Disney Scraps Metaverse Division as part of the restructuring plan: report

Disney Scraps Metaverse Division as part of the restructuring plan: report

Walt Disney has deleted meta-verse plans from its list of priorities. The "Next-generation Storytelling and Consumer Experiences" department of the entertainment giant was commissioned to research metaverse strategies.

But now Disney eliminates the entire division as part of its restructuring plans, which will result in a reduction in the number of employees by almost 7,000 in the entire company in the next two months.

metaverse no longer priority for disney

According to a WSJ report, Disney's CEO Robert Iger said that the layoffs would begin this week. The Meta-Verse department had almost 50 members, all of whom lost their jobs. His director Mike White was promoted in the role of the SVP for consumer experiences and platforms in February 2022 and was given the task of bringing the entertainment company deeper into the web3 area.

While White was not displaced during the reduction, it is still unclear in which function of the executive will act in the future.

reports also indicate that Disney was under enormous pressure from investors not to stop essential business. For this reason, the company has brought McKinsey & Co. consultants on board to help with possibilities to reduce costs. However, this step was not welcomed by some top content managers.

Recently, Disney announced his plans to make cuts of $ 5.5 billion, in addition to the reduction of 7,000 jobs in view of the considerable economic headwind, the strong competition in streaming and falling income from cable television as well as kinocasses that put many large media companies under pressure.

metaverse is on the one hand a long -term bet. It is far from being a mainstream phenomenon. The generation of short -term income does not seem to be in sight. This has frustrated many technology companies that have invested billions of dollars for these efforts in recent years.

meta plays the long game

The meta-verse projects of the company led by Mark Zuckerberg burn money and fall flat. In 2022, the Virtual/Augmented Reality area lost $ 13.7 billion.

Despite the negative mood that surrounds the room, Meta has no plans to eliminate or reduce its meta-severse efforts. The team expects the losses for the full year for the division to rise in 2023, and plans to invest in this area "sensibly". Zuckerberg had previously said that he was playing the long game while he addresses the noisers of the meta verse.

"You see, I understand that many people may not agree to this investment, but as far as I can judge it, I think that this will be a very important thing. People will look back in a decade and talk about the importance of work that is done here."

.