Disney Interactive Studios has closed down its Vancouver game development studio Propaganda Games, with the loss of 70 jobs.

Propaganda recently finished work on Tron: Evolution (pictured) and went through an earlier round of job losses in 2010 when Disney halted work on a Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned game.

The Vancouver studio closure, revealed in a statement from Disney Interactive Studios Tuesday, comes as the Hollywood studio follows an industry shift away from console games and towards social and mobile games.

That move to multiplatform gaming, which includes social network games and mobile apps, was reflected Thursday at the GameOn: Finance 2011 conference, where Canadian industry players expressed little surprise at Disney shuttering Propaganda Games.

Mobile and the Internet is the future of gaming, GameOn delegates heard, just as it’s the future of much else in traditional media.

“Online is awesome,” said Lance Davis, CFO of Vancouver-based Slant Six Games, with no boxed games to distribute and instant feedback on market performance.

“I think we can move into online games. It’s our first foray. If we do this properly, we can get other people to pay for it,” he said of Slant Six, whose traditional strength has been in developing games for the PlayStation game console.

Davis said a development budget for a social or mobile game is anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million, compared to $20 million for a traditional packaged game – “you grind it out to produce the game in six to eight months,” and there are ways to monetize the new digital games.

Careen Yapp, vice president of acquisitions at Konami Digital Entertainment, agreed there’s less risk in developing and launching new gaming product online and other emerging platforms.

“There’s a whole new focus. There’s all these new platforms – Facebook, mobile ­and so much opportunity to bring new creative IP to our audience.

“It’s just delivered to our audience in a new way, and the risk is lower,” Yapp told GameOn: Finance delegates.

Konami isn’t alone.

Marc Jackson, founder and CEO of Seahorn Capital Group, pointed video game publishers all round that were stung by the 2008-09 market meltdown and are looking to hedge their risk as access to growth capital shrinks.

Jackson argued that, as publishers retrench because they have to trim operating costs or don’t have the skills to develop games for new digital platforms beyond packaged media, there’s an opportunity for indie players to fill the vacuum and exploit new business models.

“For indies, it makes total sense to become expert in the newer ways that consumers are adopting game consumption,” Jackson said.

The GameOn: Finance 2011 conference continues to Friday.