Disney invests $1.5 billion in Epic Games to forge expansive universe within Fortnite

[midian182]

What just happened? Disney is making its largest-ever investment in the gaming space by taking a $1.5 billion equity stake in Epic Games. The deal will also see the creation of an "expansive and open games and entertainment universe" that will interoperate with Fortnite. Disney explained that consumers will be able to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters, and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar, and more.

Disney revealed the collaboration with Epic in the entertainment giant's Q1 FY24 Earnings Call. It said that this new experience will be built on Epic's Unreal Engine, and will let players "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 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," said Tim Sweeney, CEO and Founder, Epic Games. "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."

Epic is no stranger to these sorts of collaborations. The company received a $2 billion investment in 2022 from Sony and KIRKBI, the investment company operated by the Kirk Kristiansen family, which founded the Lego Group. It led to the launch of Lego Fortnite.

Disney has worked with Epic on Fortnite collaborations in the past, including several Marvel and Star Wars skins that appear in the game, and live events such as the Fortnite Nexus War. The new Disney experience, which is set to be a "multi-year project," will build on the companies' previous collaborative efforts and likely launch from within Fortnite, much like Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival.

The Fortnite brand has come a long way since starting life as a PvE co-op game over a decade ago, expanding into the kind of genre-spanning metaverse that Mark Zuckerberg wishes he could imitate.

In separate Disney news, the company's Disney Plus streaming service lost around 1.3 million subscribers in the final quarter of 2023, falling from 112.6 million to 111.3 million. The decline came just as the service's ad-free tier went up from $10.99 per month to $13.99 per month.

The good news for the company was that it cut its streaming losses by $300 million, Hulu gained 1.2 million subs, and it expects between 5.5 and 6 million Disney Plus Core subscriber net additions in Q2 2024. It has also started cracking down on password sharers, threatening to limit or restrict the accounts of those who break the new rules.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/101807-disney-invests-15-billion-epic-games-forge-expansive.html

 

[noel24]

"Put a chick in it and make it lame and gay."

 

[Zsoltblabla]

"Put a chick in it and make it lame and gay."

Yes… thats what disney is all about

 

[gdavid65]

Yeah, because Fortnite was so manly.

 

[Superconductor]

These groomers sure do throw a lot of money around!

 

[WhoCaresAnymore]

Funny, we cancelled our Disney+/Hulu subscription last night. Disney casting a black woman in place of Johnny Depp for Pirates of the Caribbean, and the new Star Wars director (a woman) saying that she is going to make all men uncomfortable with the new Star Wars.

We're done.

 

[atomicgirl]

"Put a chick in it and make it lame and gay."

What's that supposed to mean?

 

[Theinsanegamer]

It really goes to show how out of touch Disney is. They'll dump $1.5 BILLION on skins and advertisement in fortnite, ignoring that the fellow kids are not going to start liking disney slop just because OMG THEY PUT OBI WAN IN FORTNITE IM GONNA CONSOOOOOM.

Even with their insane bloated budgets, that is 6 theatrical releases. That they spent on fortnite. Or hey, what about your understaffed parks with maintenance that has been skipped for years? They could have used some of that....

"Put a chick in it and make it lame and gay."

Dont worry, I'm sure another $14 billion in losses will convince the public to like our Mary Sue Girlbosses!

What's that supposed to mean?

South park's "enter the panderverse" which nails hollywood's attitude of "put a chick in it and make her lame and gay" that they've been doing for the last 10+ years. Disney is one of the worst offenders.

 

[WhoCaresAnymore]

South park's "enter the panderverse" which nails hollywood's attitude of "put a chick in it and make her lame and gay" that they've been doing for the last 10+ years. Disney is one of the worst offenders.

Funny how prophetic that cartoon is, at times.

 

[atomicgirl]

I remember when gaming was filled with hot-blooded sexually active males who used to love having women in their games and entertainment. Tomb Raider became one of the biggest selling games for this very reason, and sci-fi and geek entertainment always had female characters and protagonists. (Seven of Nine? Wonder Women? Princess Leia? Batgirl? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Trinity? All those James Bond girls???). But apparently, it's now gay to have women in franchises that always had them precisely because they were played by straight men?

