Disney executives are reportedly encouraging CEO Bob Iger to consider expanding Disney from a "gaming license" to a "gaming giant".
In a report published by Bloomberg (via VGC), it seems that all is not happy at the House of Mouse, with reports of discontent following comments made before the SAG-Aftra strike and a handful of flops at the box office. And one way that executives have suggested that Disney can get back on even footing is by looking at video games.
Apparently, publishers Electronic Arts and Ubisoft have been mentioned, and both have a very recent history of handling a number of Disney IPs. But Iger — who is currently in his second term as CEO after returning to the position in November 2022 — has reportedly been "noncommittal".
There are plenty of video games out there that use the Disney license — Disney Illusion Island, Disney Dreamlight Valley, Disney Speedstorm, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor are all recent examples — but we've got upcoming titles like Iron Man, Black Panther, and Star Wars Outlaws (none of which are coming to Switch). While Jedi: Survivor, Iron Man, and Black Panther are being handled by EA, Outlaws is with Ubisoft.
Of course, these are all just reports for now, with nothing confirmed from Disney itself. We'll have to wait and see what happens over the course of the next few months for the House of Mouse.
Iger's first stint as head of the entertainment company ran from 2005 to 2020, which saw the company acquire a huge number of studios such as Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. On his return to the position in 2022 following a shaky tenure under former head of parks Bob Chapek.
The next licensed Disney game to be hitting shelves is a remaster of the Sega Genesis platformer Gargoyles, which launches on 19th October 2023.
What are your thoughts on this report from Bloomberg? Are you concerned about more major video game acquisitions? Let us know in the comments.
[source bloomberg.com, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 74
The mouse, it hungers for more
It really is only a matter of time.
I mean that IS what Iger does best
I don’t think Iger is interested in acquiring another company, well besides the rest of Hulu he’s currently in negotiations to buy from Comcast for like $10 BILLION therefore tying up his acquisition funds, he’s too busy looking at ways to split up the company and sell it off to Apple. I’m not sure how much he owns in stock but I’m sure he’d make enough to retire with a sale.
https://cordcuttersnews.com/disney-comcast-agree-to-a-plan-for-the-sale-of-hulu/
There is no way this will happen, at least now anyways. Iger’s previous tenure has already seen the fall of an ambitious Disney games initiative. Even in their partnerships, it has been mixed results, such as Star Wars Battlefront and Avengers. The raised cost of borrowing over the last year makes billion dollar acquisitions incredibly tough to justify. Disney in general seems much more interested in selling over buying right now,
This is the case of fickle executives trying to chase trends and make money turn exponential. Iger, who hasn’t acted perfectly in just the short amount of time he’s been back the head role, knows better than to respond with a big move like this.
Already having Microsoft as the one that is trying to create a monopoly in the video game industry, it would be too much with another monopolistic company; In addition to appropriating almost everything that comes its way, in recent years, they have not been very well due to their controversies based on their "correctly political ideas"...
Indies are the future if you want gaming to keep having any meaning.
Great, then I won't be able to play Dragon Quest unless I subscribe to Hulu and ESPN Plus too. Maybe just worry about theme parks, Disney? They can't even do that right today.
Lemme guess, by the same geniuses who previously urged him to disband Disney Interactive?
They should totally buy Bethesda. It's a winning strategy, Cotton.
This is what Disney do. Nothing new here.
Sigh.
Disney literally used to own several videogames studios, making excellent products. Then they decided it would be more profitable and less risk to shut them down and license out the IPs to other developers to take the financial risk with - no upfront costs to Disney, just take a cut of the profits. Bonus! Except the quality tanked and they killed successful IPs and bankable studios in the process.
Now that their movies and theme parks are absolutely haemoraging money, suddenly they are looking to the videogame space again. Recent Disney management flip flops all over the place to make very short term profits and damages its long term prospects. In the last 4 years I can't think of a single positive change they've made for the longterm future of the themeparks or movie franchises... and they also seem intent on ruining Disney+.
