News from the Wall Street Journal overnight reports that Disney has scrapped their entire Metaverse division in the latest round of cost-cutting measures. The move is part of a broader plan to improve The Walt Disney Company’s profitability by reducing employment. The division is said to have held around 50 jobs that handled metaverse, a concept still misunderstood by many.
The mysterious division was created in 2022 by former CEO Bob Chapek after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made waves by announcing a bold new focus on ‘the metaverse’ while also pivoting his company branding to Meta. Chapek, who tagged the expansion as the “next generation storytelling,” was committed to the new technology combining the physical and digital worlds, best explained by Forbes in 2022 as “immersive, experiential online environments ripe with potential for magic and storytelling.” Sound vague? It is, but seeing as the concept never entirely made it off the ground, there isn’t a better way to put it.
The dismissal, which does not include team leader Mike White who will stay with the Disney company, is only the beginning of a new restructuring that is set to continue through the coming weeks.
Zoë Wood is a travel writer from Sydney, Australia. Since her first visit to Disneyland at the age of 6, she has spent her years frequently visiting Disney Parks and traveling around the world.
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