Disney has put a number on the scale of its games business. In a news release published ahead of its D23 fan expo, Sean Shoptaw, the company's executive vice president of games and digital entertainment, said nine Disney game franchises have each grossed more than $1 billion at retail, GameSpot reports.
Shoptaw did not name all nine, but singled out Kingdom Hearts and Marvel Strike Force. More than half of the nine, he said, have appeared only in the past 12 years. The franchises sit under the Disney Games banner, which covers outfits including Disney Pixar Games, Marvel Games, Lucasfilm Games and 20th Century Games.
$4 billion in a year
Disney Games has drawn roughly $3.5 billion in consumer spending annually for the past four years, and exceeded $4 billion in the past fiscal year alone. Shoptaw framed the figures as evidence that games are, in his words, a fundamental part of the broader entertainment landscape and will be a key part of Disney's storytelling strategy in the present and the future.
The strategy he described is not the licensed movie tie-in model that was common in the 1990s and early 2000s. Disney instead wants original games that tell new stories, with Marvel's Wolverine cited as the example. Marvel Rivals is the newer success story: Destructoid reports the game has attracted 40 million players worldwide, 60% of whom are under 24.
The Epic bet
Disney's largest recent wager in the medium is its partnership with Epic Games, into which it has invested more than $1.5 billion.
Our partnership with Epic is a really important one. What Epic has built with Fortnite has really created one of the most important social entertainment platforms in the world, and certainly for us, we see a ton of opportunity to bring our great characters, stories, and worlds into that universe and build something truly unique to Disney.
Shoptaw added that the ambition is to create something transformational — a space where people can play, watch and create, bringing all of Disney together in one connected universe. Many Disney franchises are already in Fortnite, and the company's Simpsons collaboration was particularly successful. More is planned, reportedly including an Arc Raiders-style game.
A reversal of an older position
Disney was once a game developer in its own right through Disney Interactive Studios, the label behind the Disney Infinity toys-to-life series, before shuttering the unit and shifting to licensing. Former chief executive Bob Iger spoke candidly about the company's struggles making and publishing games internally, admitting that Disney had not been particularly good at it.
New chief executive Josh D'Amaro has taken the opposite view, suggesting gaming could be Disney's next big growth driver after a decade of flat stock performance. Some observers have theorised the company could buy Epic outright, though nothing has materialised.
The timing is deliberate. Disney's D23 expo includes a “Deep Dive into Kingdom Hearts” panel on Saturday, August 15, running from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. EDT on the official Kingdom Hearts YouTube channel, which Square Enix has said will not be available on demand afterwards. Polygon notes the panel opens 25th-anniversary celebrations that continue through 2027 for a series that has produced 13 games since 2002, excluding remasters and collections, and whose fourth mainline entry was first revealed in 2022.
