Entertainment giant Disney has reportedly sacked its recently formed metaverse team, joining other big names backing away from web3.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Disney’s 50-person metaverse team has been fired in the first rounds of a series of cuts that will eventually see 7000 jobs gone.
The move comes after Meta announced big job cuts and the end of its NFT project. Microsoft,Tencent and Snapchat have also shut down metaverse-focussed teams in recent months as an industry-wide contraction takes its toll on non-core projects.
According to Crunchbase tracking, 114,000 jobs have been cut in tech this year, adding to 140,000 sackings from 2022.
Disney’s metaverse team was formed a year ago under “senior vice-president of next-generation storytelling” Michael White. White is reportedly the only team member who will be staying on at Disney.
The team was formed under former Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who wrote in a memo at the time that the metaverse was “the next great storytelling frontier”.
Chapek has since been replaced as CEO by Bob Iger, the veteran who previously ran Disney for 15 years.
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