel like I need a Netflix subscription or something to watch this!
This is a CZcams series though, not a TV show or even a feature film.
Aw man, reminds me about how even those successful SEGA arcades are in decline in Japan too. Not too many High Tech Lands left now I hear.
No need when most households now have access to cutting edge tech, which is fairly affordable and offers you 100x what a single arcade could each year. These locations made sense when most households didn’t have such easy access to tech like top of the line games consoles and PCs, but in today’s world a place like this just couldn’t keep up with what is already offered at home.
The sad thing about Michael Eisner is that he truly embodies who Walt Disney was: a childlike visionary, well meaning yet very unrealistic thinker who's concept art and ideas are so good yet can't feasibly be created for some unfortunate reason or another that could've been prevented by thinking logically for five minutes.
Except Walt Disney's ideas were actually good, innovative, and conceivable. Michael Eisner is just a mindless idiot trying to play Battleship with the company's mines, and always miss the target.
Y’know the ironic thing is if Roy had died first, Walt probably would’ve ended up the same way. Walt was intelligent, but unrealistic. Roy was the realist who managed the company’s finances and kept Walt from overstepping his limits. For Eisner, Frank Wells played that role not just for him, but for Jeffrey Katzenberg as well. Once Wells died, Eisner’s and Katzenberg’s massive egos had nothing to hold them back. They fought, Eisner kicked out Katzenberg, and with no one to keep him in check, Eisner spun out of control.
The difference in how the Walt story and the Eisner story ended really is an example of “You can either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain”.
i am fascinated by the Michael Eisner lore
+danielleotron Ever try and find the truth?
jacoblgames wdym
It's right up there with the Cthulu Mythos and Starwars Legends
Riot Breaker oh yes
Two words: Lizard.... Person...
Previously on Defuntctland
"A powerful rat, named Charles Entertainment Cheese"
0:44
"They would find a powerful company that starts with a D, DreamWorks"
Love the continuity
....what are you even trying to say?
ugh I think they mean when he said a company that begins D, most people would think of Disney. But, Kevin actually Dreamworks, so some people might find that funny.
Ik_22sports K Yeah? I understood that part from the video. Their comment is what confuses me. What continuity does talking about Chuck E. Cheese in one video and dreamworks in another video bring?
@@---nobody--- I think they probably meant how they were both a sort of bait and switch. Although the first is a weak example. The comment is just poorly written.
Original Name I still can’t forgive Nolan Bushnel for Chuck Entertainment Cheese!
I miss Disney Quest, I took my nephew there and we really had so many excellent memories there. It was the only place in Florida where a video game kid could enjoy his passion.
same here
Tomorrowland Arcade
Now that I think about it, a lot of the interactive and cooperative elements in these attractions have made it into others in the parks (e.g., Toy Story Mania, W.E.B. Slingers, Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run), so it's cool to see that in some way, Disney Quest's vision lives on.
Has anyone else noticed that all the Season 2 Disney epsiodes (from Journey Into Imagination to now) form a complete arc?? It's genius!!!
All according to keikaku...
I can imagine Kevin cheering as someone finally caught on
Can't wait for the time skip
Arc?
Explain the arc. I get the fact that he went from Club Disney to Disneyquest, and the next episode will probably be either ESPN zone or dca’s failure, how do you get from nick hotel to club Disney?
"It's virtual reality! Will real life ever be the same?"
Yep.
You know what my favorite system is the virtual boy
@@ThatGuy64AndTdiBfdi shameful
i had my birthday at downtown disney as a kid just so i could go to disneyquest with my friends. it was the best. i was so upset when it shut down. thanks michael eisner
An interesting thing to note is that Merlin Entertainments has had massive success with indoor LEGOLAND Discovery Centers, which are basically a better and more LEGO themed DisneyQuest with rides and building areas instead of video games. Basically, they made what DisneyQuest should’ve been.
I love that you included the same stock photo of the "numbers guy" in every video where Disney vastly overestimated opening day attendance, your sense of humor and thorough research is so refeshing
The humor's nothing new.
jacoblgames alright lmao who hurt u
+Tabby Bull I should ask you that question since you're clearly projecting. After all, when you've seen as many CZcams channels as I have you see that Defunctland's humor isn't anything new or different.
