Disney has promoted and hired new game industry veterans that show it’s getting more serious about games. It includes the promotion of games lead Sean Shoptaw to executive vice president.
The hires come on the heels of Disney’s $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games to build a Disney-Fortnite universe and CEO Bob Iger’s positive comments about investing in games to go after new audiences.
In those comments, Iger said Disney and Epic are building a games and entertainment universe to further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences. Now Disney is adding veteran games industry leaders with experience creating persistent digital worlds enjoyed by millions of players.
Ray Gresko, formerly chief development officer at Blizzard Entertainment, is joining the Disney Games team as senior vice president, product and development. In this role, he will work closely with the Epic Games development team building Disney’s new games and entertainment universe.
Gresko has more than three decades of games industry experience as a programmer, designer, producer and executive. During his time at Blizzard, Gresko co-led the development of 2016 Game of the Year Overwatch and Diablo III and created the initial playable prototype for Hearthstone. He began his game development career at LucasArts, where he pioneered new 3D technology as lead programmer for LucasArts titles such as Star Wars: Dark Forces, and Star Wars: Jedi Knight – Dark Forces II.
He joins Disney from his consulting company, Blue Silver Studios, which has provided management consulting and creative direction for the entertainment industry.
Bjorn Tornqvist has joined the Disney Games team as vice president, games technology after nearly twenty years with Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment in technical leadership roles. Following substantial academic research in distributed systems and artificial intelligence, he joined Massive Entertainment in 2004.
While at Ubisoft, he led global teams on innovations like Ubisoft’s Scalar technology, as well as the seamless multiplayer interactions in The Division. He pioneered streaming and multiplayer technologies with Just Dance Now, where he also served as creative director. Beyond these projects, Bjorn also founded Ubisoft’s digital games publishing platform.
Jay Ong, after nearly a decade leading the Marvel Games team, will now lead the global games licensing business across all franchises. Ong has over 25 years of games industry experience at Marvel, Blizzard Entertainment, EA Sports and Xbox and has been instrumental in launching global successes, including the Marvel’s Spider-Man series, Marvel Snap, Marvel Contest of Champions, and Marvel Strike Force, among others.
The executives will report directly to Shoptaw, who has been promoted to executive vice president. Sean oversees Disney’s games global business, including the recently announced collaboration with Epic Games. Iger credited Shoptaw for convincing him that Disney had to focus more on games to catch young consumers and turn them into lifelong Disney fans.
Shoptaw has led Disney’s games business to deliver strong results since it shifted to a licensing business model in 2016, working closely with best-in-class developers and publishers to deliver industry-leading hits. To date, Disney mobile games have garnered more than 1.5 billion global installs, and nine Disney games franchises have each grossed more than $1 billion in sales.
“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, in a statement. “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.”
Haluk Mentes, who has played a pivotal role in the success of Marvel Games over the past eight years while driving Portfolio Strategy and Business Development, will now lead the Marvel Games team, and will work alongside other senior games executives, all reporting to Ong, including: Carrie Chen, vice president, marketing; John Drake, vice president, business development & licensing; Luigi Priore, vice president, Disney, Pixar & 20th Century Games; Douglas Reilly, vice president, Lucasfilm Games; and Will Rosas, vice president, creative.