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Disney Eliminates Its Metaverse Division
- wslh 4y agohttps://archive.is/B15vF https://archive.is/B15vF
- jboy55 4y agoWent in expecting to see at least a 1000 employees laid off.. but 50? Can that even be called a 'Division'? Is that Division on par with other divisions Disney runs, like Disney Studios (Marvel Studios, Disney, Pixar...), Streaming (Disney+, ESPN+) or the Theme Park division?
- esskay 4y agoIt was one of Bob Chapek's visions, so as expected was extremely half arsed. He had very little concept of what Disney should be doing so just thew out a bunch of ideas with very little budget and expected them to work, whilst also penny pinching beyond belief.
- the-grump 4y agoI don't think Disney had any metaverse building ambitions. This "metaverse" team was probably working on designing NFTs and digital "assets" for any metaverse that emerges. This is an uninformed take based on recollections of what they've released and my understanding of Disney's competencies. Somebody watching closely will hopefully have more insight.
- jay_kyburz 4y agoI had assumed it was a marketing department set up to try and get more superheros into Fortnite.
- notahacker 4y agoWhich sounds like it could be why it isn't a "division" any more. VR feels like an all-or-nothing play where Disney throwing a bunch of Disney IP, +AAA quality worlds, PR & marketing dollars and carefully-selected hardware partnerships could mainstream VR as family friendly entertainment, whereas making assets for other people's open worlds participated in by a niche group of adult men seems like the sort of thing that's more likely to lead to reputation damage than significant revenue streams
- BryantD 4y agoMy guess from having worked in close proximity to the executives involved is that it was more of a skunkworks/prototyping group, possibly partnering with ILMxLab, Pixar, Disney Animation, and the streaming group. While Disney is not really a tech company, there are pockets of high end expertise which I think are relevant to the loosely defined “metaverse.” Mike White, the exec leading the group, reported into Kareem Daniel, who was central to Chapek’s vision of Disney. So it was a significant role. Mind you, Daniel was fired about five seconds after Iger returned.
- barbazoo 4y agoI wouldn't take their use of "division" too seriously.
- mattigames 4y agoThat not how the word "division" works when talking about business, Instagram was made of 10 people when it already had billions of users and if Disney or anyone else had bought them it would certainly be a "division" given that their tasks are a separate entity from their rest of the org.
- jcrawfordor 4y agoTerminology varies widely between companies but terms like "division" are usually based on position in the org chart rather than size. It looks like the metaverse division was organized under Mike White, whose title appears to have been "SVP of next-generation storytelling." It's common for a group that reports at the SVP level to be called a division, even if its small. The higher up in the org chart you find a group, the more important it probably is to the strategic focus of the company, even if it's small.
- jameshart 4y agoWhen I onboarded at IBM, during legal and compliance training they said “the easiest way to get promoted to executive at IBM is to do something wrong, and get quoted in the press about it”. The idea being: the media will refer to anyone who works for a company as an ‘executive’ regardless of how accurate that term is to their actual role. Similarly, in news reporting, every department is a ‘division’.
- nilawafer 4y agoseems like the metaverse hype train got derailed by the GPT hype train
- myko 4y agoi'm not sure metaverse ever really had a hype train, i don't think anyone i know was excited by it
- chimprich 4y agoI'm excited by the idea, but repelled by Facebook's vision of it. An open-standards metaverse would be interesting, especially with the prospect of infinite AI-generated content.
- gtop3 4y agoI'm pretty excited by the insane amount of R&D FB is doing on the hardware, but strongly repulsed by their software.
- ParanoidShroom 4y agoWhat vision exactly? A requirement of things like a facebook login in apps? Not snarky, genuinely curious what the concrete concern is.
- aprdm 4y agoThe NVIDIA vision of it is pretty great, the industrial meta verse. Check their GTC demo with BMW.
- BreakfastB0b 4y agoFolding Ideas released an excellent video essay recently examining the concept of the metaverse and how it suffers from somewhat of a “No True Scotsman Problem” https://youtu.be/EiZhdpLXZ8Q https://youtu.be/EiZhdpLXZ8Q
- thomasahle 4y ago
- chaostheory 4y agoDid they ship anything? I don’t recall anything from them in the AR VR space
- pncnmnp 4y agoI'm not completely sure, but they may have been working on Disney Movies VR - https://www.disneymoviesvr.com/ https://www.disneymoviesvr.com/
- chaostheory 4y agoThat was a terrible app.
- grumbel 4y agoThere has been a lot of StarWars and Marvel content in VR, but that was regular old VR content and predates the "Metaverse" hype.
