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Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games

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

#351

Post by WorldMaker »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #159
ydg6 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney is the last standing Old Media company. 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 so…

ATT sold its media business to Discovery, which is now Warner Bros Discovery, which is old media. 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.

Given how much the Discovery arm seems to be in control, Warner Bros Discovery may be "new media" in old media clothing.

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?

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

#352

Post by ryanisnan »

DecoPerson wrote: post #304
jwie wrote: post #302

This has the same pattern as the Vivendi deal with Blizzard back in 2007. 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…

Epic Games is not just games anymore. 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!

Bruce Miller is that you?

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

#353

Post by ahuhz »

tomcam wrote: post #154
sublinear wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same reaction 20 years ago to Kingdom Hearts. Disney is definitely at risk of becoming irrelevant with their stale IP.

At risk? They haven’t had hit movie for years. They have destroyed just about everything they’ve touched, from Indiana Jones to Star Wars to Snow White.

Hit movies don’t really seem to matter to Disney in the grand scheme of things. It’s more about selling merchandise of their already established brands.

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

#354

Post by amiantos »

sublinear wrote: post #86
resolutebat wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Disney is at risk of becoming irrelevant? And people are upvoting this take?

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.

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

#355

Post by patmorgan23 »

Staple_Diet wrote: post #164
ydg6 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney is the last standing Old Media company. 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 so…

Really? I thought Disney was doing well. Their subscription service is only behind Netflix and Amazon, the latter of which includes its service in Prime so is not an equal competitor. Further, their ownership of Marvel has provided them some of the largest grossing films of all time, and their Star Wars acquisition seems to be paying off. The parks seem to be quite strong, but I've only experienced the Japan ones. Ov…

They've had several big box office fails, partially because the Disney+ has been cannibalizing those viewers (why go see it in theaters when I can wait three months and watch it on Disney+ for no additional cost?).

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.

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

#357

Post by gamepsys »

bombcar wrote: post #334
gamepsys wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually thinking about World of Warcraft when I was thinking about a game that failed to be sticky. World of Warcraft peaked in subscriber count in 2010, and has generally seen steady decline since then. I think the numbers for WoW look worse when you consider how sharply it's share of the video game market has declined. The video game market has ballooned in size while Wow's user base is slowly bleeding out.…

World of Warcraft is no failure by any measure, but it’s not the world-defining explosion it once was. 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.

This isn't about WoW, this is about Disney & Epic. If Fortnite fails to be stickier than WoW then this investment will be pretty bad.

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.

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

#358

Post by gen220 »

caseysoftware wrote: post #227
gen220 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Box Office is not the yardstick disney uses, that's just the first phase of the disney wheel. They make oodles of money in merchandise and theme park content that's based on the same (expensive) IP as the movie. When they don't break even on the movie, they'll generally break even or make money on the IP behind the movie.

Here's the problem with that analysis, how do you attribute revenue to a specific movie? Will people attend the theme parks or spend more at them because of [movie X]? It's the same problem you have with streaming. Will people subscribe or stay subscribed to D+ longer because of [movie X]? Until you can answer one or both in a repeatable, predictable way, we can wave our hands and say "it makes money later!" or "it d…

To be clear, I totally agree with you. I think the success of theme parks and merchandise has been covering up mediocre IP from Disney for a while, and that fact is dangerous to their future prospects.

However, trying to balance this critique with some fairness to their strategy, it is difficult to disambiguate "the strategy isn't working" from "the strategy is helping us float across some mediocre years until we chance upon the next Frozen". It's kind of like VC returns, where it's 10 "%" of their IP (Star Wars, Mickey, Frozen, Toy Story, Marvel, etc.) that drive 90% of their performance. 2023 was definitely a poor "vintage" for Disney IP.

That being said, Disney has rebounded from many spells of mediocrity, and their theme parks, merchandise, and old IP (now monetized through Disney+ as you say) have kept them afloat through those poor periods.

Most recently they've only been able to jump-start the IP engines through acquisition (Pixar 2006, Marvel in 2009). I'm not a Disney shareholder myself, but I agree that the IP tap seems to be running dry and that's very concerning. I don't think Epic Games has anywhere near the value ceiling that Marvel and Pixar did.

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

#359

Post by Eji1700 »

jncfhnb wrote: post #249
Eji1700 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah wasn’t clear that I meant the store. Epic isn’t going anywhere

The store is their means to distribute without a painful platform tax Even if it’s just Fortnite its massively profitable to run it

Probably true but they're throwing money around for exclusives because i'm sure they want a major cut of Steam's market, and so far that just hadn't happened.

I would not be shocked if future star wars, marvel, disney games are epic exclusive, and that could be the thing to get people to care beyond the weekly free game and fortnight.

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

#360

Post by nitwit005 »

subtra3t wrote: post #290
nitwit005 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of. Roblox resembles a game collection. Fortnite is increasingly similar.

Roblox is a lot more than just a game collection. The social aspect is a massive part of what made (keeps?) Roblox popular.

Steam has a ton of social features too, and that helps keep it popular. Is it a "virtual world"? I don't think anyone would define it that way.

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.

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