@@SirBlackReeds still good humour
+acsexton54 More like hit-and-miss thanks to the increased focus on Eisner.
eisner's favorite business tactic: jealousy
is there a video on here that explains more about eisner and why everyone hates him?
eisner's harvey dent. he became his own worse villain.
JEALOUSY
DRIVES YOU MAAAAAAAD
+cmdraftbrn That's inaccurate.
+Naku Chan Eisner's the CEO and that makes him an easy target. The funny thing is that Paul Pressler actually gets less crap even though the worst things you can hear about him dwarf the worst things heard about Eisner.
Me, seeing the trailer for FNAF: Security Breach: "The heck? The U.S. doesn't have malls themed around arcades."
(Watches opening of video)
"....Oh."
Most of the games in this place were not that great, but the ambiance was something magical. It felt like you were walking through Traverse Town from Kingdom Hearts. It was dark with soft lights everywhere, and it was not as loud as you would expect. If they rebooted this with similar decor, modern VR, and even more retro freeplay arcade games, I think it could work. I also remember the pirate ship game being fun, so a remake would probably do well.
The fact that he gets a different editor for each intro is so cool.
The fact this has 554 likes but no replies is weird.
@@josepho3366 true
I'm lowkey disapointed DisenyQuest failed. It looks like it could have been really fun.
It was fun while it lasted. I went in 2006 and they had updated a few things.
I personally loved it!! I'm not sure what year exactly we went, some time in the mid-2000s I imagine (I was 9 turning 10 in 2006 and it was somewhere in that range), but it was one of my favorite things about our Disney trip actually. I loved the make-your-own-roller-coaster thing and I did that a bunch of times in a row--as a roller coaster tycoon aficionado, it was awesome to actually get to feel the rides I was making, and I think that was my absolute favorite part of the arcade.
Also, I could've sworn there was something about trying to land a flight simulator on Mars, but maybe that just wasn't in this video? We did it a bunch of times and I'm not sure we ever managed to safely land on Mars, lol. But I know I still have my CD from the make-your-own song thing somewhere, probably, or at least I saw it at some point when I was cleaning my room a while back. The bumper car dodge ball thing was really cool, too.
And it was such a huge place; I remember leaving and it seemed like there were still so many rides I wanted to try that I hadn't gotten to yet. I remember my mom saying "I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of this place" as we left. But yeah, I loved that place; I was so sad when I heard they were tearing it down. It was the best thing in Downtown Disney to me for sure.
Maybe the Mars ride I'm thinking of was actually the alien fighting game? But I don't really remember fighting aliens so much as trying to land our space ship without crashing...
It was, but as time went on, it was more apparent that Disney wasn't going to invest in it, and that the concept had an expiration date. But man, let me tell you that the time would just fly by when I was there.
I remember going with my family when I was younger and I met two other guys and I made roller coaster rides for them.
At 14:05, I legit had to pause the video when Janet and Jim showed up and call my dad to fact check. I'm from Chicago and did NOT expect it being pulled into the story like this 😂
VR cost was $50K (I guess not adjusted for inflation) and ticket was $5 to enjoy it once.
Now you can have endless VR experience in a comfort of your home for an affordable price of $400.
What a great time to be alive.
The Head of Attendance Calculating at the Walt Disney Company is my favorite Defunctland character
Defunctland is such a dope series. Thank you for making such interesting videos.
Whatttt fit watches these??
2 Micheal Eisners 2 Disneys
Hey Fit
Two Bee Two Tee is the oldest anarchy server in Disney
FIT ?!
disney then: $16 for games
everyone: TOO EXPENSIVE!
disney now: $6999999994354534645635423423545234123 for a star wars hotel
everyone: ❤😍💝😘
The adults who are paying out the ass for stuff like that now are the ones who were kids when disneyquest launched, during the “renaissance,” and they’re raising their own kids now so they’re trying to give them that experience. It’s really all just nostalgia. If it weren’t for the 20-30 year olds who saw lion king in theaters, Disney would not be able to get away with half of what they do now. And eventually we’ll have a Disney recession again, when the upcoming generation who watched more varied kids media starts raising their kids. Part of why Disney is trying so hard to have a media monopoly is to get ahead of this problem. If EVERYTHING is Disney then all kids no matter what their interests are will want their parents to give money to Disney.
