• Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Ratuso

Member
Nov 27, 2021
1,196
www.bloomberg.com

Has Bob Iger Lost the Magic?

Disney’s legendary CEO came out of retirement to save the company—right in time for its 100th birthday. Nothing has gone his way.

Iger's deputies are pushing him to consider a bolder transformation of Disney from gaming licensee to gaming giant through, say, an acquisition of Electronic Arts. But, as with everything else, he's been noncommittal.

Interesting article if you are interested in Disney and what's happening with the company, that's the only snippet about gaming.
 

Glio

Member
Oct 27, 2017
24,553
Spain
I think I would be quite neutral/indifferent to this hypothetical case. My first thought was "at least it's not a big technology company like Amazon, Apple or Microsoft that would seek to make an exclusivity."
 

Deleted member 158819

Sep 19, 2023
2,257
EA is already making Star Wars, Iron Man, and Black Panther so it kind of makes sense. I still think EA is going to be the next big acquisition whether it's by Disney, Apple, Amazon, or Sony IDK. Sony getting just EA Entertainment and leaving EA Sports standalone makes a lot of sense and would circumvent a lot of regulatory pressure.

I wonder if Disney getting EA and getting into game making presents an issue for Insomniac, MachineGames, Ubisoft, etc.
 

Joshua

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,738
Gaming seems like it'd make a lot of sense if they took another stab at it now.

Generate revenue from a mobile IAP-fest, push game properties through Disney+ bundling or theme parks etc.
 

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,923
I think I would be quite neutral/indifferent to this hypothetical case. My first thought was "at least it's not a big technology company like Amazon, Apple or Microsoft that would seek to make an exclusivity."

Yeah, honestly, with how miserable the "WE OWN IT NOW IT'S EXCLUSIVE TO US" acquisitions have been getting this gen, I would be less bothered by Disney buying into gaming than Amazon or Microsoft eating another publisher.

Consolidation is bad in general, but consolidation that preserves games as multiplatform is better than consolidation that erases games from platforms forever.

Could the universe please stop trying to murder Dead Space?

Dead Space did a fine enough job murdering itself once already.
 
Oct 25, 2017
1,487
EA is destined to be acquired. The biggest issue with them is their lack of original IPs but they have a lot of talented studios. Disney, on paper, would be a good fit because they are king when it comes to entertainment IPs
 

Roytheone

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,163
EA is already making Star Wars, Iron Man, and Black Panther so it kind of makes sense. I still think EA is going to be the next big acquisition whether it's by Disney, Apple, Amazon, or Sony IDK. Sony getting just EA Entertainment and leaving EA Sports standalone makes a lot of sense and would circumvent a lot of regulatory pressure.

I wonder if Disney getting EA and getting into game making presents an issue for Insomniac, MachineGames, Ubisoft, etc.

Can Sony even afford ea? That would be something like 1/3 of the net worth of all of Sony.
 

AgeEighty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,447
Let them build a gaming business themselves; there are plenty of devs out there looking for work. They don't need to acquire their way in and absorb one of the industry's biggest players to do it.
 

vixolus

Prophet of Truth
Member
Sep 22, 2020
54,725
bring back Alien Encounter in Magic Kingdom, but make it Necromorph Encounter
 

Cyrus365

Member
Apr 8, 2020
203
I mean Disney is in huge dept with its streaming efforts, and buying Fox, that they are looking to spin off assets, but I guess they can take on more debt ad try to be a force in the gaming side.
 

Deleted member 158819

Sep 19, 2023
2,257
Can Sony even afford ea? That would be something like 1/3 of the net worth of all of Sony.
All of EA would be pushing it, but EA Entertainment (not EA Sports) would be a lot cheaper. Also, you can do a stock deal like AMD did with Xilinix (which was 1/3 of their market cap at the time).
 

SirKai

Member
Dec 28, 2017
7,401
Washington
This is such a bad fucking idea. Disney already tried this and gave up by the early-to-mid 2010s, and it killed multiple studios. Them buying EA is a fucking nightmare I do not want to entertain.

Also, the prospect of all of EA's non-sports studios being consolidated to just focus on Disney-owned IP is... so sad to imagine. EA's working on more than enough licensed stuff right now as is.
 
Last edited:

crimsonECHIDNA

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,458
Florida
Yeah, honestly, with how miserable the "WE OWN IT NOW IT'S EXCLUSIVE TO US" acquisitions have been getting this gen, I would be less bothered by Disney buying into gaming than Amazon or Microsoft eating another publisher.

Consolidation is bad in general, but consolidation that preserves games as multiplatform is better than consolidation that erases games from platforms forever.

What a world where a Disney Acquisition would look like the lesser evil.
 

Kalor

Resettlement Advisor
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,631
I'm sure it'd work out as well as Disneys previous attempts to make games. And then they'll fire everyone again.
 

IIFloodyII

Member
Oct 26, 2017
24,030
After them shutting down everything after the Toys To Life bubble popped, not sure I'd want them going for something as big as EA. Disney buying then figuring it out as they go with something as expensive as game development has disaster written all over it.
 

LAA

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,343
My main worry looking at this is could it put the future of KH into question if Disney suddenly want to take over it entirely, and don't think I'd trust them to handle it. Also if it affects future Insomniac Marvel games from existing, they've been doing great so far, so a shame if they lose the oppurtunity entirely.
Otherwise, Disney investing in gaming may be a good thing for gaming in general and their IPs at least, at least their approach of letting almost anyone make a game with their IPs and then monetising the hell out of them probably ain't doing a whole lot of good for them, I think they could just need more restraint around who develops stuff with their IP and how they decide to monetise it.
Acquiring EA to accomplish that though.. (And from a company that has already acquired a LOT and apparently can't even deal with that completely) I can't say I find them exactly perfect either, remember the mess with SW:BF2 that was bad enough Disney actually got dragged into it? Ha. I think EA have only really done good with the Star Wars Jedi games so far (and it's only good if you ignore the complete mess around the PC ports in particular), I hope Iron Man will be great and we'll see about Black Panther, maybe they'll be tests to see if they're worth acquiring, but with how the industry is on an acquiring spree atm, maybe they'll be pressured to acquire sooner.
 

Rowsdower

Prophet of Truth - The Wise Ones
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
16,589
Canada
If Disney doesn't make games exclusive to one platform, then this is no big deal. Let em buy EA.
 

gabegabe

Member
Jul 5, 2018
2,757
Brazil
It's so weird to see people that push the "anti consolidation" argument about gaming companies acquiring other gaming companies being fine with this if the games continues to come to their favorite plastic toy. It seems that it's not really about consolidation in the end...
 

Phellps

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,821
Just sell off BioWare if you do this, I'd hate to see them become a Star Wars studio.
 

Xando

Member
Oct 28, 2017
27,374
Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen tbh. They're fumbling around so much with their movie and streaming business i doubt they will be able to coordinate and go through the complications of the gaming industry.
 

ElFly

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,735
just buy capcom and make marvel vs capcom 4, jesus christ how is this so hard
 

Dust

C H A O S
Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,317
I think Disney has other problems at the moment to entertain this.