Disney gaming boss reveals how company moved away from 'box-checky' tie-in games
Disney's gaming chief says the company is focused on telling "true original stories".
Disney's gaming chief says the company is focused on telling "true original stories" rather than "box-checky" titles.
Sean Shoptaw, the company's Executive Vice President, Global Games and Digital Entertainment, has explained how Disney's attitude to video games as shifted over the last decade.
Speaking at SXSW, he said: "Roughly eight years ago, we made a conscious decision to really focus games in a way that we can serve this medium specifically.
"For a long time, we would do re-tellings of films and other things that really served more of a marketing purpose for the broader company.
"We really re-purposed games very intentionally to be true original stories built for this medium specifically."
Disney wanted to move away from licensed tie-in games that simply retold the studio's movies, and instead focus on telling fresh stories within those worlds.
This attitude has been mirrored by the industry as a whole, with a shift away from tie-ins to more original rojects.
Of their current goals, Shoptaw added: "So working with filmmakers, working with the creatives around the company. "And most importantly, working with the best game developers anywhere in the world across mobile games, console games, and PC games, to really make the best product.
"Make products that really did our IP justice with true creatives on both sides of the table."
Disney has teamed with the likes of Fortnite, and Shoptaw noted how games like that and Roblox are essentially "massive social platforms", which he believes has caused a "massive disruption" to the traditional market.
Disney has invested $1.5 billion into Epic Games to create a Disney metaverse in Fortnite - plus the larger Fortnite x Disney project - while The Simpsons takeover in the game was a massive hit.
Shoptaw said: "The Simpsons was a great illustration of one IP, in one story, for one season, but you can imagine us having a space where we can program and do that with all stories and things that we do around the company."
