Hasbro is investing $1 billion to make video games in house

[Alfonso Maruccia]

In brief: The overwhelming success of Baldur's Gate 3 demonstrates gamers' strong desire for quality products set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. Hasbro, the conglomerate that owns Wizards of the Coast and the entire D&D franchise, is banking on this appeal to profoundly influence the future development of D&D-based video games.

After selling more than 10 million copies and winning countless awards with Baldur's Gate 3, Larian Studios has decided to halt the production of D&D games for the time being. BG3 is unlikely to receive major DLC, expansions, or a sequel developed by Larian, but this doesn't mean the Baldur's Gate saga is coming to an end. On the contrary, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro are actively seeking a new developer up to the task.

According to Dan Ayoub, Hasbro's head of digital product development, the massive success of Baldur's Gate 3 has encouraged the corporation to take more significant risks in its digital entertainment offerings. Ayoub confirmed in a recent interview that Hasbro is indeed developing video games internally, with a "considerable" $1 billion investment.

The corporation currently owns four AAA studios developing video games. These include Atomic Arcade, working on a new-generation Snake Eyes G.I. Joe game; Invoke Studios, pursuing its own D&D project; the Texas-based Skeleton Key, delving into "something spooky," as described by Ayoub; and the Austin-based Archetype studio, collaborating with BioWare veteran James Ohlen on a completely new franchise called Exodus.

Hasbro, a century-old company founded on the principles of play, is now looking ahead to the next century, with digital gaming emerging as the primary form of entertainment for many. Ayoub emphasized that in-house game development aligns with this evolution, although Hasbro aims to broaden its offerings beyond D&D, considering its rich portfolio of intellectual properties.

The success of Baldur's Gate 3 underscored the strong demand for well-crafted D&D games, Ayoub noted, signaling a desire for future installments to uphold the same standards of quality, depth, and fidelity as the original tabletop RPG's universe and lore. At the same time, Hasbro is eager to explore new territories, as evidenced by the upcoming G.I. Joe game.

While Hasbro previously ventured into game development with the Hasbro Interactive label, which was eventually sold to Infogrames in 2000, Ayoub indicated that this time would be different. However, he emphasized that the corporation is committed to allowing its development plans to mature organically, without rushing to bring anything to market prematurely.

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Hasbro is investing $1 billion to make video games in house

 

[dirtyferret]

Allow me to post the visual production of a publicly traded corporation taking over video game development from a talented and independent studio focused on its specific niche of game

 

[Dimitriid]

So many questions but let's start with timing: This is coming less than a month after their Wizards of the Coast CEO Cynthia Williams quit which was right before their terrible quarter numbers came in.

So I kinda want to know: did they decide this was their plan before Williams 'resigned' and was probably her strategy? Is this a response after she resigned? Was the board not satisfied with Williams and the deal they made with Larian? I can't imagine they're making as much money as they'd like to out of that deal.

More over, does this has anything to do with the fact that Larian not long ago very publicly declined to make any sequels for them? Almost like they couldn't establish a decent deal that Williams didn't negotiate thinking their game wouldn't be a massive success and now they're extremely salty that their IP is making another company very successful while they're barely keeping their heads above the water mostly on the back of magic the gathering sales which by the way, it's been on a downturn for a long while and continues to have very poorly received expansions and people refusing to purchase their products as they greatly increase prices while reducing quality, not to mention the D&D community also still being resentful and cautious about their repeated scandals of trying to also squeeze every last possible penny out of gamers while decreasing quality and violently trying to force out third party former partners and such.

Again a company this troubled probably has no chance in hell of producing even a moderately playable quick mobile phone, let alone a once in a generation success like Baldur's Gate 3 so what chance do they have? This is likely just a platform for them to try to eliminate their core products, books and trading cards, to see if they can push both those players to their online platforms to better nickle and dime them: They'll be in bankruptcy procedures soon enough tho.

 

[dirtyferret]

So many questions but let's start with timing: This is coming less than a month after their Wizards of the Coast CEO Cynthia Williams quit which was right before their terrible quarter numbers came in.

