Disney Invests $1.5 Billion In Fortnite Maker To Build Persistent Game Universe (venturebeat.com) 52
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Disney is investing $1.5 billion for an equity stake in Fortnite and Unreal Engine maker Epic Games as part of a broader partnership to create a new Disney gaming universe. The companies plan to create an expansive and open games and entertainment universe. I would say they're building a metaverse, if the word weren't so overused late and out of favor with some. They didn't actually use that word. Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, announced the investment in an interview with CNBC today. The companies will collaborate on a new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences. It will be a multi-year project, built by Epic Games.
"It's not just our parks where we're creating new opportunities for consumers to engage with the characters and franchises they love," Iger said in an analyst call. In our new relationship with Epic Games, we're creating a transformational games and entertainment universe that integrates Disney's world-class storytelling into Epic's cultural phenomenon Fortnite, enabling consumers to play, watch, create, and shop for both digital and physical goods. This marks Disney's biggest entry ever into the world of video games, and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. The new immersive universe will unleash their own creativity and experience the Disney stories that they love in groundbreaking new ways."
Iger added, "Younger audiences in particular are huge consumers of video games. In fact, among millennials, Gen Z and Gen Z is a significant amount of time spent on screen-based platforms, playing video games. This new universe from Disney and Epic provides us with a tremendous opportunity to not only meet more consumers where they are and to allow more audiences to cultivate a bond with Disney's iconic brands and franchises, including Marvel, Star Wars, and much more." The $1.5 billion transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. In addition to being a world-class games experience and interoperating with Fortnite, the new 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. Fortnite teased the partnership in a new video posted on YouTube. The official announcement can be read here.
"It's not just our parks where we're creating new opportunities for consumers to engage with the characters and franchises they love," Iger said in an analyst call. In our new relationship with Epic Games, we're creating a transformational games and entertainment universe that integrates Disney's world-class storytelling into Epic's cultural phenomenon Fortnite, enabling consumers to play, watch, create, and shop for both digital and physical goods. This marks Disney's biggest entry ever into the world of video games, and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. The new immersive universe will unleash their own creativity and experience the Disney stories that they love in groundbreaking new ways."
Iger added, "Younger audiences in particular are huge consumers of video games. In fact, among millennials, Gen Z and Gen Z is a significant amount of time spent on screen-based platforms, playing video games. This new universe from Disney and Epic provides us with a tremendous opportunity to not only meet more consumers where they are and to allow more audiences to cultivate a bond with Disney's iconic brands and franchises, including Marvel, Star Wars, and much more." The $1.5 billion transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. In addition to being a world-class games experience and interoperating with Fortnite, the new 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. Fortnite teased the partnership in a new video posted on YouTube. The official announcement can be read here.
diseny games to be removed from US ios store? (Score:1)
diseny games to be removed from US ios store?
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I was thinking the opposite: Since there are some folks on both Disney and Apple boards, I'd expect this $1.5B to come with a string like "stop badmouthing Apple".
apple makes an 10% cut deal with them? (Score:2)
apple makes an 10% cut deal with them?
Infinity II dead in 3? (Score:5, Interesting)
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So they're in the pack of companies such as Google which do the same thing?
They already had one (Score:3)
Ruined IPs (Score:5, Interesting)
If you put Epic in charge of making your games, you just asking for them to ruin your IP. Epic does not make good games. It's been well over a decade since Epic has developed a game, on its own, that could actually be considered good. Epic is good at one thing and one thing only, and that's Unreal Engine. Fortnite is not a good game or universe or metaverse, regardless of its popularity. They sometimes buy good studios (and their games), but then they promptly ruin them.
The culmination of this will ultimately be poorly done, boring, or lack replayability.
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I suspect they're trying to recreate Second Life, but being Disney it will be without the things that made Second Life exist for more than two weeks.
