Defunctland: The Failure of Disney's Arcade Chain, DisneyQuest

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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGNc-WxOc48. Highly recommend checking it out.

I love how 90% of DefunctLand essentially boils down to “One day, Michael Eisner had billions of dollars and a really bad idea”

“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.

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.

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.

Note to anyone wanting to start a theme park: don't publish your estimated numbers for opening day.

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.

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 <3

It blows my mind that we've had VR technology since the 70s but only recently has it blown up in the consumer market

I love how defunctland is secretly just all about the rise and fall of Michael Eisner

Defunctland: "WHOOOSE THAT COMPANY!?" Me: "Disney?" Defunctland: "IT"S DREAMWORKS" Me: "Damn it"

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Michel Eisner is starting to sound more like a Kingdom Hearts villain

i am fascinated by the Michael Eisner lore

Now I can’t wait for the NBA Experience Defunctland episode. All 6 minutes of its history.

Defunctland has taught me that Michael Eisner is the kind of guy to go to a Coca-Cola machine and buy water