So I kinda want to know: did they decide this was their plan before Williams 'resigned' and was probably her strategy? Is this a response after she resigned? Was the board not satisfied with Williams and the deal they made with Larian? I can't imagine they're making as much money as they'd like to out of that deal.

Oh to get our hands on the contract. My guess is the board flipped out on the amount of money Larian walked away with believing its the brand that made the game as opposed to the studio.

More over, does this has anything to do with the fact that Larian not long ago very publicly declined to make any sequels for them?

From a business stand point its the right move. Why make any DLC that never sells as well as the game or split revenue on a sequel when the Larian name is A) red hot B) you only have one of greatest CRPGs to live up to and most important C) Divinity Series is your own IP that will create far more revenue for you without having to deal with Hasbro/Wizards.

This is likely just a platform for them to try to eliminate their core products, books and trading cards, to see if they can push both those players to their online platforms to better nickle and dime them: They'll be in bankruptcy procedures soon enough tho.

Everything they do is focused on selling books, trading cards, figures, etc., which is why their video games have sucked for well over a decade (prior to BG3 the last good one was NWN2 in 2006)

 

[Dimitriid]

Everything they do is focused on selling books, trading cards, figures, etc., which is why their video games have sucked for well over a decade.

It is, but they've been really trying to change that for a while as well: With magic the gathering they've been trying repeatedly to get people to play in their online 'Arena' version of it but so far, fairly unsuccessfully. Their saving grace there was a couple of very successful expansions when they licensed Lord of the Rings but it wasn't enough to get as many people playing the online version as they'd like, not for lack of trying tho.

On the D&D side they purposefully refused to release any digital versions of their books for a while until online tabletop platforms became popular so they decided to license the books only for virtual tabletop platforms, then they purchased D&D Beyond and then went ahead and tried to wrestle third parties out of previous deals by saying 'Oh the Open Gaming License deal you used? Yeah we're updating that so we can take a massive share of all of your digital products revenue' instead and well that blew up on their faces so badly they haven't really recovered all that well so they moved the next edition ahead of schedule, probably to try again to force people into D&D Beyond instead of physical books if they can help it.

Notice how similar the above paragraph is to what likely transpired between them and Larian.

The interesting part is that for all the success they could have with their business of physical products they're always chasing the digital versions and in the most terrible 'Wait, me too!' way possible that's never well received and always backfires, except this time with videogames it will probably backfire badly enough to finally take the entire corporation out.

 

[Thanthan]

And every DnD player already knows how well this is gonna go…

WotC can’t make anything interesting to save their lives… they owe the entirety of their success to being a legacy brand, a tv series, and a gang of voice actors… So many, much better products in the tabletop space…

 

[brucek]

Y'all beat me to the crashing planes and autos metaphors. Maybe someone else will add the train version.

It's interesting to compare Hasbro's approach to Mattel's, who just had their own smash hit with the Barbie movie. Rather than sweat the % of the deal they got on the movie, or how much the movie made, Mattel's messaging both before & after was how important it was to them to establish great partnerships with Hollywood talent, and what they most wanted was not to start making movies themselves but to demonstrate how they could be a great IP partner for quality outside production teams.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Hasbro is so utterly screwed. They've been repeatedly taking dumps on things like Star Wars merchandise clogging shelves at Ollie's "good stuff cheap" style stores, they took the new doomed He-Man reboot toys while Mattel gets ownership of the originals people actually want, and WotC has been taking one L after another pissing of their consumers to appeal to Twitter crazies.

The Decade Of Decay is progressing quite nicely. I wonder if Hasbro will shut down by the end of the decade? Pissing of your customer base and putting out low quality garbage will do that to you. I guarantee that this billion they are spending will never make its money back.

Oh to get our hands on the contract. My guess is the board flipped out on the amount of money Larian walked away with believing its the brand that made the game as opposed to the studio.


From a business stand point its the right move. Why make any DLC that never sells as well as the game or split revenue on a sequel when the Larian name is A) red hot B) you only have one of greatest CRPGs to live up to and most important C) Divinity Series is your own IP that will create far more revenue for you without having to deal with Hasbro/Wizards.