- qaq 4y agoVR, meta verse always seemed overhyped to me. Combine real time 3D model generated from MetaHuman + AR + ChatGPT + voice and you have a business that will dwarf Apple. I bet people would easily pay 100/month for AR companion based on their celeb crush or whatever other AR companion they crave.
- zabzonk 4y agoonly if you are incredibly weird. but if you think so, sounds like a good start-up.
- qaq 4y agoOr lonely or bored. Want a cyberpunk cyborg dog that can speak in a voice of darth vader? Want Cara Delevingne to be your english lang tutor? Want to pair program with Linus Torvalds? Want Neytiri from Avatar to be your personal Yoga instructor?
- zabzonk 4y agonope, don't want any of them, though i must admit i quite like cara.
- qaq 4y agoI find it hard to believe that you can not come up with a single AR scenario that will either make learning process, work process or entertainment option more fun.
- zabzonk 4y agoisn't this about vr rather than ar? i can certainly think about situations where ar would be useful, though none have been demonstrated to be viable yet - rather the reverse when you think of things like google glass.
- 4y ago
- Animats 4y agoForget Disney and Meta. Epic just shipped the metaverse. It's here. Now. Epic just shipped the Unreal Engine editor as a plug-in for Fortnite. Most of the things you can do with Unreal Engine as a game developer are now available to Fortnite users. What's created doesn't have to look anything like Fortnite. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGck_8QNHTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGck_8QNHTk
- smeagull 4y agoOh look, it's gmod.
- jchw 4y agoPretty cool. Reminds me a bit of Cube 2: Sauerbraten, which had realtime collaborative editing, too. Pretty cool thing for the age it came out in, and it's open source.
- jamilton 4y agoWhy should this be called the metaverse?
- threeseed 4y agoSo Epic can make the argument to courts, regulators, investors etc. that they have created something ground-breaking and unique and vital to society. Which of course Apple, Google and Meta should not be able to monetise - only them.
- acomjean 4y agoI mean fortnite has had already had film festivals, and "concert" experiences you can experience with your friends. I've been through some, and its kinda fun. They seem to be wanting to build the tools, to build that. They know its a tough road, and being resourced starved (compared to facebook) they're trying to do it a more "open" way with the other game engines participating (He mentions Godot, Unity in his talk), artists etc. Its part of Tim Sweeney's thing to break down walled gardens. Epic being privately held, sort of doesn't have to deal with shareholders... https://youtu.be/akIqVM0gh4w?t=4074 https://youtu.be/akIqVM0gh4w?t=4074
- richbell 4y agoSomewhat apropos: "The future is a dead mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse" https://youtu.be/EiZhdpLXZ8Q https://youtu.be/EiZhdpLXZ8Q
- Broken_Hippo 4y agoI watched this yesterday. For anyone wondering: It is long but worth a watch. You don't need to stare at the screen the entire time - if you can hear it and look up occasionally, it's fine.
- scrollaway 4y agoAlso watched it yesterday and I really can just summarise the video like this: Massive crypto scam by people who are now bound to overhype the whole thing. Regular folks fall for it because they buy into the vision and have to believe otherwise everything falls apart. Companies fall for it because FOMO. Incredibly cultish. The video is good but I don’t think it is worth the watch unless you have morbid curiosity about that particular project, or you want some crypto related cathartic release. I don’t feel better knowing the gory details of how terrible everyone and everything is in this circle.
- jonasdegendt 4y agoI agree with you. His 'Line Goes Up' and 'In Search of a Flat Earth' video essays have a lot more meat on the bone than this one.
- tourgen 4y ago[dead]
- DavidPiper 4y ago> It is long but worth a watch Hadn't clicked the link yet but just reading that made me think "Oh I bet it's Folding Ideas!" Wasn't disappointed. Thanks OP for the link.
- nl 4y agoWas this a "NFT-like Metaverse" or a "VR-like Metaverse"?
- crmd 4y agoSex, porn and/or getting laid is the first emergent viral use case for every planetary-successful b2c tech platform. I made a small fortune on Facebook’s IPO and liquidated immediately after realizing Zuck was betting the farm on skipping this inevitable step and was attempting to launch a nipple-free advertiser-optimized virtual reality.
- lucaspfeifer 4y agoThe internet is still in its 'wild west' stage. When things settle down, the obscene stuff will be gone, and the useful sites will remain.
- HeavyFeather 4y agoGood luck with that. Porn still dominates charts and sex still sells. You’re not changing either one because they’re both what humans want.
