Disney Gaming Chief Talks the Company’s Strategy Moving Forward
The Walt Disney Company is an undisputed entertainment behemoth. Despite its impressive roster of films, television shows, and theme parks, however, there is one frontier that Disney has yet to concur — gaming.
While not a major player in the gaming sphere, Disney had a strong 2023, even if it was just tertiarily.
Earlier this year, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor dominated the gaming charts, proving that the Star Wars franchise is still going strong.
Then, in October, Spider-Man 2 burst onto the screen, followed by the recent release of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Closer to home, Disney Dreamlight Valley moved out of its beta phase into its hard launch.


Photo: Sony
With the announcement of a new Blade game tied to the upcoming Marvel movie at the 2023 Game Awards, Disney is showing no signs of slowing down.
Disney’s Franchises Have Their Own Games Teams
Interstingly, according to Disney’s senior vice president of games and interactive experiences, Sean Shoptaw, each of Disney’s franchises has its own games team.


Photo: Disney
“We obviously have a robust team across all franchises: We’ve got a Marvel games team, a Lucasfilm games team, we’ve got folks that oversee Disney/Pixar games, and 20th Century games, as well,” Shoptaw said.


Photo: Disney
“So we kind of break it down by franchise. And then within that, we’ve got a central business development team, a central marketing team, a central creative team and then production roles that support those franchises, as I laid out,” he continued.
Disney Will Continue to Focus on Licensing
Disney has gaming divisions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul and London.
According to Shoptaw, instead of developing and producing the games themselves, Disney is now focused on licensing.


Electronic Arts
“We’re really happy with where we are. We made a conscious decision to do this roughly five years ago,” Shoptaw said.
“We had historically done different things in games, as you’re aware, we were a vertical business for a long time. And we were a co-development business for a while where we would outsource development and we would publish and we’ve always, of course, licensed. We felt like where we are and where we were then, it made the most sense to pivot the business exclusively to licensing and that allows us really to work with the best publishers and developers anywhere they are.”
The IPs are Key
In the end, Disney knows that its bread and butter are the Disney IPs. No matter who the partner is, however, Disney wants to be able to take pride in the final product.
“For us, with the breadth of IP we have, there’s so much ambition to tell really great original stories in this space,” Shoptaw said. “For our characters, stories and worlds, matching that with best in class developers has really been a formula for us that we think is is really valuable for the company and really drives ultimately the best product for fans.”