Hail No!
I'll take 16 over that stupid price. Frik off! I'm not paying.
"Here's how to draw Mickey Mouse! ...Don't do it anywhere else, though, or we'll sue you."
I will say: this concept could totally work today given Disney’s significant strides in advanced immersive technology
Really Defunctland's VR park basically IS Disneyquest
true!!! i'd love 2 see this in the modern day!
Honestly. If flight of passage was in a DisneyQuest... omfg.
@@mixmastermind huh??
Nope, wouldn't work today in the long run either for the same reasons. To much upfront investment $$ needed with a low ROI. And after a few years most ppl are just "meh, seen it done it, I'll pass".
During this whole video I was like “WHY does this place look so familiar, I know I never went” and then I remembered, one of my old design teachers worked in the design team for Disney quest & showed me all of his original design drawings! So cool
cool omg!!
I have the vaguest familiarity with the Aladdin ride- I think it was made a DVD bonus feature?
So cool!!
Did you have Randy Pausch as a teacher? That would have been awesome
I hope he didn't get in trouble! 😬😅
We were Annual Pass holders to Disneyquest in 2007 & 2008. My kids and I logged hundreds of hours in that place those years (always getting high score on Donkey Kong). It did get old and dated after 2008, so we allowed the passes to expire. It was alot of fun at first.
I'm from Orlando and I actually remember really liking Disney Quest when I was a kid, everyone was sad that it was neglected
DCU = Defunctland Cinematic Universe
So that explains why it's so dark.
Hearing the 8-bit Fantasmic theme at the beginning gave me chills
Seriously. Where did that come from? I want it. I NEED it.
No joke this was pretty awesome.
czcams.com/video/qktIzLhdzoM/video.html I think this is the source...
It's not that one... the percussion is different as is the "instruments" chosen. That one has really annoying sounds for the "bursts" between stanzas.
3D KURLS I WAS GOING TO COMMENT THIS TOO
As a business model I have seen and learned from watching your videos, NEVER OPEN, THINK OF OPENING, OR INVEST in a arcade, theme park, or theme restaurants! 😂
A few months ago I found a Disney Quest backpack at trift store near me for 4$. Needless to say, I snatched it asap! I use it to store my Oculus Quest 2 (ironic I know, especially since VR and shit), but I would have never known about Disney Quest without this video, so I have so say a big thank you for not just giving amazing content but also making me find cool shit. Also the new Fastpass documentary was insane, big ups on that.
Back to the CZcams abyss I go
Between reading Disney War and watching Defunctland, Michael Eisner has become more than a human to me. Now, he is a pure greek tragedy. I have seen the rise, and now, we shall see the fall.
More like a semitic tragedy
I loved Disney Quest as a kid. I can't remember how old I was when I first went, I must have been 10-11. I was terrified of the Aladdin ride for some reason; I screamed and cried so loud the workers had to stop it halfway through. I also didn't realize the make your own coaster was a... make your own coaster. I built the craziest one with loops and twists (I had never been on a fast or upside-down ride in my life at this point as I was too scared), got really confused when they loaded us into the simulator, and proceeded to have one of the scariest experiences of my young life.
Despite all that, I loved it.
Aw, cute 😆
It's always funny to look back on what attractions scared us as kids.
There was an A Bugs Life virtual show in California Adventure that scared the shit out of me when I was little.
It's kinda funny now, but not at the time. 😅
I too freaked out on the Aladdin ride and had to be taken off 😂 it was still awesome
I'll always have a special place in my heart for Disney Quest Chicago, the scene of many birthdays and group outings. Somewhere I'm pretty sure I still have the stickers we printed from the photo booths with a dozen different frame filters - initially free, eventually an additional cost on top of entrance. They also had essentially an internet cafe, which was a blessing to awkward pre-teen me; I def remember sneaking off to get away from the crowd and read fanfic for the allowed 15-minute intervals.
Disney Quest was fun when I went there in 2008. Battle for Buccaneer Gold was easily the most fun.
You've gotta do River Country! It's got everything. Brain-eating bacteria, lawsuits, unsafe water slides... and the lights and music are still running, years after the whole place was abandoned! It's all still there...
