Disney Games has added three games industry veterans to its leadership team, following the announcement of its collaboration with Epic on a new “games and entertainment universe.”
The three execs share experience from across Blizzard, Ubisoft, and Marvel Games.
In addition, Disney's head of gaming Sean Shoptaw has been promoted to executive vice president and will continue to oversee the company's global games business and the Epic collaboration.
Ray Gresko was chief development officer at Blizzard, where he co-led development on Overwatch and Diablo 3. He has three decades of experience and started his career at LucasArts, where he worked as lead programmer on the Star Wars: Dark Forces games.
As senior vice president of product and development, Gresko will work closely with Epic on its new universe.
Bjorn Tornqvist, now vice president of games technology, joins from Ubisoft where he led development on multiplayer technologies behind The Division and Just Dance Now, as well as founding Ubisoft's digital games publishing platform.
Lastly, Jay Ong has led the Marvel Games team over a decade and will now lead Disney's global games licensing business across all franchises. His previous experience includes roles at Blizzard, EA Sports, and Xbox.
“Under the leadership of Sean and Jay, Disney's games business is perfectly positioned to deliver world-class storytelling in this medium,” said Disney consumer products president Tasia Filippatos. “We're grateful to every member of the Disney Games team who has contributed to our success, and who will help shape the future of this industry through genre-defining entertainment.”
Disney announced its collaboration with Epic in February, after acquiring a $1.5bn stake in the Fortnite owner.
The new universe will be Unreal Engine-powered and will “interoperate” with Fortnite to offer a “multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories” from across Disney franchises.
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