Wadsworth: Disney is here to stay

Following the news earlier this month that revenues were down for Disney's Interactive Media Group, the division president - Stephen Wadsworth - has told GamesIndustry.biz that while the company is being smarter about the platforms it publishes on, the company has long term plans for the videogames space.

"What we're trying to do is match the demographic of the product or experience with the right platform," he explained during an interview at this year's influential DICE Summit. "For instance, something like Pirates of the Caribbean - that's a broad demographic, and we're going to go broad with the game we're producing, and we'll be on every platform.

"With something like Alice in Wonderland, the movie comes out here pretty soon, and we've got DS and Wii titles tied to that - because the demo is pretty focused, it's not a big game title anyway and we're not going to reach an enthusiast market with it.

"So we look at it by franchise and property, and what we think we can do with the game experience or the title."

And despite the revenue blip, Wadsworth still sees the games genre as a "huge opportunity," claiming that the media giant will "do whatever we need to do to build a significant business here."

"Well, I'll say this - our commitment is pretty significant, and our perspective is very much a long term one," he said. "For the Walt Disney Company we need to be pretty sizeable to have a move-the-needle impact, and we wouldn't be doing this unless we wanted to move the needle.

"So the view on this is long term - and frankly the investments we're making... in the scheme of things to the whole company they're meaningful but they're not like building a new theme park. Yet the opportunity here is huge.

"Now that said, we're not going to go crazy - we'll be very smart, very selective about what we decide to invest in as an internally-developed, internally-published videogame title, or as an online virtual world experience, or whatever - because we want to make sure that what we do is a winner and really works, and ideally contributes to the broad strategy of the company, maybe around a franchise base, perhaps.

"So I think we're on a very good track - the expectation is high, for sure - and we'll do whatever we need to do to build a significant business here."

The full interview with Stephen Wadsworth, in which he also talks about Disney's approach to online safety, is available now.