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As an amusement park, they almost always have an arcade of some sort but when it comes to Disney, their arcades carry a big reputation since they happen to be expansive facilities with many games to play. Nick from Arcade Hunters made a visit to Disney Quest in Orlando not long ago and has posted three videos of his time there, along with some thoughts of the facility in its present state.
Part 1 – Walkthrough (click to see Arcade Hunters post)
Great walk through of Disney Quest! I was really excited when they first announced DQ and couldn’t wait to go there. I live in CA so it’s not too often I visit WDW but the 3 or 4 times I’ve been there I never could fit it into our schedule. The main problem is that they charge a flat ticket price instead of charging per game. In order to get your money’s worth you would have to spend an entire day there. I could never seem to justify spending an extra day/night on hotel fares plus pay for admission for two people. I really think it would be more profitable if they opened it up and used a pay per use pricing model.
Another option I think would be making it part of the WDW Park Hopper ticket along with the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon. This would also allow them to continue their current pricing model for guests who don’t have a Park Hopper ticket. The thing is that I have a feeling that the parks are probably a separate division from Disney Quest so maybe this might not even be feasible.
As some of you may know – I was head hunted to work on DQ from concept to completion of the first site – working on the virtual simulator attractions.
It was a great pleasure to work on this ground breaking venue – and though it was let down by poor decisions the concept is still strong, the site in Florida still open some 15 years on!
The story behind what went right and what went wrong with the DQ concept is worth a book – its whole emergence from a meeting between Disney and SEGA a matter of legend on its own.
The whole aspect of making DQ a free play (except the prize redemption) is a major deal breaker for me and was never the plan – and the guys at DRE that made this momentous mistake are no longer with us to defend their decision.
Nick here. When Disney Quest first opened, it wasn’t included with the Park Hopper deal. Now you can add it onto your ticket with the Water Park option. They just bundle in DQ along with the other two water parks.
What’s weird about DQ when you compare it to other LBE’s like this is that most people are playing the arcade games and most of the redemption games aren’t being touched. The Sega UFO catcher is a buck to play and they do have token machines for stuff like Skee-Ball and some of the games you can just play and they won’t give you tickets. Even though when I was playing Pac-Man Battle Royal the only tech I saw that day was busy fixing a jam on one of the Skee-Ball machines. Meanwhile all of the other games were just left on regardless if they worked or not.
@Nick – the whole demographics with the player play model in DQ is skewed by the way the prize machines work compared to the free play amusement and attractions.
With the launch of the new VIP Bowling site the staffing of DQ has been crippled – I still have no word on DQ’s future – though as Dave said in the video, there was a lot of new videos on site.
Just heard that the venue has had one of its best years of operation – not bad for a 15 year-old-site! Shame that the WDC team are focused on other projects – I still think the core idea of DQ is viable.
One issue is the difficulty to convey the enjoyment and immersion of DQ in a video – all of the E-ticket virtual attractions are impossible to film – I know I was one that had to walk news crews round on the launch!!