James Fitzpatrick
It’s being torn down now, though.
Yes, it's being demolished. The last time I saw it on the boats were last year. It was a great sighting seeing such an unique park.
This place has everything: brain-eating bacteria, lawsuits, dangerous water slides...
Brain-eating bacteria? Fuck. What are they, zombies?
Yuuki Takemoto it’s called Naegleria fowleri, colloquially known as the "brain-eating amoeba", is a species of the genus Naegleria, belonging to the phylum Percolozoa, which is technically not classified as true amoeba, but a shapeshifting amoeboflagellate excavata.
MICHEAL EISNER. GOAT.
(I totally love how Disney Quest was created almost entirely out of spite. This is hilarious.)
I know right? love your videos btw
I fucking love Micheal Eisner. I understand the hate, especially with how much he gutted, and took stupid risk. He was pretty crazy
Exactly. He's such a bizarre individual with some super weird ideas and terrible luck. He did a poor job running Disney, but watching the history of the company in these videos would be far less interesting without him.
Well, DreamWorks is founded on Spite as well.
Wrong, he did a great job running Disney. The people who are charge now are horrible and greedy, shoving every IP into the parks whether they fit or not. They destroyed Epcot and gutted Submarine Voyage.
I was so happy to see that you mentioned Randy Pausch. His Last Lecture book and speech changed my life, and his innovations in computer science were ground-breaking. It's great to see that people still talk about his work and legacy. :)
Man, I wish places like this still existed. Just... places for youngins and teens to hang out safely. Feels like more die every day
Defunctland Season 2: The Story of Michael Eisner’s fall from grace.
I remember going to Disney Quest in Orlando as a kid, it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. Up until I lost my parents and ended up running around the entire building tears streaming from my eyes trying to find them for about 30 minutes.
Happened to me and my cousins as well! What a coincidence...
what happened when you found them ? don't leave us hanging !
Jeff Clarke he never found them
I think I did this too lmaooo
So, I actually have a story from (of all people) my optometrist. His hobby is to build and repare arcade machines. Disney, around the time of Wreck It Ralphs release, asked for a bunch of people to donate donkey Kong arcade cabinets. He, and a whole lot of others, thought they wanted purely donkey Kong cabinets. So, they cleaned them up, made them look nice and pretty, put in new boards and sent it to Disney. What Disney wanted to do with it though, was gut them, get rid of the decals and turn them into Wreck It Ralph cabinets. So they did. He told me that so many people got angry at Disney, they almost sued them.
Man, DisneyQuest was awesome... I think I only went there once or maybe twice but I distinctly remember it being one of the biggest highlights of that trip to Disney World. Of course, I might've been really easily entertained cause I was pretty young...
My wife was part of the opening team at DisneyQuest. Two things of interest: 1. the slide was closed because people kept hurting their ankles on the hard landing. I am not sure that there were any broken ankles, but the pains it caused alone were bad enough. 2. The original Ride The Comix concept was supposed to feature Disney Villains. The only reason that I know this is because one of the training manuals that she was given has a concept painting of the Villains in place of the final poster which had newly created bad guys for the ride. It's a fun "What if?" kind of thing. I miss DQ.
Linkrulz77 Dairy Queen is still around.
My parents moved to Windermere my senior year of high school and I had to go down there to help them renovate the house the summer before I went to college. Season tickets to DisneyQuest were the only thing that kept me sane. So thank your wife for me.
Linkrulz77 I was a CP in the fall of 99, my roommates and I stayed about 8hrs there the first time. It was amazing!
I wonder if that old manual is worth anything to hardcore disney collectors
I have often wondered that myself, but I don't know if many people know of its existence and I don't want people to assume it's a fake. Besides, my wife really likes it, as it is kind of an alternate history thing.
I gotta admit this sounds really cool. I'd be down with seeing them revising a lot of this concept; with modern technologies you could produce some way cheaper VR arcades.
That was in essence Disney Quest real downfall was little to no effort in updating the technology it showcased. It became outdated within a few years and the public lost interest. When the public lost interest Disney failed to re-invent/update the facilities due to high overhead costs in cutting edge tech. Their interactive displays on teaching drawing new animation could have spawn a whole new venture in backing new artists and creative talent well before such platforms existed. Just a concept to ahead of it's time.