- akho 4y agoWhich is the useful one, facebook or pornhub?
- numpad0 4y agoBetter choices as of now could be Facebook or Twitter, potentially Twitter or Mastodon in 5 years
- albertopv 4y agoI agree, when Facebook will be gone we will be much better.
- smitty1110 4y agoWe said that in the 90’s as well. Funny how people keep saying that year after year.
- jamilton 4y agoHumanity is still in its "wild west" stage by that definition.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- benatkin 4y agoSad trombone. They still need Metaverse stuff, of course.
- glass3 4y agoDisney and Apple are close. Does this mean that there is not much to be expected from Apple's VR headset launch this year?
- jakey_bakey 4y agoAt least with Apple, they've been working on a "good" AR experience for over a decade - whereas any department calling itself "metaverse" is a low-interest-rate phenomenon
- totetsu 4y agoMy instinct is that VR and the metaverse will only find real success in the adult entertainment industry.. And some one will try to release AR products, like public speaking confidence aid, that makes everyone around you naked and we'll all feel like we need a break from it all for a few hype-cycles.
- scoutt 4y ago> will only find real success in the adult entertainment industry If you don't see/hear your wife/partner arriving (because of the headset), you are as good as dead.
- vincnetas 4y ago[dead]
- riffraff 4y agoVR perhaps, but why would you need a "metaverse" for adult entertainment? It's not like the ability to build and decorate your office impacts your ability to enjoy porn. I mean sure, perhaps onlyfans will evolve the ability for a model to have some virtual background in which you can attend the show live, but that will never be "your life online connected to everyone" that the metaverse is supposed to be.
- TylerE 4y agoFetishes.
- ta8903 4y agoWeird to see all these articles about VR/"the metaverse" being dead right before Apple's offering. Surely they'd want to check out what Apple puts out at least.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago1. VR tech is nowhere near where it needs to be for mass adoption 2. "Metaverse" narrative was hijacked by crappy crypto scams If the metaverse is to make a comeback, it needs a rebrand, and VR tech to be as affordable and low footprint as the average smartphone.
- prmoustache 4y agoI don't think it is about tech. VR technologies and "virtual worlds" mostly attracts creepy people. General public don't want to deal with that kind of people hence they aren't interested in VR, real life is fun enough for them. The only non creepy people owning VR headsets are those who use it to play racing and flying simulators.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoThis is also true. There is inherent weirdness associatd with strapping on a gigantic headset to immerse yourself in some make believe world. Someone will have to find a way to make VR "sexy". Tough ask.
- martindbp 4y ago> 1. VR tech is nowhere near where it needs to be for mass adoption Meta Quest 2 has sold over 20 million headsets. That's not bad compared to other gaming devices. What's your definition for "mainstream"?
- beloch 4y agoThe main problem with Metaverse is that it it's an amusement park without any rides. Disney is the sort of company that might have made some interesting rides. A Mandalorian spin-off series of interactive VR episodes that can be experienced with a group of friends? A lot of people would have bought VR headsets just for that. Nobody's going to buy headsets to make a goofy looking avatar and hang out with Mark Zuckerberg in a Second Life remake. Experiences are what sell new entertainment technologies and Disney owns the IP to some pretty compelling experiences. The management of that rideless amusement park is also a little concerning. I'd love to see VR finally go mainstream, but I'd prefer it if pretty much anyone other than Meta were behind the platform that catches on first.
- coldtea 4y ago>is that it it's an amusement park without any rides And even if it had rides, they wouldn't be that amusing...
- ar9av 4y agoThe whole metaverse thing has felt like a buzzword-without-meaning that was never going to live up to the hype (at least in any meaningful good way), but still sucks for the people losing the jobs.
- jerf 4y agoThe metaverse is the ultimate, final instance of the "... but on a computer!" fallacy [1], even moreso than the "virtual worlds" that prompted me to originally write that article. It's reality... but on a computer! We already have a reality. It's called reality. The entire value proposition of computers is to do things reality couldn't already do. Replicating reality, but poorly, is a complete and utter waste of time. Or, to put it another way... no, the metaverse isn't happening. Or to put it yet another way, it already happened and the silly science-fiction descended ideas about what it would look like are as silly as the idea that in the future everyone will constantly wear form-fitting jumpsuits. The metaverse is an actively stupid idea. When the useful bits and pieces are reified over the next couple of decades, I'll still be right, because those things won't be "the metaverse", they'll still be extensions of the real things that are not only happening now, but have already been happening for decades, including yea verily this very site we're communicating on right now, which would not even remotely be improved in any sense whatsoever by being "in the metaverse". [1]: https://jerf.org/iri/post/2916/ https://jerf.org/iri/post/2916/ (Rereading that ten years later, it seems education has hardly gotten anywhere. Still BOAC-ville.)
