Disney‘s games group has bulked up executive ranks with new hires and promotions after the announcement of its $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games and partnership to create a virtual world featuring the Mouse House’s brands and characters.
Ray Gresko, formerly chief development officer at Blizzard Entertainment (who left prior to its the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard), joins the Disney Games team as senior VP, product and development. In the role, he will work closely with the Epic Games development team building Disney’s new games and entertainment universe.
Gresko joins Disney from his consulting company, Blue Silver Studios, which has provided management consulting and creative direction for the entertainment industry. 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 “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.”
Disney also announced that Jay Ong, after nearly a decade leading the Marvel Games team, will now lead the global games licensing business across all franchises. Ong has more than 25 years of games industry experience at Marvel, Blizzard Entertainment, EA Sports and Xbox and has been instrumental in launching titles including the Marvel’s Spider-Man series, Marvel Snap, Marvel Contest of Champions and Marvel Strike Force.
In addition, Sean Shoptaw has been promoted to executive VP of Disney Games, overseeing the company’s games global business. He was previously senior vice president of games and interactive experiences
Also part of the Disney Games team is Bjorn Tornqvist, who joined as VP, games technology last fall after nearly 20 years with Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment in technical leadership roles. Following 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 multiplayer interactions in “The Division.” He pioneered streaming and multiplayer technologies with “Just Dance Now,” for which he also served as creative director. Beyond these projects, Tornqvist also founded Ubisoft’s digital games publishing platform.
Gresko, Ong and Tornqvist each report to Shoptaw.
Haluk Mentes, who played a pivotal role in the success of Marvel Games over the past eight years while leading portfolio strategy and business development, will now lead the Marvel Games team (reporting to Ong). Other senior executives reporting to Ong include: Carrie Chen, VP, marketing; John Drake, VP, business development and licensing; Luigi Priore, VP, Disney, Pixar and 20th Century Games; Douglas Reilly, VP, Lucasfilm Games; and Will Rosas, VP, creative.
“Under the leadership of Sean and Jay, Disney’s games business is perfectly positioned to deliver world-class storytelling in this medium,” Disney Consumer Products president Tasia Filippatos, said 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.”
Disney earlier this year announced tje $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games. Last week, CEO Bob Iger said the priority was to launch a Disney universe — comprising the Mouse House’s brands and characters — that will live alongside Epic’s “Fortnite” to “make sure that’s successful” and “see where we can invest further beyond that.”
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, according to the company.
