The Walt Disney Co. said it will invest $1.5 billion to buy a stake in Epic Games and that the two companies will work together to bring Disney content and characters into a new Fortnite universe.
Consumers will be able to play, watch, shop and engage with intellectual property from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and Avatar. Users will also be able to create their own stories and games and share content, powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine.
Disney has already worked with Epic on Video games like Kingdom Hearts 3 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and in putting Disney characters into Fortnite.
Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the deal with Epic Games on Disney’s earnings call Wednesday.
Iger told of a meeting with executives from Disney’s experiences and games businesses.
“One of the first things they showed me were demographic trends,“ Iger said. “When I saw Gen Z and Gen Alpha and millennial’s screen time on video games it was stunning to me. [It was] equal to what they spend on TV and movies. And the conclusion I reached was we have to be there and we have to be there as soon as we possibly can in a very compelling way.”
Iger conceded that Disney has tried to get into the video-game market before results.
“We knew through our relationship with Fortnite that there was already success when some of our characters and franchises were expressed or showed up in Fortnite,” he said.
He met with Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.
“His team started a discussion about what if we create a gigantic Disney World, a la Fortnite, that can live next to Fortnite and be completely interconnected with it,” Iger said.
“You can imagine the creation of short-form videos or we may even use the platform to actually distribute some of our content,“ he said. “Also people that could interact with one another and ultimately some form of shopping as well and other forms of creation.”
Disney and Epic Games began their relationship when Epic participated in Disney's Accelerator program in 2017.
“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.”