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It is surprising at how long Second Life has kept going. I remember when it first launched. I thought it was going to be the coolest thing ever, sadly it was a convoluted, buggy mess. Supposedly, it got better and changed a bit. But yeah, this won't have any meaningful longevity compared to the money invested.
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Re: Ruined IPs (Score:3)
Kid-friendly online games are utter chaos to play. Because kids play rough and don't have the same pressure to cooperate and follow the unspoken rules of social interaction when playing a game. An online game where the kids are the main players is unlikely to appeal to adults purely on the basis of the player interaction and not on the game being "watered down" or simplified for children. Adding adult themes helps act as a gate keeper, but you could take all the sex out of a game and adults still would play
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Second Life is a Gigantic Chat Application. .. ... and know no one who pays)
I do not know what people are really doing there. I mean, nearly everywhere I go the content is "player" generated. With streaming music and so on. Beach life. Mountain climbing
No idea how that works (I never paid
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Epic is good at one thing and one thing only, and that's Unreal Engine.
No way dude Jill of the Jungle was great.
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Its *exactly the same company*.
Re:Ruined IPs (Score:5, Insightful)
The culmination of this will ultimately be poorly done, boring, or lack replayability.
So basically just like Disney movies. Sounds like a match made in heaven.
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The culmination of this will ultimately be poorly done, boring, or lack replayability.
So basically just like Disney movies. Sounds like a match made in heaven.
Yah, I'm not so certain that I'd want Disney involved in anything I'm involved with.
They're struggling a bit with really bad storytelling at the moment, a messed up filming paradigm that has made a sort of disjointed product, and have managed to destroy some of the IP they've bought.
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While Disney movies have been somewhat hit and miss recently, all of Epic's games have been poorly made for well over a decade. Gears of War was the last good game they worked on, and even that they ended up ruining in the end.
Does Not Compute, Fortnight is a good game (Score:2)
Fortnite is not a good game or universe or metaverse, regardless of its popularity.
I don't know how you can realistically say that - at this point it has maintained a huge player base for so long, it's no longer a subjective opinion to say it's a good game, it's objective fact...
I don't play it much myself but I can see why people do. I think it's a game that's a great balance of fun and skill, that has somehow magically managed to fold in a million different pop culture references into the mix without dr
Re: Does Not Compute, Fortnight is a good game (Score:2)
I imagine he made a Hrumph sound after typing that Fortnite isn't good even though it is popular. It is clearly good to someone. It's just some cork sniffer not being satisfied that their niche interests aren't mainstream, but also bragging that their opinions are above the rabble of mainstream gaming.
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It's good to 12 year olds.
That is the market Disney is targeting - you get them when they're 12 and they're customers for life.
How many 40-50 year olds are still into Star Wars after first encountering that universe when they were between 7 and 12? I know I'm one of them.
Fortnite is huge among 12 year old boys. It's one of the very few media franchises that still caters to 12 year old boys. All the rest have pivoted to girls - like Marvel.
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The card game Uno is good for 12 year olds, but I still play that game all the time.
The main problem with Fortnite is the players not the game content. If you play with people your own age you'd probably like it better.
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It could work for Disney by giving them even more exposure than they already have. But it's still going to take an interesting and hit Disney product to work. Fortnite itself isn't a unique universe with unique shit happening in it (a la Star Wars). It's not something that people will still be talking about in 50 years from now - except for maybe the "pros" who are reminiscent and peaked with Fortnite. I know some older kids in their 20s who still play Fortnite from time to time, and it's explicitly to shit
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Nothing to do with niche interests. I like BR type games, which is still Fortnite's main bread and butter. However, F2P games with any sort of cash shop are just straight up bad. When you only make money through battle passes and skins, that starts to be the main focus of development. Why improve the game and make it even better (which earns zero money), when you can milk a few whales who want all the skins? All F2P games are inherently shitty at their core, because the development focus is never on the gam
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Fortnite is not a good game or universe or metaverse, regardless of its popularity.
