Followups: Disney Plus the Metaverse Makes The Mouse Matrix
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Lego partners with Unity to release a no-code Lego game development platform
by The Verge 2020.10.26
Lego has paired with game engine maker Unity for a Lego Microgame, where you can snap together virtual bricks to build the environment of your own custom game world [even more easily than Microsoft’s Minecraft or independent Roblox]. The Microgame is free and requires no prior knowledge of video game programming [thanks to Unity’s “Creative Mods”].
Facebook Gaming is an innovation unlike the rest
by Ben Thompson (Stratechery) 2020.10.27
Facebook is the fourth of the big five to launch a streaming video game service (after Google, Microsoft, and Amazon), and the fifth of the big five (Apple) is notable because it refuses to let the other four into its App Store. Facebook’s offering, though, is unique from the rest, and only rivaled by Microsoft’s when it comes being genuinely innovative…
Facebook’s App Install product quickly became the most important channel for acquiring users, particularly for games that monetized with Apple’s in-app purchase API: the combination of Facebook data with developer’s sophisticated understanding of expected value per app install led to an explosion in App Store revenue.
Cloud gaming promises to make these ads even better [according to] Facebook VP of Play Jason Rubin[:] “Certain aspects of the business model are very easy to understand. We have a massive game advertising business. One of the hardest things for an advertisement or an advertiser to do is get you to leave Facebook, because you came there to see what your friends are doing, catch up on some news or whatever else, not to jump into an app store and download. So our ability to deliver game content right then and there without leaving the Facebook environment is really powerful.”
This is genuinely compelling: with this infrastructure you can both trial games in ads immediately, and play with friends immediately, without any intervening step in the App Store. Moreover, while Facebook has offered this functionality for HTML5 games, being able to run games as-is will make this much easier to access for mobile game developers…
Here’s the question Apple should consider: why is it that Facebook is willing to pay 70% to developers and 30% to Android, and keep zero for itself for this massive investment in cloud gaming? The answer is clear: Facebook believes that its advertising offerings for game developers are going to be so much more effective with this new capability that it will more than pay off its investment. The implication of that assumption, though, is that the platform taking 30% is also going to make that much more money.
ESPN to lay off 300 people as part of broader Disney Reorg
by CNBC 2020.11.05
[R]oughly 300 people will be laid off as parent company Disney shifts to more direct-to-consumer streaming. [In addition,] ESPN will also part ways with some on-air talent once contracts expire… as the company restructures its media and entertainment divisions into a single organization that will be responsible for content distribution, ad sales and Disney+.
Disney is working to transform its theme parks from a physical experience into a “theme park metaverse”, according to the CTO of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products
by Theme Park Insider (hattip Matthew Ball) 2020.11.16
“It’s a shared magical world created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space… Our experience started a long time ago as classic linear storytelling. Then we transition to interactive storytelling. Then we went beyond that to immersive storytelling. And we are well on our way to personalized, and social storytelling…
“[W]ith the digital data and physical coming together organically with the story, we now have physical and digital convergence experiences that are personalized and social, creating that theme park metaverse... they can be updated frequently, and they stay fresh and relevant... [and] we expect them to be core to the guest experience in the years to come.”
See also:
Disney’s new virtual reality “Star Wars” experience gets us closer to a theme park “metaverse”
by The Los Angeles Times (LA Times) 2020.12.28
Roblox Corporation ($RBLX): S-1 Filing for Initial Public Offering (IPO)
from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC, hattip Matt Ball) 2020.11.19
An average of 36.2 million people from around the world come to Roblox every day to connect with friends. Together they play, learn, communicate, explore, and expand their friendships, all in 3D digital worlds that are entirely user-generated, built by our community of nearly 7 million active developers. We call this emerging category “human co-experience,” which we consider to be the new form of social interaction we envisioned back in 2004. Our platform is powered by user-generated content and draws inspiration from gaming, entertainment, social media, and even toys.
Some refer to our category as the metaverse, a term often used to describe the concept of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces in a virtual universe. The idea of a metaverse has been written about by futurists and science fiction authors for over 30 years. With the advent of increasingly powerful consumer computing devices, cloud computing, and high bandwidth internet connections, the concept of the metaverse is materializing.
Current and former staff say much of Amazon’s struggles in gaming rest with the leadership of its gaming division
by Bloomberg 2021.01.30
Amazon is spending nearly $500 million a year operating the video game division, [which] doesn’t include Twitch or [Luna], which is building a service to stream games to a computer, phone or Amazon Fire TV.
To develop games, Amazon tried to bend a creative and collaborative process to its will… The company is driven by data, and employees are expected to write six-page documents to get major decisions approved. In game development, on the other hand, [it’s more emotional and subjective]… Successful video games are a combination of art, entertainment, technology and very large budgets. Big tech companies only really figured out the last two…
All that mattered was that they make the most ambitious games possible, ones that would draw gamers into the Amazon Prime ecosystem and showcase the technical capabilities of its cloud division. Allowing 10,000 people to play in a single game session was given to the new team as a lofty target. Two projects under this directive became known around the office as the “Bezos games.”
Google is shutting down its in-house Stadia game development studios
by The Verge 2021.02.01
Google is shutting down its internal Stadia game development division… as it refocuses Stadia to be a home for streaming games from existing developers instead of developing its own games for the service. “Creating best-in-class games from the ground up takes many years and significant investment, and the cost is going up exponentially”[.]