That's the problem with Disney's and other companies' strategies of trying to make more money by casting a wide net. Yes, you hook a lot more fish, but you also hook a lot of garbage, too. This is the biggest issue I have with Disney in buying out and expanding everything. By roping in everyone--and I do mean everyone--the original fanbase has to now put up with the deranged rants and observations of damaged individuals who would've never cared about these IPs otherwise.

 

[wiyosaya]

I remember when gaming was filled with hot-blooded sexually active males who used to love having women in their games and entertainment. Tomb Raider became one of the biggest selling games for this very reason, and sci-fi and geek entertainment always had female characters and protagonists. (Seven of Nine? Wonder Women? Princess Leia? Batgirl? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Trinity? All those James Bond girls???). But apparently, it's now gay to have women in franchises that always had them precisely because they were played by straight men?

I couldn't agree with you more. At least some of them, if not all of them, had brains, though. It's too bad that they were marketed by putting them in scantily-clad costumes so all those suffering from testosterone poisoning could not resist them - and that drew the audience, driving ratings up, and generating more profits for all such series.

That's the problem with Disney's and other companies' strategies of trying to make more money by casting a wide net. Yes, you hook a lot more fish, but you also hook a lot of garbage, too. This is the biggest issue I have with Disney in buying out and expanding everything. By roping in everyone--and I do mean everyone--the original fanbase has to now put up with the deranged rants and observations of damaged individuals who would've never cared about these IPs otherwise.

While I don't disagree with the fact that the testosterone poisoned P&M about these things that they could never have cared less about, my gripe about Disney buying up all these IPs is that they only see one thing - that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Disney has done nothing to contribute to quality writing. With Star Wars, including Ahsoka, but excepting "The Bad Batch", I think Disney has concluded that Star Wars is all about Light Sabre battles. Don't get me wrong, Ahsoka is a fantastic character, at least she was in The Clone Wars, but if Disney does not expand the franchise, IMO, by taking the story into the lore of the "Galaxy Far, Far, Away" as they indicated that they might do at the end of Ahsoka Season 1, they will lose me in their "Star Wars is Light Sabre battles" drivel.

On the other side of Disney with the Marvel stuff, I think they've milked that enough, too. Loki, season 2, I could not get through episode 1 as it was such worn-out crap, IMO.

I know probably most of the people who have commented to this thread so far might not like these, but there are two original, non-Disney, series that I think are very good precisely because they are fresh and have gotten away from the Tried and True superhero/light sabre crap that has previously generated ratings. Lupin, on Netflix, and Astrid on PBS.

 

[wiyosaya]

These groomers sure do throw a lot of money around!

I understand there are many out there that like to throw right-wing conspiracy theory strawmen into the comment fire, however, IMO, the only thing Disney cares about is profit, and that is what they are trying to do here, even if their efforts are misguided - to say the least.

 

[EdmondRC]

Disney has kind of destroyed everything they touch lately, so I don't see this as good news. Quite the opposite actually.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I remember when gaming was filled with hot-blooded sexually active males who used to love having women in their games and entertainment. Tomb Raider became one of the biggest selling games for this very reason, and sci-fi and geek entertainment always had female characters and protagonists. (Seven of Nine? Wonder Women? Princess Leia? Batgirl? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Trinity? All those James Bond girls???). But apparently, it's now gay to have women in franchises that always had them precisely because they were played by straight men?

No. What you've bought there is the industry's explanation for why their garbage doesnt sell.

Hot blooded men enjoy attractive women in their games. What they dont enjoy is preachy, masculine "womxn" that spout industry talking points and girlboss all over what we used to enjoy while lecturing us about how we're toxic and blah blah blah.

All the classic women you quoted do not exhibit this modern behavior. Wonder Woman didnt give us lectures about toxic masculinity. Leia wasnt a perfect superwoman who suffered no challenges. Batgirl didnt blame everything on the patriarchy while girlbossing everyone she met. Ece. You can look at borderlands 1 and 2, vs 3, and how the male and female characters were written and treated, for a great example of this.

It's not "gay" to have a woman in something. What disney, and the industry in general are doing, are putting women in place of men and making them "lame and gay" while gaslighting us telling us this is what we want. And consumers are sick of it.

