Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games
cnbc.com
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Collaboration skins are massive for revenue. However, I'm concerned this relationship will force uncool collaborations with Fortnite and reduce it's appeal. Disney has had some flops recently. Long term the trick for Fortnite is to become the most sticky online videogame in history, with most games bleeding audience over time. Epic is more than just Fortnite, but I imagine this deal is entirely about Fortnite.
https://www.dexerto.com/fortnite/every-fortnite-collab-cross...
Disney is definitely at risk of becoming irrelevant with their stale IP.
[0] "Simple and clean is the way it should be..."
surprisingly one of the simpler questions to answer. The Keyblade is the key that can open (or close) any door. And that was the theme of the first Kingdom Hearts: doors. the big villians plan is to destroy all worlds by opening the door to the Dark World and flooding the existing Light dimension with hoards of monsters. you also spend a lot of time closing off the doors to the heart of the world to protect their cores (monsters destroy core = destroyed world).
In addition to bashing enemies and being a large narrative hook, it's a nifty explanation for why you are able to simply tap on a chest and open anything you want. Or break and enter into a bunch of buildings (although the game forgets constantly that it can do that).
IP don’t make the game. The game makes the game.
There's a ton of people who apparently really liked Kingdom Hearts.
It's pretty elitist to consider some IP too sacred to remix.
I was amazed.
Heh, not sure if pun intended but this made me giggle
If you're a teenager that may be much easier... or much harder, in cases such as yours.
Funny enough Disney also recently launched their own TCG: Lorcana. A whole new way to leverage that IP!
As if all the Disney Adults in the world are just going to snap out of it. As if all the children who love Disney stuff currently are going to grow out of it. In what world is this considered an informative and knowledgable take?
Even at its lowest point financially, Disney IP has never been irrelevant at any point.
KH3 also made me realize that they can start to target child and adult fans via recently popular titles (e.g. Frozen) and ~30 years ago popular titles (e.g. Toy Story), respectively.
are we really gonna make up things that are easily disprovable?
If I had a nickel for every time I've heard someone singing that one song from Encanto I'd be able to buy Disney.
I'm sick of them being allowed to increase their entertainment monopoly on children instead of being told to just create new original works. It's not like they have a shortage of talented people...
When you create a new work based off a public domain work, you own what you added to that work. If your adaptation happens to be extremely successful, that effectively recopyrights the character, because the version people care about is the one you own. If someone else wants to use the public domain character, they have to aggressively distance their use of that character from yours.
Disney spent decades re-imagining Europe's folk tales[0] through his lens. Their movies are the ones people think about when you mention Snow White, Cinderella, Pinocchio, etc. Notably, the visual designs are unique enough to get independent copyright protection. So independent uses of those characters don't look like themselves.
This, BTW, is why anyone who wants to renounce copyright over their creative work should opt for CC-BY-SA and not a public domain dedication. Share-alike clauses prevent this sort of gradual appropriation.
[0] as filtered/censored thru the Brothers Grimm
Outside of their reimaginings/reboots, I can't think of a single recent movie that isn't an original work.
And that doesn't include things like LucasFilm, Marvel and Pixar which are, obviously, original and still part of Disney.
But they have a competing product… for now?
https://www.ilm.com/vfx/the-mandalorian/
> For season one of the series ILM StageCraft utilized Unreal Engine to perform the real-time render
https://www.ilm.com/vfx/the-mandalorian-season-2/
> The real-time render engine called Helios was specifically developed by ILM engineers
> Ctrl-F "Unreal" - no results
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StageCraft
ILM used Unreal Engine to make StageCraft and kept iterating on it until it’s the awesome tech that it is. They have a vested interest in seeing the underlying engine continue to prosper.
https://www.ilm.com/industrial-light-magic-to-expand-stagecr...
This 2021 article mentions that external productions using StageCraft services can choose to use either Unreal or Helios for rendering, so the Unreal integration may still be available for those who want it, but obviously ILM didn't write a brand new renderer for the fun of it. Unreal must not have been cutting it for their own productions.
