Warren Spector Originally Pitched Spiritual Deus Ex Successor to Disney

Despite being gung-ho about working on Epic Mickey, Junction Point Creative Director Warren Spector tells Develop Online that he originally pitched a science fiction game billed as a spiritual successor to Deus Ex to Disney.

“I went into the meeting room, pitched them my stuff, and sure enough I was right. The guys started texting in the middle of the meeting. I was convinced they were not interested,” Spector said. “I was standing there and they were actually texting to each other. saying ‘should we ask him about the Mickey game?’ I really thought I was losing them.”

Eventually the execs instead asked Spector about the idea they had.

“So they said to me, ‘we have a concept’ – and they were kind of embarrassed – ‘we have a concept for Mickey, we want to show you our idea’. And they gave me this pitch,” Spector said, “I mean, Disney pitching to me? That was kinda cool.”

As we can deduce, Spector liked what he heard.

“It turns out that in Disney’s pitch there were a number of elements that really resonated with me, and in fact they’re still in Epic Mickey today,” Spector said.

As far as Spector’s original idea, it’s not completely dead and gone.

“Disney now owns the IP to it,” Spector said, “so who knows – I certainly have ideas of how they would work in a Disney context.”

[via Develop]