As both a genuine fan, and someone who has loved working freelance for them in several capacities over the decades its really painful to watch their current downward spiral and see everything they touch getting actively worse. I can actually forsee a future where they sell their movie/animation business to someone like Apple, and if that ever happens, it will be a very, very sad day.
To put a positive spin on it, perhaps this is just Iger trying to reverse an obviously stupid decision that Chapek made?
Absolute hell awaits.
Remember when they closed Black Rock Studio...
I would like to see more Disney games but they have no purpose playing a bigger role in gaming. As a lifelong fan, it’s sad to see Disney suffering another dark age. While not as bad as it was in the 1980s and early-to-mid 2000’s, things have definitely gone sour after all the political drama, underwhelming movies, losing a few influential directors and artists, and Iger losing his magic touch. However, Elemental hasn’t been quite the flop it seemed to be at first and Wish looks like the traditional animated Disney flick they need to have again, so I hope things get better next year.
I'm pretty sure Disney had been publishing video games for decades.
Not sure what happened to that.
"Acquiring" stuff won't help anyone. The industry is so ***** up with this madness that no one is worrying about delivering good products anymore. They just focus on "good enough for launch" stuff and call it a day, so investors can lick their fancy numbers.
And... Disney? No, thanks.
Here’s a good idea! Bring back spectrobes!
Why not just reopen Disney Interactive Studios? The only reason it ever went defunct was their pointless venture into toys-to-life.
@KingMike Chapek decided to shut down all of their first and second party studios and no longer publish games at all. He told shareholders this was a no-brainer as rather than have to pay employees, and risk money developing games, they could just charge other studios to use their IP and take on the risk of development costs, and then take a cut of the profits. Very stupid short term thinking that damaged the business, just like every single other "short term profit, long term damage" decision he made for the theme parks, movie franchises, animation studios and Disney Plus. He turned around quick profits for a single year to give the impression he had weatehred Covid better than other studio execs... and tanked their stock prices and consumer confidence for the next decade in the process. They should have sued him into oblivion, instead they forced him into early retirement with a golden handshake of tens of millions.
Disney could have an insanely good gaming business with all the IP they own without buying anyone else. With a mix of 1 x AAA, smaller titles, some 2D games, kids games, remasters of classics and racing/sports games they could release half a dozen games every year and sell tens of millions.
Anything to save their dying company.
We need the Disney afternoon collection for switch. After all this time as well we need some new extras like maybe the Gameboy versions being added along with Bonkers.
@GameOtaku I'm hoping we still get it...some day! I don't understand why we haven't already.
Actually now that I think about it, I wouldn’t mind epic Mickey back on modern consoles.
I enjoyed that game a lot
Can they even afford it? They’re already having issues with their acquisitions and having another is just going to make things worse.
Did they forget that they own LucasArts?
Nevermind just found out that they're just publishers now.
Disney can’t even make good TV or movies. Their best games are just LucasArts re-releases.
You got Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, and Way Forward. All these could handle Disney property very well if given the chance again like Kingdom Hearts, Darkwing Duck, Epic Mickey, and the Duck Tales games. Also if you want easy money Disney then give us the Ultimate Disney Collection. We want all of these classic games in one physical release for $20:
Just release old Disney games already. Why in 2023 can't I buy Capcom's DuckTales on every single platform known to humankind?
DisneyBox coming soon! Yes, it can run DOOM.
I hear Embracer Group has a few devs to spare.
Ooh, good idea. They could name it something like Disney Interactive. Great idea!
Should've not shut down the studios they had back in the day and/or kept good relationships with the companies that made some of the best licensed Disney games in the first place...
I was just thinking about this the other day. Weird coincidence.
See they almost need to, Chapek really ***** them over in this sector.
Modern Disney and EA. Actually a match made in Heaven. Or in this case, Hell.
Imagine what they could do if they recruited some people who knew how to develop games and just said he's enough money for a dozen development teams, pick any Disney IP you like, go and make games...I can think of half a dozen things I'd love to see.
