Disney And Metaverse: Company Decided To Let It Go
For the first time Disney announced its metaverse plans last February – Mike White became the head of the new team. Moreover, a bit later the company posted a job opening for the position of head of legal for the segment, mentioning the possibility of an NFT series. The brand also made a partnership agreement with Polygon (MATIC).
Sadly, the crisis struck, and Disney had to switch to more profitable projects. Investors demanded to cut back on non-essential and minor projects, so now Disney is in the process of a global restructuring. Over the next two months, the company intends to fire about 7,000 employees.
In their attempts to minimize costs in the short term, all 50 members of the metaverse team have lost their jobs, according to WSJ sources. The head of the department remained in the company, but what his future role will be is still unknown. Apparently, the development of the metaverse is not among the priorities of Disney. No one knows whether the company will ever return to this idea.
What was the Disney metaverse team working on? They wanted to develop an analogue of the Amazon Prime system. It was supposed to consolidate customer data across all Disney services. Also, it is known that they planned to use Web3 elements for this concept. But no details, let alone results, were ever presented to the public.