I don't know how you can realistically say that - at this point it has maintained a huge player base for so long, it's no longer a subjective opinion to say it's a good game, it's objective fact...
McDonalds is one of the worlds most frequented restaurants, doesn't make it fine dining. Same with music charts and Tay Tay. Popular != quality.
Seriously, if you took a straw poll of 200 people at your local mall/high street based on random entertainment questions... Do you think your response is going to be far off "what the fuck are these retards on" but I digress.
The thing with MUMMOFUFPUSSES (MMOFPSs) is that they audience is incredibly fickle. First it was CS, then Battlefield, then COD, then Ove
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The thing with MUMMOFUFPUSSES (MMOFPSs) is that they audience is incredibly fickle.
Sounds like British incest pR0n to me.
Good does not equal elegant (Score:1)
McDonalds is one of the worlds most frequented restaurants, doesn't make it fine dining.
But we are not talking about elegance or how fancy something is; we are talking abut how GOOD something is.
The fact that McDonalds has spread all around teh world, does it fact mean it is GOOD.
It is consistent in quality around the world, and many people genuinely enjoy going there. Just because you do not like it, does not mean it's not good.
The same would go for a great burger in the middle of nowhere. It might not
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Consistently low quality, but still edible food that is very popular will never be considered "good". McDonald's isn't good, it's convenient. Same thing for Fortnite. It isn't good, it's convenient (because it's free). Fortnite also requires little to no skill to be decent. All F2P games with paid battle passes and/or skin shops are shitty junk games. Apex Legends, League of Legends (especially since Vanguard is coming), Rocket League (since Epic bought it), all complete trash. Yes, you can play (and win) w
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Consistently low quality, but still edible food that is very popular will never be considered "good".
Six year olds around the Earth respectfully disagree.
You are mapping your own opinions over reality. Some people honestly do like McDonalds... as I said if enough people seek something out, that means it is objectively good even if you dislike it.
Stop being so elitist.
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I like McDonald's just fine, crave it sometimes even. But it doesn't matter how much I enjoy it. It doesn't matter if I liked it so much that I ate there every day. It still wouldn't be classified as good, because it objectively is not.
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I don't play it much myself but I can see why people do. I think it's a game that's a great balance of fun and skill, that has somehow magically managed to fold in a million different pop culture references into the mix without dropping players.
It requires next to no skill. It USED to require skill when the Battle Royale mode required you to build walls and shit back in the day. Now it's a regular, plain, no skill needed BR as the base game, and then a bunch of addon game modes that are interesting for maybe a day or two and then completely lose hype and interest.
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They are not running out of money but Fortnite isn't expanding as it was. That cash cow isn't
Re:Ruined IPs (Score:4, Insightful)
The REAL question in all this is how badly will this fail. Neither side has the creative adaptability nor the talent to make this work. Apperntly Disney also has a messy proxy battle and this is just a savo to stop it. This is all in Epic's court. They got MABYE two years to put something out thats impressive so when it dies they can blame Disney for it.
Still, how bad is it internally at Disney for them to throw 1.5b (Well not real cash but stock swap I bet) just to stop the board from being fired.
It is a bit messy at the mouse house at the moment. Their present paradigm has been to buy up IP like superhero movies, then replace male heroes with "perfect" 2016 era strong and empowered female characters who are defeminized, and turn the male characters into dolts or evil dolts.
This was largely in an attempt to get more women interested and to flock to the movies en masse.
And if you complained, the Disney people would attack you.
So a couple things happened. After ostracizing the fans of Superhero movies - who were a mix of men and women, and attempting to appeal to some presumed modern women aesthetic, they managed to produce some bad movies, lose a billion dollars on the movies, and who knows how much on the other products.
So the abandoned fan base, who they called manbabies or misogynist, or the rest of the standard insults, started staying away, and the group they were not trying to appeal to - they didn't come out to the movies. So for all the complaints, women "failed" Disney. They were supposed to come out to the new and improved superhero movies. Actually they didn't fail, Disney failed all of us.
