Thursday, February 8th 2024
Disney Acquiring $1.5 Billion Stake in Epic Games, Multi-year Collab Project Teased
The Walt Disney Company has announced a new collaborative venture with Epic Games—yesterday's press release outlined the creation of an upcoming "all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences." Epic's Fortnite appears to be the first port of call for an expanded roster of Disney-owned characters and locales (perhaps for seasonal and time limited events)—new interactive projects will emerge at later time: "(our) persistent universe will offer a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more. Players, gamers and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content with each other in ways that they love. This will all be powered by Unreal Engine." Additionally, the press briefing mentions a big money transaction: "Disney will also invest $1.5 billion to acquire an equity stake in Epic Games alongside the multi-year project. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals."
The Walt Disney Company's Chief Executive Officer—Robert A. Iger—stated: "Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney's beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe. This marks Disney's biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. We can't wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways." Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO and Founder also chipped in with: "Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite, and they use Unreal Engine across their portfolio. Now we're collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities." Disney's introductory piece includes a teaser image that shows an overhead perspective of a Fortnite-esque digital theme park—several circular floating islands are dotted with well known franchise graphics and company logos. A 43-second video montage also presents similar content, with the narrated message: "Discover a place where magic is Epic." Fortnite is listed alongside Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and Disney IPs.
Sources:
The Walt Disney Company, Polygon, Eurogamer
The Walt Disney Company's Chief Executive Officer—Robert A. Iger—stated: "Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney's beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe. This marks Disney's biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. We can't wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways." Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO and Founder also chipped in with: "Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite, and they use Unreal Engine across their portfolio. Now we're collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities." Disney's introductory piece includes a teaser image that shows an overhead perspective of a Fortnite-esque digital theme park—several circular floating islands are dotted with well known franchise graphics and company logos. A 43-second video montage also presents similar content, with the narrated message: "Discover a place where magic is Epic." Fortnite is listed alongside Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and Disney IPs.
41 Comments on Disney Acquiring $1.5 Billion Stake in Epic Games, Multi-year Collab Project Teased
Looks like we know whats going to happen for Fortnight. :shadedshu:
Actual leak from Disney (HA! "standards"):
I will bet that the very first thing Disney will implement is no more free games.
Followed but a more long term DEI foot on the face approach to the games themselves.
Just don't buy them. Eventually the memo will get through to the top.
PS: There is a silver lining here. We are living in an age of quantity rather than quality when it comes to game releases, everyone knows how many incomplete garbage is sold as AAA nowadays. With Disney now adding DEI politics onto the same garbage, it will only speed up the transition from this model to a more focused and quality driven approach. Once the DEI business model fails, and it 100% will along with the Battle Pass/Live Service/Micro-transactions model, I think it will usher in a new era of quality game development.
If epic shuts down, or is heavily crippled, I am considering it a success (I am evaluating epic as a corporation, not the ground level employees, it sucks that people are losing their jobs)
Only problem epic has Is no F2A. Besides this, I'll take epic over vavle, ea, Uplay any day of the week.
This is "Electronic Farts buying DICE in 2006" moment. They also were partnering first. Epic folks should brace themselves. This is going to be tough. Given how Disney corrupted cinema scene, there's no guaranty they won't exploit UE solely for their own distorted purposes.All is fine, except it doesn't die off. Even worse, recently this DEI crap made the route to guess what... a LotRO. Seventeen years old game. Go look at "dark" bearded female elves.These are just first steps towards buyout. Every merger begins from this. Besides Epic is gold mine, due to it's engine. It's the pie, many would like to get.
If you pay attention you would learn that Epic Games store has never even turned a profit. Disney is not taking over an online games store, particularly one that does not make money. It's not what they do, Disney is an entertainment company. While the unreal engine does have a lot of value, Disney does not want to spend the money to purchase it our right when they can license it for a lot less.
I live in Canada. I live in the part of Canada where in primary school my friends were from Greece, Malta, India, Pakistan, Trinidad, Uganda, Iran, Vietnam, The Philippines, Italy, South Korea and every English speaking island of the Caribbean. My father is someone that you would rail against. The thing is I know that my father worked on the F22 and the International Space Station. I asked him what specifically he worked on and he told me the ICs. One of the results of the fight against inclusion is the fact that the F35 took 35 years to come into production. America celebrated Reagan killing education for the masses to the point where most GPU, laptop repair Youtubers all have Eastern European accents. Or like how Japanese Games are objectively better than anything North America has to offer.
It doesn't matter though because DIsney is trying to expose the truth that is America does not mean that Epic are in trouible. Just watch 42 and you will understand but I can tell you in Canada we were happy to celebrate different cultures and happy to include them in all aspects of society. All in the backdrop of some of our premeirs drinking the kool aid and the right wing trying to influence social media that DEI is bad.
If you could see the joy of my childhood, you would know that Multicultreism works. People love Somosas, Tacos, Chicken Wings and Fish and Chips and there are a pancea of culture that you can explore for food. The grocery store even has Breadfruit and plantain, but also lychee and mangoes.
There's money in a lot of bad things, including putting people behind bars for petty crimes, just let the tax payers pay for the profits. Or invent pre-existing conditions in order not to give proper access to healthcare for those who cost a lot.
There's also tons of money in emptying the planet out of its resources, pollution which is immensely deadly etc
In USA also the mega-rich basically own the government, and we can even see them working on people not voting with various schemes of voter suppression.
Makes sense from the POV from Epic, as they have been struggling financially for quite some time.
I'm not sure what will come out of this, but it isn't great either that Steam dominates the market so much.
Tons of devs are reportedly working on live service games, 95% of them, so I'm not exactly hopeful in people even doing great choices with their wallets.