{"id":76302,"date":"2023-03-28T11:24:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T08:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=76302"},"modified":"2025-09-10T16:39:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:39:25","slug":"disney-disbands-metaverse-related-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/disney-disbands-metaverse-related-division\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney disbands metaverse-related division"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Walt Disney Company has closed its <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-the-metaverse\">metaverse<\/a>-related division. The <a href=\\\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/disney-eliminates-its-metaverse-division-as-part-of-companys-layoffs-plan-94b03650\\\">WSJ<\/a> reports this, citing sources.<\/p>\n<p>The department employs about 50 people \u2014 almost all of them will be laid off, according to sources.<\/p>\n<p>According to the publication, the decision was taken as part of a broader restructuring plan. The company aims to cut its operating costs by $5.5 billion and to lay off 7,000 employees within two months.<\/p>\n<p>Presumably, Disney&#8217;s virtual-worlds division was created in February 2022 to provide audiences with new ways to interact with familiar characters and stories.<\/p>\n<p>In the same month, former president and CEO Robert Iger <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/former-disney-chief-warns-of-copyright-infringements-in-the-nft-sector\">expressed concern<\/a> about copyright infringement in the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-are-nfts\">NFT<\/a> sector.<\/p>\n<p>In July, Disney <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/matic-rises-as-polygon-joins-disney-accelerator-program\">included<\/a> the project <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-polygon-matic\">Polygon<\/a> in its 2022 accelerator program. It focuses on augmented reality technologies, non-fungible tokens and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>In September the company <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/disney-posts-vacancy-for-chief-counsel-to-work-on-nft-metaverses-blockchain-and-defi-deals\">published a vacancy<\/a> for a chief legal officer to work on deals involving NFTs, metaverses, blockchain and <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-decentralised-finance-defi\">decentralized finance<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, in March 2023, Animoca Brands <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/animoca-brands-trims-metaverse-fund-target-to-800-million\">reduced<\/a> the target for its metaverse fund by 20% \u2014 to $800 million. The company&#8217;s initial plan envisaged investments of $2 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, Coinbase, ConsenSys, Genesis Trading, Blockchain.com, Gemini, Luno, Matrixport, Chainalysis, Bittrex, Messari and a number of other companies reported optimization.<\/p>\n<p>Since the start of the year, Microsoft <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/microsoft-to-lay-off-10000-employees\">laid off<\/a> about 10,000 people. PayPal <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/paypal-to-lay-off-about-2000-employees-roughly-7-of-the-workforce\">cut<\/a> about 7% of its staff (2,000 employees).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Walt Disney Company has closed its metaverse-related division, according to sources cited by WSJ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[83,1820,1353,1361],"class_list":["post-76302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-business","tag-disney","tag-metaverses","tag-virtual-world-innovations"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"22","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76304,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76302\/revisions\/76304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}