A World Without Disney

Yes but you probably might not have the video game titles that we have played in our youth and had come to love back then and even more with the good old nostalgia filter.

The Zelda games saved me from suicide when I was younger... I cringe at what I might have done had they not allowed me to release built-up tension and rage... Ok, so that's one point for Disney's existence.
 
would the video game industry have developed beyond Pong?

I think it would still develop, but in a much different direction. I think Western games would stay stronger, most Nintendo icons probably wouldn't exist in any recognizable ways, and the video game crash might not happen, simply because the bubble never gets big enough to burst. If it does happen, the industry may never recover, or at least, not for a good while longer. Overall, probably fewer video games in our culture, and those that are there are the more western influenced FPS/Action sort of games.
 
By 1928, Disney was one of many animators in the movie business. That year, he was forced to surrender the rights to Oswald Rabbit and tried one last ditch effort to stay in the business by joining his brother Roy in California. On the train from KC to LA, he thought of an idea to put talking cartoons into the new talking movies. He drew Mickey Mouse and the rest is history. Without Disney, the business was still in infancy and the market for animation was still open-ended. Not having the Disney characters does not kill animation as there will be market gaps to fill.

In the meantime, Universal Studios had the rights to Oswald Rabbit. Chief cartoonist Walter Lanz turned out to be far more successful with his own talking creations (Woody Woodpecker) than those taken from Disney.

Disney's most unique contributions were:

* The fantasy character element, talking animals that only barely resembled real animals.
* The full-length animated movie, beginning with Snow White.
* The theme parks based on a cartoon universe (and development of Anaheim and Orlando). The placement of a major league baseball stadium in Anaheim was very much influenced by the presence of Disneyland. Disney World literally allowed Orlando to grow by siphoning tourist business from coastal locations.

Since Disney died in the sixties, I don't see much impact on video gaming. Perhaps animated characters would look more like real people and real animals, but who can say?
 
maybe we'd see anime and manga stylized more like chuck jones or tex avery cartoons? that could maybe mean more "realistic" characters, with smaller eyes and the like, than in OTL anime
 
Without Disney, the business was still in infancy and the market for animation was still open-ended. Not having the Disney characters does not kill animation as there will be market gaps to fill.

There weren't really gaps. The market for animated shorts was disappearing, but Disney was the only one to respond by moving into feature films, which is why the company was so successful. Unless no Disney means other studios take that initiative instead, I think it's reasonable to say that American animation in general would be much less popular without Disney.
 
Without the Mouse and "Steamboat Willie", the length of copyright would be far more reasonable. It is repeatedly reported that the Disney empire intends to ensure than NONE of the Disney cartoons ever go into the public domain, and hence they are always lobbying to have the copyright term extended. This has had huge negative effects on such things as consumer prices for items that would have been out of copyright under the old copyright laws.
 
Without the Mouse and "Steamboat Willie", the length of copyright would be far more reasonable. It is repeatedly reported that the Disney empire intends to ensure than NONE of the Disney cartoons ever go into the public domain, and hence they are always lobbying to have the copyright term extended. This has had huge negative effects on such things as consumer prices for items that would have been out of copyright under the old copyright laws.

they are also crippling cultural growth and small businesses with their greed. They also seem to think that they have a copyright on all cartoon ducks.
 
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