What is Helios?
/? Helios StageCraft https://rebusfarm.net/news/ilm-stagecraft-a-virtual-producti... :
> StageCraft leverages Helios ILM’s real-time cinema render engine. It is a set of LED screens that work as a 360 extension digital set, allowing filmmakers to explore new ideas, communicate concepts, and execute shots in a collaborative and flexible production environment.
Is there a way to vary the [UE] AutoLOD for longer shots? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38160089
That's not even cinematography! Because there aren't lenses, there are presumably Camera matrices.
Cinematography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematography
Computer graphics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_graphics
"Ask HN: What's the state of the art for drawing math diagrams online?" (2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38355444 ; generative-manim, manimGPT, BlenderGPT, ipyblender, o3de, how do we teach primary math intuition with the platforms that reach them, how do we Manim in 3 or even 4D?
Manim > "Render with [Blender and/or od3e]" https://github.com/ManimCommunity/manim/issues/3362
FWIU Disney Games are often built with Panda3d, which works with pygame-web/pygbag in WASM now
Research: "Fabric of the Cosmos", "Cosmos", "How the Universe Works",
Thank you.
They're actually expanding their use of it with more virtual sets, mainly because they're now leasing them out a fair bit and need the capacity.
It’s an obvious and huge opportunity for game engine experts to grow their influence.
All other Media and Entertainment companies are either owned by Comcast/AT&T or are Tech companies (netflix, amazon,apple,sony,youtube,tiktokk) that have carved out a chunk of the media and entertainment sector.
Disney is basically on the back foot here, at a time when the attention economy is wrecking chaotic unpredictable havoc on the the media sector.They had to do something cause shareholder revolt has been brewing for a while.
Also, there is still Paramount.
Sony Pictures started in 1987, so that should qualify as old media too.
And there is also Lionsgate.
Disney is by far the biggest and most relevant, though.
Skydance is trying to buy National Amusements to take over Paramount and arguably be a similar new media in old media clothing if that deal goes through.
> Sony Pictures started in 1987, so that should qualify as old media too.
I know objective that's almost 40 years ago and probably does qualify for old, but that still seems too recent in Hollywood Empires. But Sony Pictures also has the advantage it bought truly old media Columbia/TriStar and didn't seem to kill them and kind of left them to continue to do their thing, so maybe Sony gets more of a pass too.
> And there is also Lionsgate.
Lionsgate was formed in 1997.
Maybe you are thinking about MGM (and its famous Lion logo), which Amazon has been trying not to kill since it acquired that ancient studio brand, but also is very much appearing to be Amazon still being Amazon just wearing that brand (which was on life support or already a zombie when purchased) like a skin at this point?
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/net-inc...
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/profit-...
Doesn’t look so hot for the last 4 or 5 years. They went from earning near $10B per year to less than $3B per year.
https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2023/11/Q4_FY23...
Also they've over saturated the MCU with a million movies and TV shows every year. People have just been burned out on it and they've only recently decided to cut back production on those and be more focused.
Because it's drastically cheaper in an obvious dumping exercise, and has some interesting IP kids and grown ups that used to be kids want to (re)watch. However there really isn't that much content on it, nor is new content coming that quickly, so at some point after everything of interest has been seen, people will start unsubscribing.
This is why Netflix is constantly churning out new stuff of very varying quality (utter shit next to masterpieces) - you need to keep people paying the subscription.
I had D+, Prime, and Netflix at one point and now have none.
The DVDs at the library are free, too.
Perhaps.
Perhaps, also, it's the old media playbook interpreting what young people want as "jam advertisements in front of them".
>Long term the trick for Fortnite is to become the most sticky online videogame in history
They might achieve this (certainly World of Warcraft holds the title). But I think video games are inherently faddish.