Anybody remember Epic Mickey? No? Just me then...
I don't think this would happen. Video games have ALWAYS been Disney's weak point since the start of the medium. Yes there are good Disney games, but not so much of Disney MADE games. They never really built a studio from the ground up and the studios they have bought over the years failed to really fall in the groove like the other major buyouts Iger has made.
I don't think Disney should make any major investments in the Gaming industry as long as Bob is in charge.
I think their safest bet right now would be to buy Gameloft. They managed to spin a company that used to be known for trashy mobile games into a pretty decent developer for their recent gaming ventures, based on how quality Dreamlight Valley and Speedstorm turned out. Don't think they'd be that expensive to acquire, either.
Maybe someone can help me understand this. So microsoft buys companies to claim IPs. Why would Disney do that if what they are more interested in is to make games from their own IPs?
Why not just open their own development studio?
@TheMegaMarshtomp I remember
I mean I miss the good old disney gaming days but I don’t think that is the answer. I think they should focus on their parks, the brand (which includes game licensing), movies and possibly getting out of Florida. Shore up what they have vs chasing a space they already exited. Especially since game dev work is expensive with no guarantee for pay off. Even successful games often don’t really churn a lot of ROI.
My only concern is where the Star Wars licence ends up. EA have been a mixed bag on this front and blighted the franchise with micro transactions.
Yeah that ain't happening. They're in the process of a yard sale with all the money hemorrhaging that's happening in virtually every sector of Disney's businesses. If anything I'm sure it may have been talked about amongst the executives but in reality they already hit the iceberg and taking in too much water currently.
With what money?
@HaileySheridon Unfortunately, Frozen, Moana and Zootopia (all of which I think would have made really good games) were released at the time when Disney was pushing Disney Infinity as a unified platform, and rather than releasing new standalone games, they would release playsets (essentially full games) that you could play in Inifinity instead... you just would have to buy 2 of the figures in each set to have a crystal to unlock their full game.
This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, I personally really enjoyed many of the playset games - Cars, Pirates of the Carribean, Toy Story, the 3 Star Wars games were all really good fun. However, because of the unwise way they handled Infinity by splitting it into 3 parts which confused which characters could play in what game, and also releasing too many characters too fast, the quality dipped, and sadly even though we got characters who played really well in the toybox levels, they didn't have the budget or time to release full playsets for their figures.
This was really frustrating, as in some ways, Infinity got better over time, but also it was clearly dying by the end, and it was cancelled early, so many Disney characters that you'd assume were a given (Goofy? Pluto?) never came... and many other playsets just never materialised.
For me, Frozen is the biggest crazy casualty of that. We got Elsa, Anna and Olaf figures, but no playset for them. This means the 2 highest grossing animated Disney films of all time never even got their own game... unless you count the portable or educational titles. Either a standalone game, or an Infinity pack in for a full playset with all 3 characters would have sold like hotcakes. How we got stuff like The Lone Ranger but no Frozen, Moana or Zootopia makes literally no sense... they obviously planned them but started to run out of funds.
@Duncanballs After the MT backlash, EA actually did some good with Star Wars. Battlefront 2 got reworked into a great game, the Jedi ones are cool, and Squadrons is one of my favorite things to come out in the last few years.
@HaileySheridon Raya would have made such a great old-school beat-em-up. The boss fights and ride-the-creature levels were right there in the movie.
@judaspete came good in the end but left a bad taste in the mouth
These giant companies are never big enough, they always want more $$ and more control over industries. Ugh!
@samuelvictor Thank you, I was waiting for someone to say this. The only thing I would add is, it wasn't Chapek who shut down DI, it was Iger during his first tenure. So he can't even blame the other guy, it was his own doing
@samuelvictor Oh also (didn't see your later comment), you're right, Moana was planned and got canceled. My friend was the lead storyboarder on the Moana game and it sounds like it would have been a lot of fun, but it never saw the light of day
It's just so sad, after all the crap Disney pulled desolving Disney Interactive almost 10 years ago, now they are trying to come back. If they DO buy a publisher I would hope it was UBISOFT as their brand is more in-line with Disney's offerings. And Disney has a presence in France already in both theme parks and animation. Just makes more sense.
