News Disney partners with Epic Games to launch gaming and entertainment universe tied to Fortnite

tissandtully

tissandtully

Well-Known Member
Zummi Gummi said:
Clearly I'm old, as I thought Fortnite was just a game where you went and killed people Hunger Games style, attempting to be the last person standing. I was thinking to myself what an odd partnership for Disney that was.
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It is way more than that now, honestly that’s a much smaller part of the service at this point
 
Dranth

Dranth

Well-Known Member
Trauma said:
What I’m saying is I don’t see this being a impactful line item on any future income statements.

They may make some money may lose some.

I just see it as meh.
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Don't disagree with that personally but the more I think about it the more I am leaning towards looking at it as an ad buy of sorts that puts them squarely in front of the face of many millennials and younger generations.

Maybe it doesn't move the needle much but at least it is a relatively safe bet that has some decent upside.
 
Mike S

Mike S

Well-Known Member
This part is funny to me.
Last year. After I came back, I sat down with Josh D’Amaro, who runs our Disney Experiences. And his executive who actually manages games Sean Shoptaw. The first thing they showed me were demographic trends. 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.
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Really? You didn’t know this? Lol. No wonder they stupidly shut down LucasArts and Disney Interactive. If they were smart they could be banking like Warner did with Hogwarts Legacy. It would take a lot of effort and care but Disney could’ve been a decent player in the game industry. They definitely have the IP for it.
 
JD80

JD80

Well-Known Member
Mike S said:
This part is funny to me.

Really? You didn’t know this? Lol. No wonder they stupidly shut down LucasArts and Disney Interactive. If they were smart they could be banking like Warner did with Hogwarts Legacy. It would take a lot of effort in care but Disney could’ve been a decent player in the game industry. They definitely have the IP for it.
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The game industry sucks unless you're one of the big ones, it's really not worth starting your own. Getting ownership in something like EPIC is the right way to do it. Just like how Microsoft bought AcitBlizz.
 
networkpro

networkpro

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
JD80 said:
The game industry sucks unless you're one of the big ones, it's really not worth starting your own. Getting ownership in something like EPIC is the right way to do it. Just like how Microsoft bought AcitBlizz.
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Everything Disney has touched in the videogame industry has turned into compost. Its free offerings had IP and adoption, but they didnt generate income. Square Enix did the KH series.
 
Mike S

Mike S

Well-Known Member
JD80 said:
The game industry sucks unless you're one of the big ones, it's really not worth starting your own. Getting ownership in something like EPIC is the right way to do it. Just like how Microsoft bought AcitBlizz.
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They had a studio that was making THIS and then promptly shut the whole thing down when they bought LucasFilm.

All they had to do was let them do their thing.
 
JD80

JD80

Well-Known Member
Mike S said:
They had a studio that was making THIS and then promptly shut the whole thing down when they bought LucasFilm.

All they had to do was let them do their thing.
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So what. One game doesn't make a sustainable game studio.
 
SailorMercury

SailorMercury

Well-Known Member
"Moana's on me! She's cracked. Belle is building above me but she's running out of mats. We got Pooh outside with an SMG taking down the build"

This will be a masterpiece. Can't wait.
 
Mike S

Mike S

Well-Known Member
networkpro said:
They made quite a few enjoyable games, but they were a consolidation casualty as there was already an existing internal group. Later they decided just to license out IP and axed the internal group as well.
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Yeah. I get it’s not easy being in the game industry but keeping an already well established studio like LucasArts around would’ve only helped them get a foothold. Even all those years ago the writing was on the wall of how big the gaming industry would become.
 
VicariousCorpse

VicariousCorpse

Well-Known Member
Trauma said:
So let’s say they grow revenue to 5 billion.

That’s 250m for Disney.

Only 20 years to recap the investment.

People will still be playing Fortnite in 20 years right?
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It's not 1.5 billion for a Fortnite share, it's for a stake in Epic games. This includes the Epic Games Store, Epic Online Services, and most importantly, the Unreal Engine. It's by far one of the most popular game engines being used. Around 15% of all games being released are made in unreal engine. People will still be playing video games in 20 years right? Don't worry, if they play their cards right they can recoup this in 5.
 
J

jeanericuser001

Well-Known Member
JD80 said:
You know the company is more than just theme parks?
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Did I say it was for the theme parks? No I did not. You made a huge assumption so I will explain so you can understand why this is a bad mistake.

