Months After Its $1.5 Billion Deal With Epic Games, Disney Beefs Up Its Video Game Division
Once upon a time, The Walt Disney Company was happy to license out its popular franchises and characters to video game producers. While these third parties would use their expertise in the video game sphere to create the games themselves, Disney would reap some of the benefits.
Photo: EA
Games such as the Star Wars Jedi and Spider-Man series proved to be immensely popular. Still, Disney was just a tertiary player in the video game industry.
A Fateful Presentation
Things changed, however, shortly after Disney CEO Bob Iger returned to the company in 2022. As the longtime Hollywood executive got reacclimated with his surroundings, Josh D’Amaro, then head of Disney’s parks and experiences, and Sean Shoptaw, the company’s head of games, gave Iger a presentation on the media habits of young consumers.
Photo: The Walt Disney Company-Josh D’Amaro (Chairman; Disney Parks, Experiences and Products)
“The first thing they showed me were the demographic trends,” Iger recalled. “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.”
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That presentation would convince Iger that Disney needed to be a bigger player in the video game industry. His conclusion he reached was simple:
“We have to be there. We have to be there as soon as we possibly can in a very compelling way,” Iger recalled thinking.
Disney Invests In Epic Games
The fateful presentation would eventually leave Disney to invest $1.5 billion in Fortnite studio Epic Games to promote and create a Disney universe that will be compatible with Fortnite.
Photo: EPIC Games
“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,” Iger said as part of the announcement.
“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.”
Photo: EPIC Games
Things had clearly changed at Disney.
A Beefed-Up Video Game Division
In a testament to Disney’s new-found commitment to the industry, the company announced today that it has expanded and restructured its video game division.
As part of the reorg, Shoptaw has been promoted to executive vice president of the division. Bjorn Tornvist has also been hired as VP of games technology after formally working on the tech side at Ubisoft.
Sean Shoptaw. Photo: Variety
He will join Ray Gresko, senior VP of product and development, who Disney brought on board six months ago. Gresko came from Blizzard Entertainment, where he developed titles like Overwatch and Diablo III.
Ray Gresko and Jay Ong. Photo: Disney
Additionally, Jay Ong, who has led the Marvel Games team for ten years, has been promoted to lead Disney’s global games licensing business. Haluk Mentes will succeed him at Marvel Games.
A New Era
“Under the leadership of Sean and Jay, Disney’s games business is perfectly positioned to deliver world-class storytelling in this medium,” said Disney Consumer Products President Tasia Filippatos. “We’re grateful to every member of the Disney Games team who has contributed to our success, and who will help shape the future of this industry through genre-defining entertainment.”
Between their investment in Epic Games and today’s announcement, one thing is clear. Disney is investing heavily in the future of video games.
