Bob Iger Unlocks the Victory Royale Achievement
Somewhere, someone’s grandparent just learned how popular video games are.
In this particular instance, the child’s grandparent is Bob Iger, the CEO of The Walt Disney Company.
The Walt Disney Company
During a borderline-unprecedented 24 hours, Iger and Disney reinvented the sports broadcasting process, started a new video game empire, and secured its storytelling fortress.
Sometimes, you can just tell that you’re watching history play out in front of you.
(Charley Gallay / Getty Images for Disney)
Yesterday was one of those days for Disney, as Bob Iger unlocked the Victory Royale achievement and likely delivered a Fatality to Nelson Peltz.
MORTAL KOMBAT!!!
Image: Mortal Kombat
I apologize to old-school gamers for giving them that earworm, but a real-life version of Mortal Kombat played out today.
That young, up-and-coming leader of Disney, Bob Iger, developed a bold gaming strategy for his conventional media company.
Photo: Disney CEO Bob Iger (Getty Images)
My tongue is firmly in my cheek when I say this, as I get the feeling Iger wouldn’t know which way to hold a game controller.
During a CNBC interview yesterday, Disney’s big boss dropped the bombshell that his company had bought a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games.
Photo: Getty
In case you didn’t know, they’re the makers of Fortnite, one of the ten most-played video games of all-time.
I’m pretty sure Iger didn’t know this because he sounded utterly clueless about gaming during the interview AND the earnings call.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by JUSTIN LANE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
This project sounds like something happening around Disney’s CEO rather than because of him.
When pressed for a timeline, Iger clearly had no idea how long it takes to develop a video game project like this.
The CEO randomly threw out two years as a timeline, while a launch trailer claimed the project was coming “soon-ish.”
Photo: DIsney+
We’ll have a lot of fun joking about the old man learning about video games, but what just happened is dramatic for Disney.
We recently learned that Disney almost purchased Activision 20 years ago.
Photo Credit: Michael Eisner via Twitter @Michael_Eisner
Apparently, Michael Eisner understood video games better than his younger counterpart, Iger.
None of that matters, though. Someone else at Disney has taken the initiative here.
Gamer God D’Amaro
So, who gets the credit for this stunning new project?
The answer is Josh D’Amaro, along with one of his staff members, Sean Shoptaw, Disney’s Senior Vice President for Global Games & Interactive Experiences.
D’Amaro and Shoptaw apparently cornered the old man and forced him to look at the data showing media consumption.
Here’s how Iger described the genesis of the project.
Photo: DIsney+
“After I came back (to Disney), I sat down with Josh D’Amaro, who runs our experiences business and his executive who actually manages games, Sean Shoptaw.
And one of the things they showed me — actually, the first thing they showed me were demographic trends.
Photo: Disney
And when I saw Gen Z and Gen Alpha and even millennials and I saw the amount of time they were spending in terms of their total media screen time on video games.
It was stunning to me, equal to what they spend on TV and movies. And the conclusion I reached was we have to be there, and we have to be there as soon as we possibly can in a very compelling way.”
Yes, D’Amaro and Shoptaw just taught an old dog a new trick.
Now, Disney is poised to take advantage of a rare opportunity within the gaming space.
Travis Scott, Trevor Noah, and…Mickey Mouse?
Fortnite has agreed to build an adjacent world exclusively for Disney content.
Illustrations show themed realms like Star Wars, Avatar, and Marvel.
Fans can play within these spaces as part of the Fortnite experience.
Photo: EPIC Games
This seems like a good time to mention that more than 400 million people play Fortnite.
In fact, 100 million of them played Fortnite in November alone!
Disney joins a fully realized world already capable of hosting live concerts and comedy specials.
Photo: vecteezy.com
Ten years ago, Disney wasted $675 million on Maker Studios. This is better.
For less than $1 billion more, Disney enters a fully developed market and immediately overwhelms it with insanely great content.
As part of this venture, Disney will sell digital items, which offer some of the highest profit margins in economic history.
Photo: Wikimedia
What are the primary costs in building anything? The answers are parts and labor.
With digital sales, there’s no manufacturing process per se, simply algorithms that generate digital items.
As I’ve previously discussed, anything in this realm borders on pure profit.
Photo: EPIC Games
Disney is now partnering with one of the few established, time-proven brands in an often-evolving marketplace.
Fortnite is seven years old, yet it just claimed its best month ever.
Disney had previously offered some limited-time characters in Fortnite and even created a Marvel x Fortnite comic book.
Photo: Walmart
So, this particular development has been in the exploratory phase for a while now.
Eventually, two younger executives managed to get Iger to recognize the financial opportunity here.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
For its part, Disney adds that “Disney’s games business continues to deliver strong results since it shifted to a licensing business model in 2016.”
Meanwhile, Iger states that the tipping point was the “Spider-Man franchise, which was the most successful video game last year.”
Maybe We Should Thank Nelson Peltz?
Here’s a snippet of a Yahoo! Finance video that occurred around the same time as the earnings call.
While I subconsciously clench my teeth anytime I hear the name Nelson Peltz, these two analysts have a point.
Romain Maurice/Getty Images for Carbone Beach | Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
In a way, we should all be grateful for Peltz in that the need to destroy him has restored Bob Iger.
When Iger returned, Disney expected him to hit the ground running, and he frankly seemed a bit out of game shape at times.
That was NOT the case three months ago during the prior earnings report call, and it most assuredly wasn’t true yesterday.
(Photo by Kevin Lorenzi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Iger has Disney exploding with innovative methods of increasing profit margins.
If you watch the entire clip, the one woman jokes that if Peltz isn’t happy with 20 percent growth in earnings per share, nothing will make him happy.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
I’ve previously mentioned that Peltz is parlaying a kind of gambler’s insurance here.
In the best-case scenario, Peltz and Isaac Perlmutter claim significant control over Disney.
But the worst-case scenario still works out phenomenally well for the two men, who claim $3 billion in Disney stock.
Nelson Peltz
Growth of 20 percent would net them a cool $600 million this year, just as Peltz earned $150 million the last time he threw a tantrum.
Meanwhile, the threat of Thanos has caused Iger to build his own Infinity Gauntlet at Disney.
Yes, I’m all over the place with my metaphors here, but you get the point.
Photo: Natacha Rafalski on Instagram
Peltz kicked sand in Iger’s face. Twice.
Now, Iger just stood up and administered an absolute pummeling of Peltz by unearthing several new profitable Disney tactics.
Photo: CNBC
The Fortnite and Sports Hulu deals probably wouldn’t have happened if Peltz hadn’t been such an unconscionably sore loser.
So, thanks?
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Feature Photo: Heidi Gutman/Walt Disney Television