If I had to go one way or the other, I'd bet this is a bit of a desperate move by Disney who are becoming less relevant and whose cash cow (Marvel) is withering.
It's hard to get accurate data, but Fortnite has roughly 100x more users than World of Warcraft. Counterstrike is an even smaller userbase.
Sure, but even in 2024 this 20-year old game has a paid monthly player count well into the millions. Extremely successful by any measure. And perhaps one of the most profitable game franchises of all time.
There’s a lot of hope and desire for “forever games” particularly from investors but there is no such thing. They will all have a peak and a steady decline at some stage. Social networks exhibit this pattern as well.
Existing players keep playing but you rarely hear of new players; at best they may convince old subscribers to return.
Minecraft is also old but seems to be collecting new players decently well.
World of Warcraft is probably the stickiest game in history. I can also see how an investment in Blizzard in the year 2010 might have been overly optimistic about WoW's future.
WoW and Counterstrike have large loyal fanbases, but I'd be surprised if the age of the average user didn't increase by around 1 year per year.
I bet you can expect more content on fortnite to be with Disney IP; skins, events, maps, everything. It’ll be a great way to promote new movies/TV shows with cross-platform events. Fortnite has already had great luck with this sort of thing, so it makes sense for Disney to want access to it. Maybe you’ll even see IRL Fortnite experiences in theme parks or a Fortnite IP based movie or TV show.
This is what everyone said about Lego, and a bunch of other collabs that came before. It was never true and it's not true now. Turns out people don't want a "virtual world", they want a fun game.
Arguably, there are people who want a "virtual world" -- and they currently just play Roblox to get it. Enough of them like it, that every major retailer stocks "Robux" gift cards
The primary thing you do in Roblox is pick a game you want to play, which is largely isolated from the other games. Plenty of people will never touch the social features.
It turns out that when you can't even get audio synced up so that everyone is hearing the same music, the vast majority of the artists bail or drop a pre-recorded set because they weren't informed how a hypothetical live playback mechanism would work, and you don't even have the rights to the game it's based on... you don't have a polished experience, you have a metaverse scam.
“Virtual Disney world” doesn’t mean VR roller coasters, it means Disney themed digital experiences (eg fun games). Disney and Epic have a decent track record building fun and profitable experiences for people.
Hell, RUST is an old, mediocre, "Cursed runes" survival MMO crafting-them-up and it has 100k people playing right now, despite tens of better versions of the exact game formula having been released since.
100k players mid-day is "has-been" multiplayer video game territory. It's "also-ran" MMO territory.
Euro Truck Simulator 2 has 30k people playing right now
All these options are more than the people playing Cyberpunk lol
Nit: It was all of Marvel not just Avengers and I think they did Star Wars too already.
The core plot is asking "Why are we stuck in this loop?" It does get convoluted, but it's there.
Various agencies are involved, the Zero Point (which causes the looping behavior) has manifested as many things over the seasons. Aliens and inter dimensional being seek after it.
Maybe you had to be there, but the first batch of seasons and even chapter 2 had many online theorizing and trying to guess what's next.
It's like a digital Lost.
I miss Unreal and Unreal Tournament.
Unfortunately all we get is content now. Even games have started to become pure daily content.
How? EPIC doesn’t have a VR platform at the moment.
The deal still makes sense though. Disney needs to control a video game platform.
2.) Virtual worlds don't need to be VR
"The Platform" in this context is a position that allows you to collect ~30% fee of revenue generated. Unreal Engine's position is much much smaller. Using my definitions Epic gamestore technically counts as a VR platform, but isn't positioned to become market leader.
> Virtual worlds don't need to be VR
Yes, but flat pancake games are even poorer at simulating a Disney theme park IRL than VR. It doesn’t even come close to a substitute, especially for the rides.
Virtual worlds as in a digital experience built around Disney’s cinematic universe. Like video games.
The "Fortnite creative engine" is roughly a Virtual Worlds editor / generator along side the Fortnite Virtual Worlds marketplace.
