If JJP can make an original themed game like DI into a great success then why can't they just make a great original pirate-themed game without this, IMO, now-outdated, expensive I'm sure, POTC license?
Lets be honest here, DI in so good as a game that it is a success DESPITE it's very strange and convoluted theme and not because of it. I mean the art, marketing material and video features some mom-jeaned guy everywhere instead of some cool pirates and ships and it's a success!!! At least they took that guy off the sides of the backbox before final production after so many of us almost lost our minds on pinside. It's a pin theme chosen as though someone lost a bet. Yes I know you've all come around to love (accept) the theme of DI now but it was work.
Now seriously, imagine if DI the game was themed as an original pirates game, the final sales would double. All it would have took was to tell Pat, "you have full creative control, now make the best pirates game ever made!"
So why does JJP now have to move the theme-slider all the way from (wha?!) man-jean-phone-dude to the furthest other Disney-mega-media-conglomerate extreme and not just something in the middle like an original pirate theme?