- coldtea 4y agoWell, makes sense. The reason it even created one was to ride the hype and signal to the stock market. Now they'll create an LLM AI division...
- globalise83 4y agoReminds me of so many corporate "innovation" initiatives with vague goals and lack of connection to core business that end up flailing around helplessly before someone puts them out of their misery. Only work on innovations that improve the core business within a short time frame or be ready to look for another job elsewhere.
- fredgrott 4y agoGuess when 3d and VR started? When I was in college, i.e. 1990s. Now, how many problems did it solve? Metaverse is just a vanity project that the board of Meta does not have the power to stop, well no they might have the power but not the will given the stacking of that board. But, give it another year and the board will act.
- zelphirkalt 4y agoLong before the metaverse or meta even existed, I had this idea: A movie, which is explorable. You and a group of friends or even alone go to the movie and get a time budget, maybe like 5h or so. In that time you can explore the world of the movie in 3D virtual reality. Also you would be able to influence the story of the movie by acting as some characters in the movie. Of course this could have huge production costs associated with it and might not be realistic any time soon. But maybe one day ...
- challenger-derp 4y agoThat actually sounds fun. It's like karaoke but more than singing songs... even without the acting aspect, it sounds fun to experience the story unfold while you're in it. Not sure if people will feel bogged down by the additional effort they'll have to put in and prefer to just stare at a screen though.
- cjrp 4y agoWithout the VR element, that sounds a bit like Secret Cinema or immersive theatre companies like Punch Drunk.
- noneeeed 4y agoThere is a concept like this in the Clarke novel The City and the Stars. One of the entertainments in the far future is essentially playing out pre-scripted stories in a VR kind of system with your friends (although it's a full brain integration kind of thing, not just sensory input).
- anaganisk 4y agoIsn't that just any other game? Like games that change based on your reactions? Like GTA5, Bioshock Infinite, Red dead redemption?
- grumbel 4y agoNo, regular games just sit around and wait for the player to do something. Nothing ever happens without the player actively triggering it. This is quite different from a movie, which will play from start to finish without the viewer ever lifting a finger. I don't think there is anything that matches what OP is looking for perfectly, but games like The Last Express, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask or Invisible Hours get somewhat close. In those the story plays out in real time with all the NPCs playing their roles, the player can observe and interact, but he isn't the central trigger for everything, the story will reach the end even without the player doing anything. Fahrenheit and most of the other stuff Quantic Dream has done also go in that direction, in those games you often switch characters, so you are really playing "the story", not a specific person in that story, however they are much more linear than the other games mentioned and don't leave that much room for exploration.
- incrudible 4y agoTo loosely paraphrase Gabe Newell, the metaverse is video games made by people who don't play video games for people that don't play video games, pretending it's not video games so as to conjure up a "growth market".
- alangibson 4y agoFacebook's approach to the Metaverse is a classic example of building based on "what's in it for us", not "what's in it for them?" Thinking "what's in it for us" leads you to build a universe that you get to lord over. Putting interesting things that people want in it is someone else's problem. Thinking "what's in it for them" leads you to build a single interesting thing people want. Then you expand it into a universe from there.
- civilized 4y agoI think Zuckerberg assumed that what's in it for the user would be the same as it's always been at Facebook - socialize with your family and friends. But why would I expect VR to be better than a Zoom call when Zoom calls with family and friends are already so wonky? Do I want to endure the same weird audio/video connectivity crap, only made even more uncanny by being immersed in it? Seems more honest to just keep it on a screen.
- wink 4y agoAlso completely missing the part of the population who likes async communication with friends and family via any sort of messenger or text, and deliberately not anything interactive like video. But ok, we might be a minority.
- zug_zug 4y ago>> Expect VR to be better than zoom It's worse, why would I expect VR to be better than facebook video. I think facebook video is worse than zoom, to the point that internal employees will use zoom for meeting sometimes. I feel like they should have built the world's best group video/audio product in 2 months, made it free, and used that momentum for metaverse
- corbulo 4y agoIt wouldve been cool if they weren't so bloated/incompetent. The glorified skype usecase was always lame to me. The potential for workflow efficiency (you can effectively have as many monitors as you want with the profile of a VR headset, remote work is even more portable than a laptop, looking at another desktop can be just as intuitive as another monitor on your own, more immersive and tune-able environment to focus on work) & display of data in 3d that is otherwise too unnavigable in 2D were really promising. Maybe we'll get there in another 10 years when the VR tech cycle completes its orbit again.