Hell, Valve literally already did this with all CS:GO skins carrying over to CS2, it required zero blockchain, doesn't actually give you "control" over the item, and was only done because players have spent literal tens of thousands of dollars on skins and Valve needed to throw them a bone so they would be slightly less upset about CS:GO being essentially memory-holed.
That neither needs nor is easier with NFTs.
Also if the intention is to limit the use of the property to epic games, why not use a plain old database? Nft seems like overkill
;)
[1] Sept 28, 2023 https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/layoffs-at-epic
It's so much worse than you can imagine.
Details here and elsewhere: https://www.engadget.com/the-mandalorian-season-two-stagecra...
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/5/23905082/epic-unreal-engi...
FTFY. They had their own game publishing arm since 1988, Disney Interactive Studios, and owned first-party studios like Avalanche Software, which was sold off to Warner Bros.
They shut it down in 2016.
In both instances, the game end of the deal had peaked already, and there was nowhere to go but down. Nothing a few billion dollars can’t fix, maybe some “new content,” says the business guys.
Meanwhile their product becomes worse by the month. The magic is fading. All the people who made it great move on, not wanting to deal with the business parasites who showed up to squeeze a buck. Repeat.
Take a look at how The Mandalorian (a Disney production) was filmed. Epic Games’ software played a large part.
It goes beyond just film & television. They offer solutions for the automotive industry, aviation simulation industry, mining sims, trucking sims, medical sims, architecture, live broadcast, …
Hmm, I think I might invest if I can!
It means more of what we experience will have to adhere to more of the same rules, patterns, and decisions.
Uniformity is prevailing.
Disney investing in the company that has been the biggest thorn in Apple's side is... interesting. Obviously, the immediate motivation is "we wanna jump on the Fortnite zoomer bandwagon", but I can't help but wonder if Tim Sweeney's days are numbered here.
There's a Wikipedia page dedicated to the subject with extensive references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_acquisition_of_Disne...
Naturally since their CEOs were on the board of the other company and also Pixar.
That said, I would like to see how much equity Tim Sweeney still has left when all is said and done because as far as I know he only had 51.4% prior to today. A controlling share, sure, but somehow I doubt Disney gave him $1.5B for ~1.3%.
He owns a controlling interest in the company.
The announcement video:
Apple and Disney are themselves competitors in the streaming market.
I think an appearance of friendliness mainly came from Steve Jobs, and he’s been gone for a long time now.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/09/bob-iger-remembers-s...
There was some analysis/chatter also that basically Disney's entire strategy the last 5-8 years also was to pump up its valuation as large as possible and then get acquired by Apple.
I know that analysts have had recurring fantasies about Apple raining money on Disney, but has there been any real evidence of Apple considering that?
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-previews-new-en...
acquisition day 2: call off all lawsuits.
Apple is trying to maintain its draconian grip over the app store because of the sweet revenue it brings. With worldwide regulatory pressure, that dam will eventually burst. But they'll keep it going as long as they can.
Apple is happy to engage in backroom deals. There's a future where Apple could acquire either or both of these companies.
/s
Unreal tech powers EVERYTHING at Disney now ever since the development of virtual production leveraging real-time rendering.
On top of the that the Fortnite demographic is growing up and videogame based IP moves are making bank (Sonic, Mario, Last of Us).
If the cogs are turning in Bob Iger's head, it's that videogame IPs are the next Marvel/Star Wars.
It makes sense that on the heels of Disney's collaboration with FOX and Warner Bros. Discovery (via ESPN), they would also get into the other market with fans as committed as sports fans.
Considering that the future of TV is streaming and being successful in this market has proven to be no slam dunk (no matter how big you are), Sports/Gaming is the hedge (for those who can swings these deals).
The first thing I could think of as to why is because they use Unreal Engine for their CGI background and effects in TV shows and (perhaps as well) movies.
