Disney's top gaming boss, the veteran Sean Shoptaw, has outlined the company's vision for games amid what he described as a "massive disruption" in the gaming market today. Speaking at a conference in Austin, Shoptaw shared Disney's ambitious belief that gaming should stand alongside films and theme parks in drawing people to the company's worlds. Sounds reasonable enough. But there's a timing problem: Disney partner Epic Games announced today, March 24, 2026, that it is laying off 1,000 employees as part of a new cost-saving measure.
The irony is thick. Disney has spent years rebuilding its gaming business, and it's been working. Nine Disney game franchises have each surpassed $1 billion in sales, and Disney mobile games have been installed more than 1.5 billion times. That's genuine success, not theoretical. But games like Fortnite and Roblox are effectively "massive social platforms" and this has led to a "massive disruption" in the traditional gaming market. On platforms like Fortnite and Roblox, people create content and watch content, in addition to playing. It's a different beast entirely from the old gaming world.
Disney has learned this lesson before. Disney made a key strategic change to its gaming business about a decade ago with the aim of shifting away from licensed tie-in games that re-told the stories of Disney's movies to making games that told original stories within Disney's worlds. Disney Interactive Studios, the company's internal game-development unit, shut its doors in 2016. That was the moment the company stopped trying to build and publish its own games, and instead focused on partnering with world-class developers. It's worked, but only because the partners were solid.
Disney invested $1.5 billion into Epic Games to create a Disney metaverse of sorts in Fortnite, and while the larger Fortnite x Disney project remains mysterious, just recently, Epic rolled out new UEFN tools that allow people to create all kinds of different Star Wars experiences within Fortnite. Before this, Disney and Epic teamed up for a Simpsons takeover in Fortnite, and it was a huge success, propelling Fortnite player numbers to their highest levels in a long time. That shows what's possible when both partners are firing on all cylinders.
The problem is that Epic is no longer firing on all cylinders. Epic Games alerted employees today that 1,000 people would be laid off as part of a $500 million cost-saving strategy to keep the company funded, pointing to a "downturn in Fortnite engagement" as part of the reason the company is spending more than it's making. Fortnite is still one of the biggest games on the planet, but it's expensive to run, and the economics have shifted.
This matters because Disney's entire gaming strategy now rests on partnerships with external developers. Shoptaw said Disney's ambition for games overall is that they can stand alongside Disney's film, TV, and theme park businesses in terms of drawing people to Disney's worlds. That's a high bar. To get there, the company needs partners who are stable, well-funded, and thinking long-term. Epic's troubles suggest that even the biggest, most successful platform players are struggling.
There's a further question about focus. Disney sees an opportunity to further engage its passionate fans with more gamification that extends beyond the gates of Walt Disney World or Disneyland. Gamifying those experiences at the park to have relevance in the digital world. Creating connectivity through games. When you experience a great ride, you can do things that Disney feels can carry that consumer when they get in the car and jump on their phone. That vision assumes that players will seamlessly move between physical and digital experiences. It's a lovely theory, but only if the platforms remain stable and profitable.
The good news is that the shift to original storytelling and external partnerships, not tied to movie release dates, gives Disney flexibility. The goal with this new approach is something Disney has always strived for: to create new franchises. If Simpsons takeovers and Star Wars experiences can succeed in Fortnite even as the core game struggles, Disney has proven it can create engaging content independent of the platform's health.
But make no mistake: a partner in financial distress is a partner distracted. Disney's $1.5 billion investment was supposed to secure the company's place in the future of interactive entertainment. Right now, it looks like everyone is hoping that future arrives soon.