@SailorDonut Oh really? I stand corrected, boo Iger as well then. What with all the absolutely horrendous choices Chapek made in his short tenure I assumed this was anotehr one of his choices. I definitely remember it being mentioned at a shareholders meeting and thinking it was a bad idea, but I must have conflated that memory with the disapsterous one where he essentially massacred the themeparks infront of my very eyes. Being I'd litearlly only just moved into an appartment right next door to Disneyland, this made me more than a little upset with him. 😂 Also, I'm in the movie industry and my goodness, if I could tell half the things I heard without getting sued... eesh.
Thats so awesome that a friend of yours was working on the Moana game. I really loved Ininifty and was all in as far as buying every figure, playset, expansion etc. Some of the 3.0 content was the best stuff they ever made, and I was SO annoyed when it got cancelled, especially with so much cool stuff on teh horizon and so many essential Disney characters and properties not covered yet. Now my collection feels somewhat incomplete. Was your friend at Avalanche? If so I'm sorry if they lost their job, they were a fantastic studio.
@HaileySheridon Yes its absolute insanity that we don't have a proper Frozen game. As you said, maybe we'll get one once Frozen 3 comes out. Elsa was really awesome to play as in the Infinity toybox challenges, but the effect isn't half as fun without her being in Arandale and surrounded by snow. I can't believe they are making a "live action" Moana. Is nothing sacred? lol
oh yeah ...
Disney is looking for more franchises to destroy, now on videogames ...
The Mouse House in on the hunt...
@samuelvictor Yeah, she was at Avalanche. She's doing well now but it was a big bummer for her to lose that job because it was her dream job.
Buy Microsoft enough said. 🐁
@SailorDonut Yeah I can't even imagine. If I'd have been offered the job to work in the art department of a Disney videogame studio I would have dropped everything and started a new life wherever they wanted me to be! 😍 I'm so sorry that happened to her. Avalanche were a quality studio its a tragedy they were closed. I'm glad she is doing well now though. Thats got to be a good job to have on your CV, for sure.
Hmm while it wouldn’t be easy being a Japanese company in all Disney buying up SquareEnix would make sense… or hell It will Never Happen but Nintendo and Disneys branding would definitely get along well and “fit in” Disney would collect a couple more princess to add to it collection and Disney getting its hands on Pokemon in anyway is basically just printing endless money and destroying that IP as quickly as it can burn
I become less fond of Disney the more they gobble up companies and IP.
@Serpenterror
Don’t forget Mickey Circus Caper, Duck Tales 2 GB, mickeys dangerous chase, Mickey mousecapades……
Why is this necessarily a bad thing? I don't think it's likely to happen, but Disney is one of the few organizations with the resources to compete with Microsoft as they gobble everyone up.
It's the era of acquisitions, the more big fish the better. I think Disney entering the fray in a big way is a potentially good thing. Like it or not video games are a business, as much as fans lament when a small studio is acquired that was the exact thing the small studio's former owners were working toward the whole time.
@TheMegaMarshtomp I do. Epic Mickey is one of the few Disney games I own along with Disney Speedstorm and the GBA version of The Magical Quest 1.
Ew. Disney already ruined the film industry. Can't they leave games alone?
Disney used to have a video game division but they got rid of it.
Wait. There is a Black Panther game in the works? Cool!
they should have tried activision when they had the chance,.
I hope they buy Konami so they can get in on that sweet pachinko and nft money.
The birth of the supercorporations is nigh. Monopolies? What are those? Like the board game??
@Serpenterror Woah, that is a little bit much of a request there. That is a lot of games made by a lot of different companies and a lot of legal work to even consider rereleasing.
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