Disney has revealed their latest big bet in gaming: a $ 1.5 billion investment in Epic Games, to work with Fortnite.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Bob Iger explained what they were thinking themselves with his statement:
“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.”
For his part, Epic Games CEO shared this statement:
“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.”
Disney’s relationship with video games goes deep, but it’s only been in recent years that the company has been this serious in their big money investments in this industry.
Disney’s 1st connection to video games likely started in 1981, when Nintendo published the Mickey Mouse Game & Watch LCD game. In 1988, Disney started a game division, called Walt Disney Computer Software. Games that came out under WDCS include NES’ Ducktales, Castle of Illusion on the Genesis, and the two different Aladdin games on the SNES and Genesis.
In 1994, Disney reorganized into Disney Interactive, using the film studio format to produce games. But in 1997, they laid off 20 % of their staff and ended in-house film production, leading to more 3rd party development.
In 2003, they became a dedicated games publisher again, renamed into Buena Vista Games. It was BVG who made the Kingdom Hearts games with Square Enix, and acquired Avalanche Games to make many of their games, like the Pixar’s Cars racing franchise.
In 2007, Disney wanted to phase the Buena Vista name out, so this studio became Disney Interactive Studios. This was the last incarnation of Disney’s gaming division that we knew of. It was DIS that acquired LucasArts/LucasFilm Games, and published Disney Infinity. Facing financial losses from 2008 onwards, they would slowly close several studios, like Split/Second developer Black Rock Studios.
Disney shuttered their game division down in 2016, after cancelling Disney Infinity. Since then, we saw Disney license their Spider-Man and Avengers franchises for video games, republish the classic libraries they owned, and then recently, made announcements for Marvel’s Blade and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
This is the next phase for a media giant that has seen peaks and valleys in their journey into video games. Now we see they are throwing all their eggs into Fortnite’s live service basket, tying together their and Epic Games’ fortunes. This means they will now be part of Epic’s lawsuits against Apple and Google, though it means they may intervene in them as well.
Much like the Microsoft deal to acquire Activision, we may not fully understand just yet the full ramifications of this deal. It’s quite the news to take in, just before the start of the next lunar new year.
