Shaking things up in the business world today, The Walt Disney Company has announced that they've agreed to acquire comic book giant Marvel Entertainment in a stock and cash transaction worth $4 billion. Subject to clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and various other customary closing conditions, the deal will include Marvel's massive catalog of over 5000 characters. Here's a little snippet from the press release:
"This transaction combines Marvel’s strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor with Disney’s creative skills, unparalleled gl2255obal portfolio of entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the value of creative properties across multiple platforms and territories," said Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. "Ike Perlmutter and his team have done an impressive job of nurturing these properties and have created significant value. We are pleased to bring this talent and these great assets to Disney."
How will this affect the development of future Marvel-related games? Disney CFO Tom Staggs offered the following comments to paidContent.org:
"Over time I think it can be important. They have a number of good strong licensing agreements in place today with a variety of companies but we’ll enjoy the benefit of those deals. As we move forward and look to broaden the base of properties that we’re leveraging within Marvel, we’ve believe there’s opportunity to broaden our gaming business as well."
So ya...don't be surprised if Disney brings a lot of games in-house, instead of licensing them out to other studios. Should be interesting to see how it all pans out!
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