Hellbent on harvesting your nostalgia forever, megacorp Disney has purchased a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games, teaming up to create a persistent, social universe within Fortnite. It sounds wildly ambitious and more than a little dystopian, allowing fans to "play, watch, shop, and engage" with their favourite Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars characters and bringing us one step closer to the future promised in Ready Player One.
The news was announced during the House of Mouse's Q1 FY24 earnings call (thanks IGN), where The Walt Disney Company's CEO, Robert Iger, revealed the ambitious project: "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, CEO and founder of Epic Games, welcomed the announcement and teased the company's exciting vision for the future: "We're collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities." No further details like a release window or official name were revealed. Still, it will reportedly be a "multi-year project" that looks to expand on the many times the two companies have worked together previously.
For context, Epic Games was valued at $31.5 billion in 2022. Its principal owners are Sweeney himself (51.4%) and Chinese megacorp Tencent (40%), with various other entities competing for the rest. PlayStation's parent company, Sony, also holds a valuable stake (5.4%).
What do you think of Disney's bold bet on creating an "interoperable" entertainment universe within Fortnite? As the prophet Ernest Cline foretold, are we on track to living and working in an OASIS-like reality by 2045? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source youtube.com, via ign.com]
Comments 26
Disney investing in gaming….gross
3% left to invest in according to the figures here and Disney paid 1.5b for part of that. I guess epics worth a lot more than 31.5 nowadays.
Very interesting. Excited to see what becomes of this!
Disney is taking huge gambles with stuff like this. They only have about 11 billion dollars cash, which will be down to 8-9 billion after they finish their deal with Hulu. I hope they go bankrupt
@Goat_FromBOTW they've been making a lot of bad decisions lately. They lost a ton of money on recent movie releases. I just saw Disney Plus lost over a million subscribers this last quarter.
Great maybe they can ruin Fortnite too for everyone like they did Star Wars.
@Dalejrfanfreak I'm more worried that Epic will ruin Disney like they did Rocket League.
My condolences to everyone who works at Epic.
Never touched Fortnite, but the things Epic are doing lately are definitely spiking my interest. Looking forward to seeing this much larger collaboration with Disney.
I wonder what % is $1.5 billion today compared with the $1.45 from Sony 2 years ago.
@gymratAmarillo I've just read somewhere else that disney now owns 10 percent and sony owns 5.4 percent, if that's true then epic games value has gone down since sonys purchase I would have thought?, Im not too clued up with stocks and shares but on paper to me that's what it looks like unless disney already had shares before
I'm such an old fart. This brings me no joy and further disillusions me on the direction gaming has gone over the last 10 years.
Oh sweet baby Jesus and the orphans no....Disney ruined MARVEL and ruined star wars and now they are he'll bent on ruining fortnite as well. I don't play fortnite much (the occasional no build mode with my nephew) but I can't fathom for the life of me what the fortniters have done to deserve having the woke agenda pushed upon them. Well done epic as you've just invited the worst people in to tell you what content you ARE going to be pushing onto people.
@gymratAmarillo Disneys share in epic at todays valuation is 4.76% vs Sonys 5.4%…
Oh no, woke. I hate wokey woke Disney, they ruined stuff. Actually, I hate everything.
This sort of a deal has been on the cards since Disney Infinity. It makes much more sense to put Disney, Marvel and Star Wars characters in Fortnite than it does to try and launch your own Fortnite. That was always a big ask for a company that doesn’t really understand video games. Or toys. Or movies. Or corporate unity.
C’mon. Kids are gonna love this. They get to play Fortnite and meet Mickey and wave a lightsaber and dress up as Spider-Man. These are all things kids love. It’s not aimed at middle aged Empire Strikes Back fans, so our opinions are kinda irrelevant.
So basically Fortnite with skins from Disney franchises you can buy. Groundbreaking...
Phase 1; how do we skin tinkerbell into it so all the Karens let their kids play? And how does she carry rocket launchers?
If Epic had any soul left, it's gone now
Don't start being a Disney pump, Fortnite
I just want Disney to shutdown.
The studio only produces s*** these days.
I tried to play the new guitar hero thing on Fortnite. My first time ever attempting anything in the “universe”. It was the most convoluted, difficult mess I’ve ever experienced in a game. I couldn’t create a character. Like customization didn’t even let me make a name. It just had me chose a what kind of player I was for other people to see or something. It took me forever to find controller button remapping. The controls for the third person walking part weren’t even available unless I quit out of the guitar hero and opened up the third person game. I couldn’t launch a single player version to learn how to play without having a bunch of online people be a party to me practicing. I couldn’t even pause the game as it kept playing the song while I was trying to navigate the mess. And the whole main menu was like a Netflix ripoff that didn’t even make sense.
To say the least I gave up after an hour or so of messing around and won’t ever, ever try it again.
@Dodoo thanks
Disney was one of my favourite companies when I was a child in the 80s/90s. The Disney we see today, and have been seeing for the last decade(ish) is not the same company that I once loved, unfortunately.
@gymratAmarillo welcome 😊
The only thing I'm still waiting on(which seems unlikely as years pass by) is a Star wars world in a kingdom hearts game where you join Anakin in the clone wars. When you revisit it a vs battle against Darth vader
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