And then just to slap Disney in the face, Barbie came out. A juggernaut of a movie that women flocked to in droves. While not my cup of tea, I can really appreciate the set work.
And to put the fine point on it, out comes Godzilla minus one. Another juggernaut, and a cheaply produced one at that.
And the idiocy of poor story telling - all storytelling has a formula. The creativity is working within that formula. Where the present day screenplay writers graduated from, they didn't learn the basics.
So in the end, it is shown that if a studio puts out movies that people want to see, they will go to them, the movies will make profit. The studio will continue.
If they insist on catering to a demographic that complains about the lack of their desired political content that they demand in the movies, yet has no intention of actually attending the movies, well, a billion dollars here, a billion dollars there - after a while we're talking about real money.
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If they insist on catering to a demographic that complains about the lack of their desired political content
It seems like you are the one complaining about "political" content in Disney content?
The content produced by Disney is wide-ranging and intended to appeal to a wide-ranging audience (well, mostly an audience who can pay to engage with Disney content, but that's another discussion). If you look at the list of Movies released by Disney, rather than just your own personal opinion about a handful of specific titles you didn't like, you'll see stories that feature a range of different characters. In 2019, for
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If they insist on catering to a demographic that complains about the lack of their desired political content
It seems like you are the one complaining about "political" content in Disney content?
Do you think so? I pretty much just pointed out the situation. An assessment, if you will. Let's assume you and I are stockholders, maybe even on the BOD of Disney. It all starts with asking and getting an answer to the simple question: "Why did we lose a billion dollars last year?"
Now the proximate cause is that Disney produced and distributed movies that not many people cared to pay money to go see. Not enough people paid enough money for those movies to bring in a profit.
So likewise another simple qu
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People used to go to these movies in droves - why did they stop
A. The pandemic.
B. The movie-going experience is crap. There's no compelling reason to go to the movies and people discovered watching it at home was better.
C. Going to a movie is too expensive.
D. Just wait until it shows up on Disney+ for no additional cost (sunk cost since already paid for the subscription). Disney+ is expensive already, why pay twice for the same thing?
Your "assessment" of Disney's product appears focused on a few of their product areas that are of personal interest to you rather than
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People used to go to these movies in droves - why did they stop
A. The pandemic. B. The movie-going experience is crap. There's no compelling reason to go to the movies and people discovered watching it at home was better. C. Going to a movie is too expensive. D. Just wait until it shows up on Disney+ for no additional cost (sunk cost since already paid for the subscription). Disney+ is expensive already, why pay twice for the same thing? Your "assessment" of Disney's product appears focused on a few of their product areas that are of personal interest to you rather than their whole catalogue (which, even in recent years, is quite diverse) and on over-amplification of social media garbage and your own personal views on the culture wars. For example, two of Disney's biggest film losers in recent years were Indiana Jones and Ant-Man. Neither of these is a fighter in the culture wars. And Disney+ - which includes access to many older content - is bleeding money.
Indiana Jones was indeed part of the culture wars. At least enough for the apologists who have come out with their litany of reasons that it was not woke.
https://www.hollywoodintoto.co... [hollywoodintoto.com] Even the stalwart BBC found it gloomy and depressing, noting:
"[“Dial of Destiny”] has the air of a film passing the torch (or whip) to the next generation. But it does all this in an even gloomier fashion than The Force Awakens did. I’m not sure how many fans want to see Indiana Jones as a broken,
Apple (Score:2)
When is Apple and Epic going to kiss and make up? Unreal engine on Apple Vision Pro would be cool.
If Epic can make Borderlands 4, before Disney... (Score:2)
They should ask CCP (Score:1)
CPP is the company behind EvE Online.
Biggest persistent Game world on planet Earth.
Wow, this news surely caught many by surprise! (Score:1)