[HN Gopher] Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games
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Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games
Author : sp3n
Score : 64 points
Date : 2024-02-07 21:54 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| mminer237 wrote:
| This is like a 3-4% stake then?
| haunter wrote:
| Epic does what Facebook couldn't. The Metaverse is real
|
| I bet Zuck never ever played an actual video game in his whole
| life
| https://compote.slate.com/images/760b74a3-7156-4dbe-90bd-b02...
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Also, game dev is hard. Engine dev is really hard.
|
| There is a growing graveyard of games/devs suffering from
| bespoke engine woes instead of just using Unreal...
| GuestHNUser wrote:
| > 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?
| Animats wrote:
| 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
| 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.
| Animats wrote:
| Wow! What will Disney do to Unreal Engine's pricing plan? Does
| Sweeney remain in charge?
| Solvency wrote:
| This will be a boon for Fortnite's licensed character business,
| Disney's merchandising business, Disney+'s content, and
| absolute downgrade/extortion for all Unreal users. Guaranteed.
| berserk1010 wrote:
| I wonder if Tencent still owns 40% of epic games, or did they
| sell some of that equity to Disney. Either way Tencent probably
| still got diluted, and Tim Sweeney should still have majority
| control
| vineyardmike wrote:
| 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, 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.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Disney has had access to it, there were a lot of Fortnite
| Avengers promotions. It obviously worked well enough for them
| to want to invest.
| chr-s wrote:
| Disney use Unreal Engine for their dynamic greenscreen LED wall
| which they film The Mandalorian and others against. That's got to
| be at least as important as Fortnite characters.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| Maybe but they've been wanting to get in to gaming for a while
| now, so this is probably mostly about that.
| MikusR wrote:
| Only for the first season. They switched to their own stuff
| later. IIRC.
| j2bax wrote:
| I wonder if Apple has any regrets about its battle with Epic...
| Seems like they could have been a great launch partner for the
| Vision Pro...
| al_borland wrote:
| They aren't the only game studio. If Apple rolled over on Epic,
| it would lead to their entire revenue model around the App
| Store falling apart.
| staplers wrote:
| Apple, while being a hardware and (somewhat) software leader,
| has been in "let them eat cake" mode for quite some time.
| jprd wrote:
| I think I'm going to need one of those Carrie Matheson / Pepe
| Silva full wall mind-maps to track all of this.
| bigiain wrote:
| So is there a term like "acquihire" - except it means more like
| "we sold a stake in out company so we would get access to their
| legal department" instead of "we sold a stake in out company so
| we would get cushy jobs"?
| BadHumans wrote:
| Who needs whose legal department and why?
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| Epic vs Apple just became Disney vs Apple
| gigatexal wrote:
| Hilarious. A long time ally of Apple will invest in a company
| hell bent (and somewhat righteously so) knee capping Apple.
| paxys wrote:
| There are no friends in business. It is very common for large
| companies to be in close partnerships while also competing with
| or even suing each other.
| brokencode wrote:
| Ally of Apple in what way? Do they give each other favorable
| deals or work closely together on any important projects? I
| haven't heard of anything major along those lines.
|
| I think an appearance of friendliness mainly came from Steve
| Jobs, and he's been gone for a long time now.
| BooneJS wrote:
| Disney is diversifying. This comes on the heels of their
| subsidiary ESPN creating a new sports streaming service with Fox
| and Warner/Discovery (https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/espn-fox-
| warner-bros-discov...)
| paxys wrote:
| Will be interesting to see what % stake Disney got. Tencent
| currently owns ~40% of Epic and Sony has another ~5%, and given
| their last valuation of $32B it doesn't seem like Disney will end
| up with more than 3-4%. Still a good chunk, but not quite enough
| to call the shots.
| echelon wrote:
| It's enough to start pivoting into this area. They can gain
| exposure and increase their stake over time.
| bangonkeyboard wrote:
| What's surprising to me is that this deal is apparently about
| content and IP, not the Unreal Engine technology per se.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Aounds like horizontal integration.
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