I do remember seeing BTS of one of their TV shows (likely Star Wars) with giant TV's all round the set which creates backdrops, all in Unreal.
I will admit it is impressive but I noticed camera shots are looking limited. Start of something grander, I guess.
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2024/02/disney-epic-interoperable-...
Roblox should start sweating. Then again, so should anyone who's created Disney-themed fan content on Rec Room, VRChat, etc.
Corporate leadership needs to start understanding that once they've saturated the market they need to loosen up or they're at risk of becoming a populist target.
https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/sony-and-kirkbi-in...
Also monocrhomaticaly violet and with mandatory genderconfusionist characters.
Disney got themselves a board seat, one assumes, and some IP sharing.
I'd hazard a guess at flat. Unity (a peer) got crushed by the market but they also don't have Fortnite which is a money printer and has only gotten bigger.
Keep your Fortnite away from my Kingdom Hearts.
I realize this is from a ground level but: The games getting made by the Unreal Engine today are of such high quality and graphic fidelity.
They've really hit critical mass for the AA and AAA games, and paying the piper is looking like a smarter and smarter investment.
Do film companies write their own editing software, or 3d pipelines, or design and build their own cameras? Some of them, sure. But most of them are purchasing and customizing off-the-shelf solutions. It just makes sense.
A circle is around the island that slowly becomes smaller. If you're out of the circle you take damage. This essentially speeds up the later parts of the game.
Disney can bring a LOT of content, so long as they can actually make it half decent content and not shit the bed like they did with EA.
Epic isn’t going anywhere
Even if it’s just Fortnite its massively profitable to run it
Same thing with tencent letting Grinding gear games basically make poe 2 which is huge financial risk when they already had a succesful game that could have kept going, just for the sake of making it better for their players over time.
Disney however? yeah, now people will actually see what unrestricted capitalism does to a company, I really hope this is mostly just aimed at the fact that Disney probably uses unreal engine and doesn't want it going down, but the cynic in me thinks that disney as a corporation will try to squeeze as much as they can out of their money.
I bet Zuck never ever played an actual video game in his whole life https://compote.slate.com/images/760b74a3-7156-4dbe-90bd-b02...
There is a growing graveyard of games/devs suffering from bespoke engine woes instead of just using Unreal...
Is there? I can't think of any examples that come to mind. Most indie devs I know that roll their own engine have no regrets. I am curious who comes to mind that says otherwise publicly?
- Halo Infinite's slipstream engine turned into spaghetti code due to 343's terrible employee cycling, most of the directors left around the same week, and now they're rehiring a brand new team made up of devs with Unreal Engine experience because the old engine would take too long to fix.
- The terrible console performance and engine woes of CD Project Red's Cyberpunk 2077 that almost led to the company being sued into hell led to them abandoning their own engine and switching to Unreal Engine for their next game.
I guess at the low end (indies), you can design something lean that fits one specific use-case, and at the high-end (AAA) you really can afford to build/maintain something competitive. The middle-ground might be dangerous.
That being said, there are literally dozens of abandoned game engines out there from solo "game devs" who never actually got around to making the game.
Bethesda Game Studios is getting there.
I don't know about indie games as much, but I know Distant Worlds 2 got bit by its exotic engine.
The metaverse is real, and it's called Second Life. Which is a niche. It is a profitable niche. A "cash machine", one of the owners has said. So it stays around. Everybody else in the metaverse space lost money. Now that zero interest rates are over, and there's no more free money, this is even more true. Heavy Disney investment in a general-purpose metaverse seems unlikely. It doesn't fit their IP-based business model.
Already exists and it's called Fortnite
In a real metaverse, you have neighbors. A very large number of people can each contribute to building a big world. Such systems are very rare.
That's not in line with Disney's business model. "The media giant will work with the Fortnite studio to create new games and an entertainment universe where consumers can “play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more,” Disney said in a press release." Think of this as an expansion pack for the Marvel Overextended Universe.