- insomagent 4y agoIs this the same one that made the Vader experience?
- Mizoguchi 4y agoWith a staff of 50 for a company the size of Disney it seems like they didn't have too much hope in the so call Metaverse anyway.
- eunos 4y agoBig bang innovation and greenfield tech developments are ZIRP
- borbulon 4y agoI find this whole thing fascinating. Lots of companies making seemingly bad decisions where the "metaverse" is concerned. Meta/FB dedicating so many resources to this as-yet-truly-defined thing seems silly to me, I'm not sure how they expect to recoup their losses even if a metaverse is established. Disney, as an entertainment company, is actually well set up to see results pretty quickly. I'm no metaverse fan. I think the simplest question one can ask any corp type talking up the metaverse that cuts through the BS is "what is the metaverse, and how do you get there?" I'm fully aware of the hardware limitations - someone on HN in the last few months has described the hardware challenge as on par with "build me a completely see-through phone," and while not perfect it's a pretty good comparison. I don't see this as something people will decide to enter and remain in for extended periods of time. But there are definitely use cases, and Disney, of all companies, is placed to take advantage of those use cases, and they decide to drop it.
- pnt12 4y agoI think there's some delusion, but there's also some sense to it. Facebook is slowly dying - pushing for a new concept could be a way to regain relevance. They already have a platform for games, so this can be seen as ambitious next step. Not that I think it will work.
- m0llusk 4y agoOne of the big hits on the web back in the day was webcams. They are still kind of a big deal. It seems like there would be value in a VR equivalent. Set up observation stations in public places that allow people to visit in VR through the net. That does not seem to be happening yet, at least not in a big way. Given how much modern media is about the weather and related climate trends that seems like some open potential. Then there is traffic and since we already have automated taxis then why not turn them into remote cameras, at least when not occupied delivering rides or food.
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y agoDon’t their board executives overlap in some way or other? Maybe this is a mix of descending faith that Meta can pull it off with insider info on what that other SV company might be trying to pull off this summer.
- uptown 4y agoOne of my earliest experiences with VR was from Disney as a child. They’d built a VR “magic carpet” ride for Aladdin where you sat on a saddle shaped seat, wore a headset, and could navigate around an Aladdin-like world on the virtual carpet. That was when I was a small child, down at Disney World. 30 years later, it’s interesting to see them pull back on what still isn’t a sure thing for home use. I believe VR will succeed in some form but I suspect live sports will be the first industry where it succeeds. Event tickets are already insanely expensive and an immersive experience to be “at” every game will be an easy sell for some.
- costanzaDynasty 4y agoDuring the Pandy every business talking head was hyping the Metaverse almost as if they had a vested interest. When talk of the the Metaverse at the time had hit a fever pitch, they were even saying that many FAANG and FAANG adjacent companies were overpaying talent to keep them away from Meta and the Metaverse. I wonder what percent of the layoffs are a result of the Metaverse folly.
- sarojmoh1 4y agoVR has always been a gimmick. New expensive headsets haven't done much imho
- hospitalJail 4y agoHave you used the Vive? Its not even new. I can't agree. From a hedonism perspective, I've had incredible experiences. My dad retired and has basically grown into the VRchat community over the last few years. He has met people with different social values than himself and has grown significantly more open minded. Sure you could get that stuff from other places, but he chooses to use VRchat for some reason.
- say_it_as_it_is 4y agoWhat you don't see is Disney open sourcing the work of its closed division.
- neallindsay 4y agoI couldn't tell from the article if the disbanded team was working on shared VR experiences in general or just "Meta" (née FaceBook) integration.
- VikingCoder 4y agoIn shocking news today, Disney had a Metaverse Division.
- bentt 4y agoI feel like this is less of a relevant announcement for Disney than for Meta.
- ETH_start 4y agoThat's a shame. Generative AI would complement the metaverse perfectly.
- yalogin 4y agoThe way I see it, VR is no different than what 3D was to TVs. Yeah, sure it's cool once in a while, but I don't want to spend time in it or put something on my head every single time I want to do something. It's impossible to beat a phone in that sense. There are very few things I care about that have a life in VR. So that is the biggest limiting factor, VR will always be a niche. They need to find killer use cases, and pushing cartoonish characters and marketing it as a second life equivalent is absolutely the wrong way to go.