• Disney recently laid off its metaverse team as a part of its company-wide staff reduction.
• The company had jumped on the Web3 bandwagon in 2022, but is now questioning its value.
• Last month, Disney announced budget cuts of $5.5 billion which resulted in the termination of 7000 jobs, including the entire metaverse team other than Mike White.
Disney’s Metaverse Team Laid Off
Disney has been forced to lay off its entire metaverse team due to an internal restructuring that involves cutting costs and streamlining business operations. This comes after Disney had made strides towards the Web3 movement by choosing Polygon as their blockchain partner and making extensive resource deployments for Web3 initiatives such as hiring new staff to work on NFTs, blockchain, metaverse and DeFi projects.
Leadership Changes Result In Metaverse Shelving
The former CEO of Disney Bob Chapek appointed Mike White as head of the metaverse division in February 2022 with plans to develop interactive storytelling utilizing Disney’s vast library of intellectual property. However when Bob Iger took over leadership from Chapek last month, it was announced that budget cuts amounting to $5.5 billion would be implemented resulting in the termination of 7000 jobs which included the entire metaverse team apart from White himself.
Is The Metaverse Dream Crashing?
It seems that even entertainment giants like Disney are not exempt from economic downturns and having to rethink expensive dream projects if they are not bringing immediate revenue returns. Not only have they let go of their entire metaverse team but also have been questioning whether or not continued investment into Web3 technologies is worth it anymore given their current financial situation.
What Will Happen To Existing Meta Projects?
With 50 people being terminated from this division alone, it begs the question: what will happen to existing projects within this space? It is unclear what direction future projects will take or if there still remains any hope for them moving forward at all under these circumstances.
Conclusion
Disney’s layoffs demonstrate that even major corporations are feeling the squeeze during global economic crises and have no choice but to make tough decisions about their investments into innovation and technology; especially if those investments do not yield immediate returns on investment. With no clarity over what will become of metaverse projects moving forward, only time will tell whether or not this dream will crash before it can truly take off.