Report: Disney CEO Being Urged to Consider an Acquisition of a Major Publisher Like EA - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 November 2023 / 6,368 Views
Disney CEO Bob Iger is reportedly being urged by his deputies to acquire a major gaming publisher like Electronic Arts, according to Bloomberg.
The deputies are looking for Iger be bolder and go from licensing its IPs to video game publishers to being a gaming giant through an acquisition of a publisher. The report claims Iger has been noncommittal in the prospect of acquiring a gaming publisher.
Iger served as the CEO of Disney from 2005 until 2020 when Bob Chapek took over. However, Chapek was ousted in November 2022 and reinstated Iger as CEO. His current contract runs until the end of 2026.
Iger oversaw Disney acquiring Marvel Entertainment in 2009 and LucasFilm in October 2012.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
please no!!!! last few years of movies have really gone the wrong direction.
Disney is fucking cancer. They would completely ruin EA.
Would much rather them swallow a company that is just as cancerous than one I actually care about.
EA would probably ruin Disney... It's EA remember... They got rated the worst company consecutively for a few years.
TBF, rating a video game company as the worst company (broad sense) is rather childish. But they are one of the worst video game companies.
It's not possible to ruin EA. They're already a complete shit show.
If two cancers swallow each other, does it become a super cancer?
People have said that Microsoft acquiring a major publisher is a good thing, so obviously this is a good thing as well. Go Disney!
I was surprised when Disney exited the gaming market in 2016 as it seemed like a good area for them to expand with the properties they had - compare it to say WB Interactive. It just seemed like a natural fit for Disney.
When you remember they shutdown LucasArts in 2013 on acquiring it you can wonder how differently things might have gone had they stayed involved in gaming.
Isn't Disney already sinking under a ton of debt? Aren't they struggling to pay the remaining purchases of Fox and others? How are they going to pay for EA?
They are not struggling with debt.
I hope they do. Invite EA to their sinking ship. It will be glorious.
This is perfect. Star Wars obliterator & evil EA will take each other down and end up destroying each other. This can’t happen soon enough.
Disney doesn't have the money to do so, and issuing debt isn't the wisest move in the the current high interest rate environment.
Please! Buy it! Do it now! Can't wait for The Adventures of Brie Larson and Rachel Zegler for all platforms.
Remember when they bought that massive game development studio and publisher (that was tied to a film making company) and basically shut it all down? Also bought a comic book company then basically stopped all game development for their licences for best part of a decade?
LucasArts was pretty much dead when Disney stepped in. They hadn't been a major publisher for almost a decade by that point.
Only question Ive got is EA in keeping with the "Disney" brand?
EA & war games + bad press don't really go well with Mickey & Donald. Granted this is 2023 and they could always keep them at arms length.
The only really major publisher left will be 2K games, wonder if Sony would go after them.....unless Tencent or the PIF come in.
Disney has marketed plenty of "adult" films and TV shows under separate labels like Miramax, Touchstone, etc. They'd keep the EA label for EA IPs.
With what money?
Disney is in debt already from the Fox/Hulu acquisition . Their movies are declining in revenue, their parks are declining in revenue, they lost their special tax status in Florida, and their stock is declining. How on Earth would they afford such a move?
It would likely be a leveraged buyout and/or EA shareholders would get some Disney shares, which would be similar to the structure they agreed for the Fox takeover.
Man they wanna gobble everything up just like Microsoft
Not sure what all the hate is here in the comments lol. This move would make sense. Disney is a media empire that has been acquiring huge IPs like Marvel and Star Wars to expand the company beyond just classic Disney originals. It makes sense that they'd eventually pick up a big game studio.
Star Wars was limited by Lucas needing to do everything himself and with Disney now there's tons of Star Wars content, they've really brought it back to the forefront. Disney made Marvel a household name and the biggest movie IP in the world (granted I think they probably over-did things with Marvel a bit).
Only people hating hardcore on Disney are loser fake-fanboys who hate everything new from any IP they claim to love, or loser political extremists who hate anything their politicians tell them to hate. Since it like EA has a crap reputation these days one would think gamers would be glad to see someone potentially take it over and try to right the ship.
Hilarious seeing people that cheer for a year microsoft buying activision now are crying at the possibility of others doing the same. Its just bad when your favourite billion dolar company does it ?
EA will be even more woke. Major fucking eye roll!!!!
From one Bob to next Bob and back to the previous Bob.
They should try to attend to the IPs and units they already got instead of gobbling up more than they can swallow.
It makes sense but Disney Interactive Studios died for this hmm. They may be considering it whenever the right time to buy/whatever agreement plans but still hmm.
They have gone with outsourcing for a while since and want an established publisher as a consideration very interesting. One of the ones they have similar values/worked with makes sense but still.
We going to see Battlefield the mini series in the future? Another Need for Speed movie? I doubt it will go that far of ownership and IP use but an outside of the gaming industry media company then just the Amazon, Google, Apple or others going for EA isn't too surprising of a possibility I guess.
Avalanche died (revived later and got Cars 3/Hogwarts Legacy out) at least they got something better out of it after Disney Infinity.
I think it makes sense. Disney is a legacy media company that is trying to stay relevant in the new media world. They're doing better than many of their legacy media competitors, but getting into gaming makes sense as it is a growing business, whereas some of the areas in which they compete are declining businesses. They can also, obviously, leverage their huge amount of IP.
Of Disney were to pay a similar premium that Microsoft is paying for ABK, they would need to spend about $45 billion to acquire EA (this is about 33% over their current market cap)
That would be more of a merger than an acquisition for Disney
Well, they did buy Fox, which was like 50% of their market cap.