Just leasing the unreal engine is suitable enough as there are plenty of great developers that can create fantastic games. The problem is unreal like valve has lost its developer roots in favor of being a monetization platform. They are not exactly well known for making amazing content. Most of it is based on user submitted content and flavor of the week promotions that lose their charm almost immediately. To make matters worse they will probably not expend the effort to create a new game from scratch. Sure it will use the unreal engine but they will likely use existing premade content. That is why fortnight skins with a few exceptions are very much alike. That is why the arenas are very much alike. At one time they may have made some amazing content but now their real talent is just making the engine.

As for disney investing in epic games, they are obviously also looking to tap into those monetizing and how will they do that while the games are being made, fortnight. They will also likely be wanting to some how pitch this content into merchandising as they are after all investing billions in this. This is why I bemoan this situation. Universal was smart to invest in nintendo as it has many franchises and a solid merchandise based that adds much to the content. What does epic games offer to disney? Fortnight. They tried EA but EA is so crazy about monetization that they even have governments investigating them. They were in talks with ubisoft but that is belly up. At this point this could have made a strong deal with microsoft as they have bought several developer teams but they chose epic.

This is why I am not too happy with this as its not a wise choice for a developer or business partner. Its nice on paper to have a literal engine developer in your corner but the real power comes in the developers who create the content using the engine. There are a lot of amazing developers that could do this so much better.......but alas they chose the company whos most popular title at the moment is fortnight.
 
networkpro

networkpro

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
FulcrumSolo said:
"Moana's on me! She's cracked. Belle is building above me but she's running out of mats. We got Pooh outside with an SMG taking down the build"

This will be a masterpiece. Can't wait.
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Mike S

Mike S

Well-Known Member
jeanericuser001 said:
Did I say it was for the theme parks? No I did not. You made a huge assumption so I will explain so you can understand why this is a bad mistake.

Just leasing the unreal engine is suitable enough as there are plenty of great developers that can create fantastic games. The problem is unreal like valve has lost its developer roots in favor of being a monetization platform. They are not exactly well known for making amazing content. Most of it is based on user submitted content and flavor of the week promotions that lose their charm almost immediately. To make matters worse they will probably not expend the effort to create a new game from scratch. Sure it will use the unreal engine but they will likely use existing premade content. That is why fortnight skins with a few exceptions are very much alike. That is why the arenas are very much alike. At one time they may have made some amazing content but now their real talent is just making the engine.

As for disney investing in epic games, they are obviously also looking to tap into those monetizing and how will they do that while the games are being made, fortnight. They will also likely be wanting to some how pitch this content into merchandising as they are after all investing billions in this. This is why I bemoan this situation. Universal was smart to invest in nintendo as it has many franchises and a solid merchandise based that adds much to the content. What does epic games offer to disney? Fortnight. They tried EA but EA is so crazy about monetization that they even have governments investigating them. They were in talks with ubisoft but that is belly up. At this point this could have made a strong deal with microsoft as they have bought several developer teams but they chose epic.

This is why I am not too happy with this as its not a wise choice for a developer or business partner. Its nice on paper to have a literal engine developer in your corner but the real power comes in the developers who create the content using the engine. There are a lot of amazing developers that could do this so much better.......but alas they chose the company whos most popular title at the moment is fortnight.
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It’s sad but we’ve seen for a while that the creative spark at Disney is mostly gone. Of course they wouldn’t invest in actual game development but Universal isn’t really doing so either. They’re just licensing Nintendo for the parks and just Mario for movies. Oddly enough Sony got the Zelda movie who also makes PlayStation.
 
J

jeanericuser001

Well-Known Member
Mike S said:
It’s sad but we’ve seen for a while that the creative spark at Disney is mostly gone. Of course they wouldn’t invest in actual game development but Universal isn’t really doing so either. They’re just licensing Nintendo for the parks and just Mario for movies. Oddly enough Sony got the Zelda movie who also makes PlayStation.
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Its not just for the parks. When you invest in a company to that degree you get access to a lot of IPs. Remember that its not just mario but also donkey kong and anything else universal makes a deal with them on. What is real elephant in the room is when they suddenly decide to go with pokemon. Now that is when universal is gonna tap into a franchise with massive draw. You think pokemon go was wild. Imagine when universal decides to tap into that. Not just for in park but merchandising as well which is still a strong contender whether it be USA or Asia.

Disney so far out of this deal gets fortnight and maybe jazz jackrabbit and jill of the jungle if anyone at all remembers them which I highly doubt. If you are thinking gears of war you have to remember that epic only developed the game while microsoft actually owns the IP rights. Honestly its a bad investment as disney gets only a developer mostly known for 1 game over the last decade and a game distribution system that regularly has to give away free games just to keep people coming back.
 

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