The already ubiquitous Walt Disney Company could be getting a lot more omnipresent after the House of Mouse spent $1.5 billion to buy a stake in Epic Games.
If “Epic Games” sounds at all familiar to you, it’s because that’s the company behind the equally ubiquitous Fortnite video game that just about every gamer in the world has booted up at least once.
And now the two entities will be directly linked thanks to Disney’s 10-figure investment into Epic Games.
The blockbuster deal was announced Wednesday as part of Disney’s first-quarter earnings report for fiscal 2024.
“The Walt Disney Company and Epic Games will collaborate on an all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences,” Disney announced. “Disney will also invest $1.5 billion to acquire an equity stake in Epic Games alongside the multiyear project.”
Disney then used some language that should be on the radar of any parents: This new venture is a “persistent universe” offering its denizens the chance to “play, watch, shop and engage.”
“In addition to being a world-class games experience and interoperating with Fortnite, the new persistent universe will offer a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more,” the Disney announcement continued.
It added: “Players, gamers and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content with each other in ways that they love.”
Disney CEO Bob Iger lauded the move and noted that this was actually a historically big move for the House of Mouse.
Have you ever played Fortnite before?
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“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 in the statement. “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.”
Epic’s head honcho, CEO Tim Sweeney, seemed equally as excited about the prospect of working with Disney (and its coffers).
“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,” Sweeney said. “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.”
For Disney, this is a curious expenditure of resources for a company that’s grappling with a number of wide-ranging issues, like lawsuits, inter-state rivals, and all manner of fiscal issues.
That being said, video games are as popular as they’ve ever been (per Disney, there are “more than 3 billion video game players worldwide”) and it makes sense that Disney would want a slice of this lucrative pie.
In fairness, video games have actually been the one arena where Disney has done somewhat well, with generally acclaimed titles like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Disney Dreamlight Valley all being released relatively recently.
Still, given the relatively grim prospects of Disney’s theme park attendance (where customers are being priced out) and Disney’s over-saturation of movies (where customers are being burnt out)… a $1.5 billion gamble on a video game “universe” still seems like quite the risk.