In my opinion there will be a renaissance of Arcades in a few years. VR technology is advancing fast and full immersion suits will become viable in a few years. But much MUCH to expensive for the end consumer. So we will likely first see it in basically VR Arcades. That has already started with specially build areas and mobile headsets that enable you to really move in and manipulate the environment. Still ruth around the edges but it will get there in to too long a time.
@@theexchipmunk I believe that's the ultimate failure of Disney: their stasis when it comes to innovation until it starts to hit their wallet especially hard. When change is absent, the iron beams rust, the wood gets chipped away by water, the stones wither with the winds. The fundamentals of Disney never truly changed, and only on a point of imminent collapse do they try to plaster on newer stone and iron beams. It may have worked, but when the new people know their tricks, then their collapse will continue on uninterrupted. As is the fate of any super large companies/monopolies like Disney.
At Disney springs they have the VOID now, it’s a vr maze that at the time of writing is Star Wars or Wreck it Ralph themed. It’s actually pretty crazy if your willing to fork over 40$ for it, but it’s got mobile headsets, and with the Starwars one you actually walk through each room. Motion capture on them was crazy too, just a vest, helmet, and rifle, and I remember waving my hand able to move each individual joint without having motion capture gloves, the helmets “sight” was crazy accurate. The whole thing was all and all fairly small but Disney has a pattern of trying out a lot of experiments at Disney Springs, like their Epcot drone show. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they come out with a bigger vr attraction in the future. But from my very very vague memories of Disney-Quest, The void shows a lot of potential.
I loved it the last time i went for a birthday party, but i have to admit it was pretty dated even for its time. Basically completely empty, i liked the vr ride and the bumper ride though, not so much the games
I feel like Michael Eisner is the type of man to forget your name immediately, and get frustrated when he can’t remember it.
He’s like the Jay Gatsby of Disney.
One of the best memories of my childhood. Sad that it ended up going down.
The place really didn't have to die. If they just updated it when it needed to be updated, they could have grown with technology but they just built it and left it to slowly die. It was a perfect place that they could have had a mini Wreck it Ralph indoor theme park with different areas rethemed to the different games of Ralph's world. Get a little Dave and Buster feel in there with must do dining location and acarde games galore and it could have been a winner buuuut nope. Just.... let it die a slow death. This is a dark era of Disney.
The American emphasis for short-term profitability is evident here. If it doesn't make money in the projected timetable, it's a failure and needs to be destroyed no matter how good or advanced it is.
*crying intensfies*
I agree
I wish we had cutting edge versions of Disney Quest around the country. The most I see are dinky mall VR rides and establishments just letting guests play on an existing VR console. Arcades today like Dave and Buster and Chuck E Cheese are still about pumping money in machines. I REALLY wish they could take on an ambitious project like Disney Quest.
Up until recently VR game development was a long expensive process and hardware was constantly changing to keep up with tech. It would have been a massive money pit to try to keep attractions up to date.
It’s why a lot of these video games centers die. They just can’t keep up with tech.
Has a massive themed arcade that was still bringing in steady visitors despite the main attractions being horribly outdated.
Rather than upgrade the software and equipment to try and revitalize the place, they decide to demolish and then build an oversized Sports Store...
I don't get Disney sometimes.
Yeah you think Disney would've spent quite a bit of money on Disneyquest to try and modernize it but somehow they didn't which is kinda weird seeing how much money Disney makes
In hindsight, DisneyQuest was doomed from the moment the Chicago location closed down. The only reason the original Orlando location was kept running as long as it was is because up until just recently, Team Disney Orlando couldn't think of anything to replace it with within their budget (which took a massive hit throughout most of the 2000's after 9/11 caused tourism to plummet)...
I was thinking the same thing. If they had kept up with technology imagine what it could be today.
"We can't help video games catch on, that will make people stay at home!"
Well sports will always be popular so it is certainly a better bet than VR games. Updating might have been waaaaaay too expensive for them too.
