Disney+: video games and shopping soon on the streaming platform?

What if the future of streaming was… in shopping? In any case, that’s what The Walt Disney Company seems to think, which is actively considering adding video games and a commercial space to its Disney+ streaming platform.

For ever more advertising

According to our colleagues at Variety, Disney is preparing to complete its streaming offering with shopping and video game experiences, with the aim of attracting even more advertisers and advertising revenue.

This was confirmed by Rita Ferro, president of advertising sales at Disney: “The world of possible advertising experiences on AVOD [la VOD financée par la publicité, ndlr] is an important place to get involved in.”.

The company also plans to present during CES in Las Vegas, which will be held from January 9 to 12, 2024 in Las Vegas, “the next level of advertising innovations” of the society.

While this development may shock users, it is unfortunately consistent at the industrial level. After years of building and consolidating their user bases, streaming services now need to increase their revenue per subscriber.

And making Disney+ a single space bringing together streaming, video games and shopping seems a natural direction to make the still fragile platform model profitable. Especially if this space can broadcast advertising to its subscribers.

This race for revenue per subscriber (ARPPU, average revenue per paying user) has been part of the new policy of the Walt Disney platform for several months. In November, Disney+ increased its prices – the basic subscription went from €8.99 to €11.99 – and offered a cheaper offer but with advertising, in the wake of Netflix.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, Disney+ Core – that is to say without the Indian Hotstar part – reported revenue per subscriber of $6.7, a significant increase compared to the third ($6.58) and second (6 $) quarters of the current year. Today, the streaming service claims 150.2 million subscribers worldwide.