Everything they do is focused on selling books, trading cards, figures, etc., which is why their video games have sucked for well over a decade (prior to BG3 the last good one was NWN2 in 2006)

It's well known that WotC has been trying to strongarm their partners and screw them on contracts for years, and the more money they lose the worse it gets. While Larian has not outright admitted it, its been strongly suggested by staff that the reason they walked away from BG4 was the absolutely ridiculous, perhaps near loan shark territory, of a contract WotC was offering.

They are FURIOUS that said game studio made such huge profits, ignoring the good it did for the brand. This is the same company that sent the pinkertons after people who got cards early, there's no benefit of the doubt here, its a safe bet they tried to strongarm Larian and got told to shove it, and are now reacting in a blind panic to retain that lightning in a bottle.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Y'all beat me to the crashing planes and autos metaphors. Maybe someone else will add the train version.

It's interesting to compare Hasbro's approach to Mattel's, who just had their own smash hit with the Barbie movie. Rather than sweat the % of the deal they got on the movie, or how much the movie made, Mattel's messaging both before & after was how important it was to them to establish great partnerships with Hollywood talent, and what they most wanted was not to start making movies themselves but to demonstrate how they could be a great IP partner for quality outside production teams.

Ask and ye shall recieve.

 

[amghwk]

What we need now, is not another company that makes the same old game styles ... Not another 3rd person action game or another first person shooter ** call of ...*cough* or another Diablo clone, not another Fortnite/PUBG nonsense...that keeps following the same old formula..

What we need now, is revamping of the current deplorable state of me-too games, sequels of sequels, and remakes... We want game companies to make games like those that made these people remake them. The design ingenuity, the wow factor in games. Not just 4k texturing. The game should be worth every second of playing it, not filling up the disk space with texture junks.

We need innovative, revolutionary gameplay.

And stop the required online connection to even start the game nonsense, let alone playing single player games.

 

[amghwk]

Ask and ye shall recieve.

Sorry, I don't understand the train and plane connecting to this topic.

What is it about?

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Sorry, I don't understand the train and plane connecting to this topic.

What is it about?

WOTC's decision is like a slow motion train.place/car crash, once cannot look away despite knowing exactly how it will play out. A disaster in the making.

What we need now, is not another company that makes the same old game styles ... Not another 3rd person action game or another first person shooter ** call of ...*cough* or another Diablo clone, not another Fortnite/PUBG nonsense...that keeps following the same old formula..

What we need now, is revamping of the current deplorable state of me-too games, sequels of sequels, and remakes... We want game companies to make games like those that made these people remake them. The design ingenuity, the wow factor in games. Not just 4k texturing. The game should be worth every second of playing it, not filling up the disk space with texture junks.

We need innovative, revolutionary gameplay.

And stop the required online connection to even start the game nonsense, let alone playing single player games.

Im fine even if they were all the same. Like, I'd take 5 Diablo IV clones if all of them had interesting stories, characters, and settings. Something the devs were passionate about, rather then churned off an assembly line.

 

[RudyBob]

I am heartened to see the name Hasbro still making stuff. I don't know if they are my Hasbro from the 50's and 60's but I don't think they are as bad off as the Bell and Howell folks

 

[dirtyferret]

I am heartened to see the name Hasbro still making stuff. I don't know if they are my Hasbro from the 50's and 60's but I don't think they are as bad off as the Bell and Howell folks

They are no longer run bu the Hassenfeld family but technically the same company in name. In the late 90's they went on a buying spree of other companies that lasted well over a decade and in turn means you A) over spend and B) are also buying other companies problems.

 

[dirtyferret]

Im fine even if they were all the same. Like, I'd take 5 Diablo IV clones if all of them had interesting stories, characters, and settings. Something the devs were passionate about, rather then churned off an assembly line.

You take BG3 and put it in the Star Wars universe or Middle Earth? You could double the numbers of sales. Same with other great RPGs like the Witcher or Skyrim. The problem is the talented studios don't want to split revenue and pay huge licensing fees up front only to be rushed to hit a ridiculous launch window, dumb down mechanics so its "more accessible" and have to answer how many comic books and toy figures will it help to sell. So the development studious create their own IPS which makes 100% sense for them and gamers go from Baldurs Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Academy to dumbed down games like Dark Alliance & Jedi Survivor.