I'm so glad I got to see Disney Quest near the end of its life. The make-your-own coaster attraction was arguably better than the actual parks since you got to make it as wild and crazy as you wanted. The rest of the space was pretty decent, even in 2016. You could tell some attractions had been there forever, but it still felt unique and magical.
Oh man, I remember aiming here years ago. One of the best memories was me and my dad playing the Pirates of the Caribbean game together. Good times man…
I've literally never heard of DisneyQuest, and so I assumed it closed during the early 2000s or something. To find that it was open until LAST YEAR is genuinely shocking to me, and it definitely makes sense that the place never got any business because I've been to Florida for amusement park vacations numerous times and not ONCE have I seen an advertisement or hide or hair of DisneyQuest. But damn, this was a fascinating video, thanks for making it
I knew about it but never went, because I'd had the impression by the 2010s that it was old and janky.
I went in 2014 because we received free admission in a packet. Everything was extremely dated and half the attractions were broken
It was really cool. The bumper cars with cannons were great and all of the arcade games were awesome too
I'm from the Orlando area and everyone was obsessed with going to Disney Quest because it was one giant gaming building. When I had gone it was new-ish and I had an amazing time as well as other kids my age. It was expensive though was the only issue, but you could create rollercoasters and play a bunch of different types of games. Was perfect for kids.
I saw the one in Orlando! While I was at Disney World me and a friend accidentally stumbled upont the one here and, after I told him everything about that place, we wanted to get in. Unfortunately it wasn't included in the holiday package we had and the tickets were very expensive, around 50$ I think, so we went away and did other stuff that day.
I wish history channel hired you make a show like this.
Mortem Gaming except he would have to talk about how aliens built it
No. No. No. Better here (despite the crappy pay and incessant meddling) where he still has control over mainstream TV which he can't have control.
History Channel isn't worthy of him. He teaches real history. A very niche part of history, but history nonetheless.
@@victor7gomez X-S tech is the real mastermind behind Eisner confirmed!
But...isn't the History Channel also owned by Disney?
I went to DisneyQuest in 2016. Had a blast. Saw an arcade machine bluescreen and reboot. I went back in 2019 to see that it was gone. I miss that place.
I somehow managed to go to DisneyQuest AND Gameworks as a kid and I loved the afternoon I spent in DisneyQuest as an early teen, but I never realized it was meant to go across the country.
And Gameworks closed a year before my high school graduation, where our party was meant to happen…
I was going through a bunch of old boxes and I found a CD that my sister had made at DisneyQuest, a song about partying and cheesecake.
I understand the cheesecake part of it now.
Video or it didn’t happen
I hope this doesn't come off as creepy but that'd actually be pretty cool to listen to. Like stumbling across some kid's forgotten time capsule and finding a CD from a bygone era. Just imagine what the children of tomorrow will think of iPods and MP3s.
I also made a CD at DisneyQuest when I was a kid! No idea what happened to it though...
@@xplicitmike Napster should be taught in history classes
I have one of these about how my dog is better at dating than I am from when I was about 5.
Is it just me or does Eisner sound like the cartoon sterotype of like... some shady middle-aged guy talking about something like it's actually good, when so clearly he's barely got any realy grasp on what's going on?
"Yeaaah, it'sa virutal reality whatzit!"
That’s exactly what Eisner was. He literally would try any new idea if it sounded cool, no matter the risk, which ended up dooming Disney.
Still, despite his shortcomings, I’d rather have a million Eisner’s running Disney today rather than that literal Rat Bob Iger, who sold all of the integrity and magic Disney used to have. I mean, when Eisner saw a stupid idea he said “let’s give it a shot, just keep it under budget.” When Bob Iger sees an idea he and his board of directors say “ok, that’s not very safe. Is there any way we can fit marvel characters into it?”
PatDat455 Quoted for goddamn truth. At this point I just want something horrible to happen to Disney so they’re forced to try again.
I don’t even feel like Mickey Mouse is emblematic of Disney anymore!
