Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 381 posts

Re: Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

#81

Post by pests »

haunter wrote: post #57
Animats wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic never did the metaverse. Sweeney talked about doing it, but they never shipped. Unreal Engine heavily preprocesses content in Unreal Editor, then trusts that content. For a metaverse, you need to do more of that server-side. Back when Sweeney was talking that up, I was expecting metaverse-in-a-box in Unreal Engine 7. That seems less and less likely. The metaverse is real, and it's called Second Life. Which is a…

>Epic never did the metaverse Already exists and it's called Fortnite

A bland corporate version maybe.

Re: Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

#82

Post by Animats »

haunter wrote: post #57
Animats wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic never did the metaverse. Sweeney talked about doing it, but they never shipped. Unreal Engine heavily preprocesses content in Unreal Editor, then trusts that content. For a metaverse, you need to do more of that server-side. Back when Sweeney was talking that up, I was expecting metaverse-in-a-box in Unreal Engine 7. That seems less and less likely. The metaverse is real, and it's called Second Life. Which is a…

>Epic never did the metaverse Already exists and it's called Fortnite

Fortnite's "creative mode" is a game level loader, not a metaverse. One creator makes a mini-game and uploads it, then others can visit. It's not a shared-world metaverse. Other game level loaders include Sinespace, Breakroom,and Sansar. Decentraland is in between - each user uploads their own parcel, but it's part of a shared world, where you can see multiple parcels at once.

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.

Re: Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

#83

Post by Frotag »

bitvoid wrote: post #36
tracerbulletx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe but they've been wanting to get in to gaming for a while now, so this is probably mostly about that.

> get back in to gaming 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.

Toontown Online used to be a fairly popular mmo in the 2000s. The game itself is gone but the game engine was open sourced as Panda3d (C++ with Python bindings). The project is still active too, with modern features like PBR still being added. I personally like how it's code-first (vs editor-centric like Godot), but the GUI options are really fugly and clunky.

Re: Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

#85

Post by jsheard »

reactordev wrote: post #79
jsheard wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they still? They used Unreal for the virtual sets in The Mandalorian S1, but for S2 they switched over to a different solution. 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…

StageCraft IS Unreal Engine. 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.

They made a point of highlighting the use of Unreal during the production of Season 1, but then it's completely absent from their discussion of later seasons, instead only referencing an in-house renderer they call Helios. Have they specifically said anywhere that they're still using Unreal Engine?

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.

Re: Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

#86

Post by sublinear »

resolutebat wrote: post #62
gamepsys wrote: post #51

Disney gets more IP in front of more 13-25 year olds. This is a very impressionable age group, and can create life long fans. This is a good value proposition for Disney. Epic probably gets an increase in valuation -- lifeblood for tech companies. 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…

My kids already think many recent Fortnite collabs (Star Wars, Marvel, etc) are lame. Hasn't stopped them from playing though. https://www.dexerto.com/fortnite/every-fortnite-collab-cross...

I had the same reaction 20 years ago to Kingdom Hearts.

Disney is definitely at risk of becoming irrelevant with their stale IP.

Re: Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

#87

Post by gamepsys »

ralusek wrote: post #74
chaostheory wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Epic games has the potential to be the virtual Disney World - just available to everyone on the planet instead of those with enough money to visit a park IRL. 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.

1.) Unreal Engine can be used in VR... 2.) Virtual worlds don't need to be VR

Unreal Engine isn't a VR platform, it's a tool that can be used to create a VR platform.

"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.

Re: Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

#88

Post by vineyardmike »

bakugo wrote: post #78
vineyardmike wrote: post #8

Epic games has the potential to be the virtual Disney World - just available to everyone on the planet instead of those with enough money to visit a park IRL. Disney has a great flywheel where their IP drives content, toys, and experiences. This is just the latest experience, and it’s something they can’t build themselves. I bet you can expect more content on fortnite to be with Disney IP; skins, events, maps, everyt…

> Epic games has the potential to be the virtual Disney World 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.

A bunch of the collabs have been super successful. They don’t need to build a permanent Second Life type metaverse BS. Look at their concerts in Fortnite’s universe. Very successful at attracting eyes and money.

“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.

Re: Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

#89

Post by KerrAvon »

Macha wrote: post #49
mcphage wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how often there are lawsuits where a large company is on both sides of the aisle, I don't think this that crazy.

We very nearly had the same company on both sides when the MPAA (of which Sony Pictures was a member) was fighting with Sony Electronics over video tapes.

Do you mean Betamax timeshifting? Sony didn't own a movie studio at that point. The entire reason they bought one was to prevent that sort of issue from ever happening again. Tail ended up wagging the dog, though.

Re: Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

#90

Post by KerrAvon »

ArtificialAI wrote: post #48
rowanG077 wrote: post #32

No please no, god no. Disney rots everything it touches and epic games is more than rotten enough as it is.

Oversimplified negativity towards Disney and Epic Games doesn't capture their diverse contributions. A more nuanced view and consideration of both positives and negatives is advisable.

Oversimplified positivity doesn't capture their perverse intentions. A more nuanced view of both negatives and positives is advisable.
Post reply on HN