How long until kids are playing with Alice from Alice in Wonderland, only this time, Wonderland is in their own back lawn?
There’s plenty to take away from the Disney Quarterly Earnings Call that saw the stock drop after missed expectations. One of the more significant is CEO Bob Chapek’s announcement of a Disney Metaverse… a term that has become all the buzz around tech companies after Mark Zuckerberg made it a thing with Facebook. What a “metaverse” might be is up to interpretation, much like what an “internet” was could have been ill-defined in the early-nineties. Yet Chapek made a point to discuss this quarterly hit as a prelude to something bigger down the road: an investment, if you will.
Suffice it to say our efforts to date are merely a prologue to a time when we’ll be able to connect the physical and digital worlds even more closely, allowing for storytelling without boundaries, in our own Disney metaverse.” — Bob Chapek, CEO The Walt Disney Company
Some have labeled this nothing more than “word salad” being used by a mega corporation head to obscure the missed projections. Phil Nickinson of Digital Trends makes that criticism, and more, claiming that even the term is so nebulous as to mean anything a company would like. Meanwhile, it’s clear that trade publications like The Hollywood Reporter have no idea what a Disney Metaverse might be, to the point they assume its just referring to virtual reality somehow.
Image Courtesy: Laughing Place
However, it is unlikely that Bob Chapek is just casually throwing out the phrase “metaverse”, and (based on Disney’s prior actions), it appears the company is strategically placing itself for a more technologically integrated world. Consider that about one year ago, news broke that Disney was planning to install intense, wireless connectivity systems throughout Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Unfortunately, because it was such an obscure story, I’m unable to locate it at this time (please feel free to provide it in the comments if you can find it). Many thought the investment was just to improve internet connections at Disney World, but sources told me that the infrastructure was very expensive and specifically set up to permit augmented reality integration throughout the park.
Just as we’ve seen with Disney+ Day, it seems very likely that Disney wants to integrate all its branches into a singular stream of content. Whether that is via traditional flat screen technology (TVs, tablets, mobile devices), augmented reality devices that make digital images appear in the real world, or virtual reality systems that immerse consumers fully, it seems that Disney wants to get ahead of the curve. As an example, I was told months ago that Disney is already concerned about virtual reality systems at home in which consumers can ride their Disneyland and Disney World attractions on their couch via a $300 Oculus headset and a free YouTube app. While the experience currently is a bit blurry due to YouTube pixelation, how long will it be before individuals can ride Soarin’ in perfect clarity from the comfort of their own home? If it’s three years away, that gives Disney three years to work on ways to get around it all.
Today, headsets are cumbersome and difficult to take to school, to work, to the park. In five years, what if they’re very portable and much better in terms of function?
Add a little pixie dust to your Disney memories with augmented reality from @DisneyPhotoPass and @Snap! ✨ Learn more about new interactive @Snapchat Lenses – and what’s in store for the @WaltDisneyWorld 50th anniversary: https://t.co/foFhw1HH8h #DisneyWorld50 pic.twitter.com/djvCfh05TS
— Disney Parks (@DisneyParks) May 20, 2021
What seems likely is that Disney would prefer to offer virtual reality, augmented reality, interactive entertainment, and traditional entertainment under a single banner. That seems to be the Disney Metaverse. If that means having Cinderella talk to your child while she “sits” on the back seat cup holder of your SUV, or if it means taking care of Stitch inside a virtual reality headset, the company is going to want all of it centralized in some way. Maybe that’s five years away? Maybe it’s ten years away? But for companies like Disney, the time to lay the groundwork is now. The world is trying to prepare for the next smartphone-style paradigm shift, and big players are hedging bets on the “metaverse”.
Former CEO, Bob Iger, Says Augmented Reality Is the Future
Does that warrant missing revenue projections for the last quarter? No. But it gives speculators pause as Bob Chapek looks to find new, and revolutionary ways, to use Disney+ for future record-breaking potential.
And thus, we’ll follow that rabbit into the Disney Metaverse.