(Eisner digs mouse ear hat out of briefcase) “Here ya go, Ruuuunic Lady. See you at Disneyland, BRING MONEY!” * Eisner drives away*
He’s the joe biden of disney
EmblemBlade9 tbh at this point i’d rather they just drop mickey mouse and move on instead of ruining copyright law just to keep their grasp on him
Classic Disney logic
1: create state of the art arcade with VR attractions
2: don’t update it, have it sit in disrepair for years
3: close it right when VR is becoming a thing
4: revamp it into a tourist trap themed after a company that exclusively performs in North America
5: close it again
I miss classic Downtown Disney. Now its just a mall called "Disney Springs" I regret not going to Disney Quest back 10 years ago. But it was a bit too pricey for what you can do over there. I barely remember the last time I went back in late 1990s.
I had some good memories from 2011 when I was little, but I bet it was even better in the 90’s
did you ever hear the tragedy of Michael Eisner the unwise?
A Sith Lord?? lol
Michael Unweisner
@@munchjrgames942 that's pretty good
@@spidernerd235 If he was a murderer, he'd be Michael Myeisners
@@munchjrgames942 to far
I was at DisneyQuest on it's last day of operation. It was an amazing and heartfelt day.
I wish I did. I felt bored, and claustrophobic.
ianduncan200121 :(((( i wish t was still around
@@bugglemagnum6213 me too.
I went to Disney World (Orlando) once in my life at the age of around 7. Im 23 now so a lot of it feels like a dream. This was the one part of the whole two week visit that I never did know if it was real or if I imagined it..
I want to say the last time I went to Disney quest Orlando was 2016/2017, and it was definitely nearing the end by that point. I remember going in the late 2000s and it being my favorite lesser-known Disney attraction, but that last time we went it felt sad. The rides were definitely dated but the novelty of it was awesome. But the last time there was no one there, which was cool because there were basically no waits and no lines, but I remember parts of the building were closed off already and it felt eerie. It was quiet and we left after maybe abt an hour, and the next time I went it was already shut down.
When they closed down DisneyQuest in Orlando last year I filmed my last night there with some friends as one of the saddest nights in our recent lives. So many good memories had there. Such a unique and fun place to spend a childhood. It still kills me to walk at Disney Springs, visit the tomb of an old friend and see an NBA experience sitting on the corpse of a far superior landmark. Whoever it was that finally signed off on the death of DisneyQuest: I have a major bone to pick with you.
Yeah I agree with you on that one. I had so many great memories at DisneyQuest. Every single trip my family and I went to Disney World, I made sure we went there at least one time. So many great memories lost to time.
Don't still have the video would love to see that of the inside
All of Downtown Disney was superior to what it is now, which is a giant outdoor shopping mall mainly targeted at out of country tourists (and a few really good but expensive restaurants). Pleasure Island was legit. They had a club there called “The Adventurer’s Club” which had paid actors on staff dressed up like adventurers or people from Clue, they would mingle and entertain guests with tricks and shows every half-hour. The actors would switch roles too, so one day the butler would be the colonel mustard looking guy, so it was different every time you went. The club also looked like a Victorian mansion with inter actable trinkets on the walls, like animal head trophies that would move and talk to you with actors speaking to you on microphones. It probably cost a lot to keep open so it’s no surprise it went away I think before Pleasure Island did. I’ve never seen another club like it.
I really loved Disney Quest as a kid and without making updates to the games, it made sense to shut it down. However, it would have made even MORE sense to update the games and add new virtual reality stuff with all of the new tech that has come out.
FANTAVISION Indeed ! The concept is versatile and interesting. Maybe you could make a video about your memories of the place ? Despite the fact that it’s « off-topic » for you channel
@@MrFantasnick not a bad idea!
From an update standpoint, it did make sense, but I think Disney World was more focused on their what's popular in the now with their Disney movies that their theme park rides are going downhill entirely. I mean, what they're doing to Disney California Adventure is an example of how much they're stopping to care.
Disney had no good way of knowing what was coming, and ultimately they shut down Disney Quest before VR really hit the mainstream.
I also loved Disney Quest. Went as a kid and I remember it more than most of the theme parks I went to in my youth.
Man this looks like it was very impressive for 90’s VR! Sucks that it got outdated so quickly. I really want to know how the Sega/Dreamworks version did!
wow, this nostalgia hit deep. i remember going to this place and how stupid fun it was. great video, thanks for bringing back good memories :)
Yeah same, I went during a summer camp once, I’ve always been to Disney Springs and seen the building but I never went inside. When I went the one time I only got to play 5 games around 3 times per game due to the huge groups in my summer camp. Which were around 100 people in total.
