The Walt Disney Company has spent the last two decades buying companies that do one thing exceptionally well, then folding them into its ecosystem and squeezing every dollar out of them.
It acquired Pixar in 2006, Marvel Entertainment in 2009, Lucasfilm in 2012, and most of 21st Century Fox in 2019.
Each deal followed the same logic of finding a beloved franchise with an ‘underserved’ audience, buying the company behind it, then running the IP across films, merchandise, streaming, and theme parks until it becomes unavoidable.
The formula worked spectacularly. Now Disney appears to be eyeing its next move, and this time the target is a video game company.
In February 2024, Disney invested $1.5 billion to acquire an equity stake in Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, as part of a multi-year project to build a new games and entertainment universe.
The plan was for that universe to let consumers play, watch, shop, and engage with stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar, and more.
It was framed at the time as a partnership, but recent reports have since surfaced that senior Disney executives want to take it further.
Tech journalist Alex Heath said on a recent episode of The Town that he knows for a fact that Disney’s leadership wants to buy Epic outright and is simply waiting for the right moment.
The current moment looks opportune. At the time of the original investment, Disney noted that its mobile games had 1.5 billion global installs and that nine Disney game franchises had each grossed more than a billion dollars in sales.
Despite that scale, gaming has never sat at the center of Disney’s business the way film, parks, and streaming do. This is not the first time Disney has tried to fix that.
In 2023, Disney explored the possibility of acquiring Electronic Arts as part of a strategic push into gaming, looking to bring in a publisher with serious industry expertise; however, nothing came of it.
An outright acquisition of Epic would be a second attempt at the same ambition, only this time with a company Disney has already paid $1.5 billion to understand.
Epic’s gaming platforms could become a full-fledged showcase for Disney IP, much the way the company’s theme parks function in the physical world.
The pattern from every previous Disney acquisition is the same. A minority stake, then deeper integration, then ownership. Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm all started as partnerships before Disney moved to close the deal entirely.
Epic looks like it is following the same path, and the only thing standing between Disney and a full acquisition is Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney, who retains full voting control over the company and has given no public indication that he is ready to sell.
