Disney announced a strategic relationship with Epic Games, in an exclusive interview with CNBC on Wednesday.
TakeAway Points:
- Disney announced a $1.5 billion investment relationship with Epic Games, a Metaverse platform.
- This is Disney’s biggest entry ever into the gaming space, which offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion.
- Disney aims to remain relevant in the entertainment industry with this collaboration.
Disney invests $1.5 billion in Epic Games
Disney took a minority stake of $1.5 billion in Epic Games, the creator of Fortnight, as they make their biggest foray ever into the game space, with the aim of creating a huge gaming Disney universe where digital e-commerce, gaming, and watching movies can take place.
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“we’re also creating with them a huge Disney universe that will be for gaming and for play and for watching and even for shopping for digital goods and maybe ultimately physical goods that will live alongside “Fortnite,” but be completely interconnected with “Fortnite”.”
Disney CEO said.
The press release highlights Disney’s initiative to leverage the Gen Alpha and Gen Z consumption focus on the media. “It’s pretty dramatic, in terms of the amount of time spent in games, equal to or greater than how people are spending their time on movies and television.” Iger said. “We can’t wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways.” she added.
Disney, to diversify to remain relevant
Furthermore, the company intends to remain relevant by being able to express their intellectual property, characters and stories in various ways. Stating they have been doing that in parks and resorts and cruise ship businesses worldwide.
“I think it’s critical for us to continue to stay relevant and continue to basically create ways that consumers can interact the way they want to with our storytelling and our characters.”
Iger stated.
According to Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite, and they use Unreal Engine across their portfolio. “Now we’re collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open, and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities.” he added.
Although there is no fixed launch date, Disney believes that this investment is ‘a good, solid business’ that will be asserted once launched.