Disney+ raises subscription prices in lockstep with higher content costs
by @Find_Me_Value (via Twitter) 2021.03.21
Monthly subscribers will now pay $7.99 instead of $6.99:
Disney used a proprietary, real time rendering engine to produce Mandalorian Season 2
by Anthony Bardaro (@anthpb via Twitter) 2021.04.14
Disney has a subsidiary know as “Industrial Light & Magic” (ILM), which is acquired as part of its Lucasfilm deal. ILM’s Helios rendering engine was used for the real time rendering of Mandalorian S2 production — in addition to Epic’s Unreal gaming engine.
See also:
Unity 3D gaming engine acquires Weta Digital in preparation for VR/AR/XR and metaverse future in which cinema-quality SFX/CGI are brought to video game creators
by Ben Thompson (Stratechery) 2021.11.17
Unity Software Inc. agreed to pay $1.63 billion for major parts of the visual-effects studio co-founded by director Peter Jackson… The award-winning studio, Weta Digital, developed and owns visual-effects tools that can create high-quality realistic-looking characters and objects. In addition to “Lord of the Rings” and “Game of Thrones,” it also helped make effects for movies such as “Avatar” and “Avengers: Endgame.”
Netflix is looking to hire an executive to oversee an expansion into video games, as it considers options including a Apple Arcade-like games bundle
by The Information 2021.05.21
[T]he company has already dabbled in games — for example, it created a game based on “Stranger Things” with an outside developer — it is looking at boosting its investments in the category… stepping up its efforts to grow beyond traditional filmed entertainment.
Amazon open sources its Lumberyard game engine; the project will be overseen by the Linux Foundation and now be called the Open 3D Engine
by VentureBeat 2021.07.06
Prominent game developers such as Denis Dyack and his Apocalypse Studios are participating in the project, which has more than 20 founding members including Amazon Web Services, Adobe, Huawei, Niantic, and Red Hat. The open source engine will enable developers to build royalty-free 3D games and simulations, giving the game and application companies some leverage against the commercial game engines from Unity Technologies and Epic Games.
This startup is building the Pixar of the internet: Invisible Universe believes that animated characters, brands, and franchises can be born on social media via user generated content (UGC)
by FastCompany 2021.08.25
This notion of birthing characters on social media alongside influencers like [Serena Williams/Alexis Ohanian/Qai Qai, Will Smith, Spencer Rascoff, and former Snapchat exec John Brennan] — who have massive followings to plug into — and then moving those characters into more traditional lanes, is the core mission… “We want to launch indelible character IP in a world where people are actually spending more and more of their time.”
Why scaling content volume may be more difficult for Disney than other media companies
by Barclays (hattip East/@east_cap via Twitter) 2021.09.23
Disney CEO talks down calendar Q3/fiscal Q4 growth expectations for Disney+… In our opinion, the problem Disney faces is that of low engagement given that there are barely enough shows to keep audiences interested in the service. While the company appears to be targeting one new piece of content a week, not every piece of content has the same franchise value or visibility which means the releases that actually drive origination or engagement have a much lower frequency. In aggregate, we note that Disney+ has the lowest volume of content compared to most major streaming services. While on paper, increasing the volume of content should not be difficult for a company with the scale of Disney, ironically, we believe in many ways, Disney has some of the toughest hurdles in the industry to scale volumes…
[I]n the streaming world where constant engagement growth needs higher volumes, this lack of creation breadth outside franchises becomes difficult to create on demand. This is why creating more shows for Disney requires a wholesale though process change around the content organization and a willingness to look beyond franchises. This requires a culture shift and a different risk appetite vs the past decade.
Interview: Disney CEO Bob Chapek discusses his strategic aspirations for the metaverse
by CNBC 2021.11.10
“My vision is to use Disney+ for the platform of the metaverse… our creatives are just biting at the bit to get into the Disney metaverse.”
Tech giants opt into newly-formed Metaverse Standards Forum (MSF)
by The Block 2022.06.21
A mix of companies announced the formation and launch of the Metaverse Standards Forum… to drive industry-wide cooperation on interoperability standards within the amorphous online space.
The set is hosted by the Khronos Group, a non-profit consortium of 170 organizations supporting interoperability standards in industries such as 3D graphics, VR, AR and machine learning. It will focus on projects geared towards implementation prototyping, hackathons, plugfests and open-source tooling… while also developing consistent terminology and deployment guidelines.
The more than 37 founding members include obvious candidates such as [Facebook] Meta, Microsoft and Sony Interactive Entertainment, Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Huawei, Epic Games and several consultancy groups and standards organizations. Less obvious candidates for metaverse projects are also on the books, including furniture giant Ikea.
On the metaverse and the convergence of video games, movies, TV, and other forms of entertainment
by Anthony Bardaro (@anthpb) 2022.09.01
Disney announces partnership with and investment in Epic Games
by The Verge 2024.02.07
Disney and Fortnite maker Epic Games are teaming up to build what’s being described as an “expansive and open games and entertainment universe.” As part of the announcement, Disney revealed that it is investing $1.5 billion in an equity stake in Epic[:]
“the new persistent universe will offer a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters, and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar, and more. Players, gamers, and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences”
See also:
Disney’s $1.5B investment in Epic Games will give it a 9% stake in Epic at a valuation of $22.5B, down ~29% from its $31.5B valuation in 2022
by The Information 2024.02.08
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