In what I will be labeling as a rumor, it’s been reported that Disney is considering buying Epic Games outright in an effort to expand its gaming profile. During a recent episode of “The Town with Matt Belloni” podcast, tech journalist, and former Verge editor, Alex Heath has claimed that senior executives at Disney are looking into acquiring Epic Games outright. He states that following its $1.5 billion investment in the company, Disney might be considering a purchase to further create new experiences within Fortnite and beyond.
“I know for a fact there are senior executives in Disney who want them to buy Epic and are just waiting for that moment,” Heath told Belloni. “And then there’s others who think it’s a bad idea.” One of the people on board is, apparently, new CEO Josh D’Amaro. As Heath states, D’Amaro was against Disney’s investment in OpenAI, but is very much in favor of the partnership with Epic Games for Fortnite. Merging the vast IP of Disney with an interactive experience like Fortnite seems to be in line with how Disney has operated for decades now.
Heath is pretty confident that Disney would be “the most natural home for it for a lot of reasons, for the park integration – can you imagine a Fortnite park – to all the open-world, you know, integrating Disney IP into it, which they’ve already announced, and also Disney’s gaming platform, and I can see that.” He does bring up the potential roadblock of Epic Games being a founder-controlled company, which means Tim Sweeney could veto any decision like this despite tons of money coming in. That probably won’t be likely considering Fortnite recently saw a downturn in players and is starting to increase prices of microtransactions to compensate.
The rest of the discussion between Belloni and Heath talks about comparisons to Roblox and how Fortnite is losing the battle for establishing a “creator first” ecosystem. It’s interesting stuff, but not a topic I’m particularly well-versed in. You can watch the full podcast on YouTube, which is only 30 minutes long.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