Idk when I saw that one of the dining spots was called "Food Quest" I just lost it because although it fits in with the theming it's such a generic name and for some reason set me off on a giggle quest.
There should’ve been a bathroom quest
@@emblemblade9245 OH NO, I'M ABOUT TO TAKE A SHITQUEST
How bout' exit quest?
I agree with you’re comment quest
@@PeruvianPotato SHIT QUEST I'M CACKLING-
"Their Reinessance was over, and Disney was about to enter.... the 2000's"
That was really epic, clearly depicts the jump we went through from the 90's to the new era of the 2000's.
Lilo and Stitch still have severe back pain from carrying that era
@@morbidsearch Hahahahaha!
@@morbidsearch lol nice
I remember getting to go to DQ Orlando on a field trip in '99...it ruled. Cyber Space Mountain was awesome but the line was the longest of any attraction, so of course we made the "coaster" design as extreme as possible.
Treasure of the Incas was really fun! I liked the feeling of driving through a maze from a First Person view, and the grainy footage made it feel like a videogame. The Buzz Lightyear bumper car/shooter dealie was pretty excellent too....I distinctly remember the Jungle Cruise one being the most under-whelming.
I loved this place SO much as a kid. I had so many birthdays here and watching this video was a big nostalgia trip 🥺
12:58 My grandfather and his business partner created the attraction Treasure of the Incas. As Kevin said, it was less immersive than the other attractions in Explore zone.
The premise of the game was you were a Indiana-Jones like explorer searching through an ancient Incan temple to acquire the 13 artifacts placed around the maze. Some of these artifacts included: the Serpent's Crown, Sun Disk, Crystal Skull, Llama's Throne, Monkey's Torch, and the Jaguar's Eye. You had a time limit of 5 minutes (excluding treasure room cutscenes) to collect all of the treasure. When a jeep pulled into a treasure room, a short cutscene would play depicting you activating and dispelling the treasure's curse and then acquiring it. The CGI graphics were mainly used for the Treasure Room cutscenes that played when you pulled into them. While less physically immersive, a sense of immersion came from the amazingly detailed set pieces used in the maze. Everything was created to be to scale with your small RC Jeep so when viewed on the screen, it appeared life-sized. These included wrecked jeeps with skeletons next to them, ivy growing on the walls and ceiling of the maze, Incan paintings and sculptures, and flickering torches outside of each Treasure Room. There were 20 jeeps in the maze with working headlights and taillights. The jeeps controlled like a tank, able to stop and change direction as needed to navigate the many turns in the maze. Kevin mentioned that you could have a spotter watch your car in the maze and call directions to the driver. This was thanks to the plexiglass ceiling of the maze and clear numbering on the tops and sides of the jeeps. For those playing without a spotter, inside the maze were road signs at most intersections that pointed toward the directions of different treasures.
If there is any more information that you would like about Treasure of the Incas, or Disney Quest in general, just let me know.
Is your grandfather still alive?
that Crystal Skull would predate the 4th movie
K9 yes he is still alive and well.
Andrew T you're right, the crystal skull in Treasure of the Incas was based off of a crystal sculpted into the shape of a human skull by a civilization thousands of years ago.
Chad Schmaltz oh ok good that’s really cool he worked on it. Did he ever get to meet Eisner himself?
@@k9521__ he didn't meet Eisner, I don't think, but he did meet Arthur who was the head of Disney Regional Entertainment and the creator of Disney Quest. My grandfather actually knew Arthur's father from years before Disney Quest.
Wait. So in the unlikely case Disney Quest is added to the VR Defunctland. Will we get VR _within_ VR? VRception!?
VR in VR... That sounds so cool!
I just imagine horribly ugly VR inside of decent VR and that makes me laugh
I’m confused by the vr dufunctland is it already made or is it something for the future?
God this place blew me away when I was little my older brother and myself had so much fun playing the buzz lightyear carts and shooting the cannon at other cars. And the pirate ship game was so ahead of its time. Still would be fun today
The moment I saw the Create Zone I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d been there before.
And then you mentioned the Create-a-Toy, which I KNOW I went to in 2000!