EDIT: and for the record, women dont like this stuff either! What woman wants to see herself portrayed by a fat, unlikeable, self centered college talking point? Who can relate to perfect angles like Rey and Captian marvel? It's a specific type of zealot that likes this stuff, and it's no surprise we found out that hollywood was hiring writers from tumblr.

That's the problem with Disney's and other companies' strategies of trying to make more money by casting a wide net. Yes, you hook a lot more fish, but you also hook a lot of garbage, too. This is the biggest issue I have with Disney in buying out and expanding everything. By roping in everyone--and I do mean everyone--the original fanbase has to now put up with the deranged rants and observations of damaged individuals who would've never cared about these IPs otherwise.

Those :"deranged rats" are the ones disney wants! They dont want fans of star wars, for instance. They want the twitter crowd, who will wet their chairs because someone on screen checked diversity boxes. The mroe intersection buzzwords, the better! They actively HATE the audience, and will go out of their way to break what they liked about said IP while promoting their new garbage version then attack fans for not liking the new stuff.

See also: luke skywalker. Halo. Doctor who. Star trek. The list goes on. You dont hear "hate" for movies like alien or terminator today.

I understand there are many out there that like to throw right-wing conspiracy theory strawmen into the comment fire, however, IMO, the only thing Disney cares about is profit, and that is what they are trying to do here, even if their efforts are misguided - to say the least.

This is demonstrably wrong, Spreading "the message" was Bob Iger's stated goal for years, until it started to massively backfire. Chapek wanted to stay out of politics and was removed from the board for suggesting this.

Nothing "right wing" about acknowledging what is known to the public.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Funny how prophetic that cartoon is, at times.

It really is. The industry was SO MAD when that episode came out. They tried so hard to censor it, even tried to get south park removed from paramount. What was that old saying? "Find out who you are not allowed to criticize, and you will find who rules over you"?

 

[atomicgirl]

Disney has done nothing to contribute to quality writing. With Star Wars, including Ahsoka, but excepting "The Bad Batch", I think Disney has concluded that Star Wars is all about Light Sabre battles.

You are 100% right, but as a sidenote, the poor quality writing has always been the case with Disney, believe or not. All of its movies, including the so-called classics and films during the Disney renaissance era were terrible adaptations. The reason why the studio did so well for so long is that it mastered the art of piling on so much charm in the way of art direction, character design and soundtrack that kids fell more in love with the infectiousness of the characters, visuals and music than they did with the story. On top of all that was the branding (toys, TV shows, theme parks, etc.), as well as the nostalgia when all those kids grew up (feeling that these movies were cinematic masterpieces when in reality, most of the stories butchered the original source material or were thin on plot and characters.)

So, this is one of the reasons why the quality is so poor in Disney's handling of Star Wars and all these other IPs. It's still trying to apply the same formula for adult media as it did for fairy tales and children's stories. It's like Disney has been huffing its own fumes for so long that it's not realizing that just because it had this winning formula of pulling the wool over kids' eyes for close to a century with eye candy, catchy songs, charismatic characters and branding doesn't mean that it can do the same with adults.

Another reason why the writing is so bad right now is affecting the industry as a whole. Hollywood is a globalist enterprise now, because most of the money is overseas. So, to make all of these IPs do well in foreign markets, everything has to be stripped of nuance and be as bland as possible so "everyone" can understand it, and by "everyone," people with just enough grasp to understand plots on a surface level without lapsing into American sensibilities and attitudes or Americanisms in general.

 

[atomicgirl]

I understand there are many out there that like to throw right-wing conspiracy theory strawmen into the comment fire, however, IMO, the only thing Disney cares about is profit, and that is what they are trying to do here, even if their efforts are misguided - to say the least.

Exactly right. Disney's only politics are green. That was always the case, and even during its heyday, people knew that. There's a Mad Magazine cartoon from the 50s that dared to call out Disney as a crass capitalist. One of the panels shows him trying to close a vault full of cash.

The reason why it's mired in political controversy right now are the loudmouths on social media, particularly Abigail Disney, who put the company in a compromising position in Florida. Once she and the other minions started yelling loudly on Twitter to boycott Disney for "keeping silent", there was no way that the company could take a neutral stance like it should have been able to, so to avoid a boycott and further action that could've hurt its bottom line, it took the side that it did--not for politics, but for money.