Disney’s big bets on the Metaverse and AI slop aren’t going well

Disney could still incorporate generative AI into its streaming service, and we may end up seeing a version of the company’s mutant dreams become a reality. But yesterday’s news from OpenAI and Epic points to an uncertain future for some of Disney’s biggest bets.

There have always been signs That Sora was far from ready for the big leagues (read: used to produce studio-approved entertainment). But OpenAI’s decision to shut down Sora came as a surprise, in part because of the way the Disney deal helped normalize the idea Big companies are collaborating with public AI companies. In addition to giving OpenAI a massive influx of capital, the deal with Disney — which would put user-generated AI content directly on Disney Plus — gave Sora a level of legitimacy that could have had a major impact on how the public thinks about and interacts with this type of technology.

Disney Plus would also have become so full of AI that no one would really see it as a compelling reason to sign up for the service. But the old studio could have still patted itself on the back for being an AI leader and relayed that to investors as proof that it has a deep understanding of how to capitalize on technology trends. The situation looks very different now – especially with OpenAI currently under fire Helping the Pentagon conduct mass surveillance. It seems like Disney wants to cut its losses by distancing itself from OpenAI, which makes sense, but this move just highlights how ridiculous it is for D’Amaro to be leading the collaboration in the first place.

You don’t need a background in corporate leadership to understand how ridiculous Disney’s plan is pays OpenAI valued at $1 billion so Sora could produce some of the studio’s characters. Disney seems to have realized this now, and that it’s better late than never, but the collapse of the OpenAI deal will make any future AI plans announced by the company look like they might be misguided and doomed to fail in the same way.

Although the layoffs at Epic have not been attributed to anything Disney-related, the sheer number of people who have just lost their jobs gives us some insight into how things have changed at the company. He loves Every other live service game, fortnite It struggles to keep its momentum going, and rising in-game currency prices can only do so much to make up for it Low player engagement and high operating costs. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told employees that the layoffs and $500 million in spending cuts will put the company in a “more stable place,” which may be true, but it raises some questions about how Disney’s partnership is prioritized.

last week, Epic declared Which fortnite Creators will soon be able to build star wars-Themed games on the platform. This was the first piece of concrete news about the Epic/Disney collaboration that the company has shared since launching a bunch of Disney-focused minigames last fall. But what we haven’t heard or seen is the ambitious “persistent world” that the two companies plan to build together as part of Disney’s $1.5 billion investment in Epic in 2024. while fortnite Not going away anytime soon, its struggles as one of the biggest online games in the world doesn’t bode well for the idea of ​​a Disney-branded metaverse, which would compete in the more genteel segment of the gaming industry. And now Epic will be building it with a much smaller team.

With the Sora and Epic deals, it’s clear that Disney was trying to get ahead of the game by betting big on the future through investments in AI and the metaverse. But one day, that future looks a lot less certain — which means Disney may have made a pair of costly mistakes.