The owner of Monopoly or the IP of Baldur’s Gate, for example, wants to develop games in-house, and Hasbro is putting a lot of money into it: $1 billion!

Last year, Hasbro made a big splash in the gaming industry, with Monopoly Go and Baldur’s Gate 3 being big hits. But they weren’t made by Hasbro, they were licensed to outside companies (Scopely and Larian Studios, respectively). Perhaps that’s why Hasbro is looking to develop in-house, as Dan Ayoub, head of digital product development for Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast brand (Dungeons & Dragons – on which Baldur’s Gate is based), told Gamesindustry in an interview at the Game Developers Conference.

“The biggest thing to take away, which is honestly a bit of a surprise to a lot of people, is that Hasbro actually makes video games. And we have a significant investment in our studio structure; we have over $1 billion in games in development right now. What we’re trying to do [with original IP Exodus] is let the tail wag the dog a little bit and let things go the other way for the company, which would be something new, where we can create a new IP through video games and then use the size and scale of Hasbro to do other things with it.

Hasbro is a 100-year-old company that was built on play. It’s always been about play, it’s always been about entertaining people. And play is the dominant form of entertainment for a lot of people, and it’s something that just keeps growing. So in many ways it makes sense for Hasbro to be in this space. One of the great things we took away from the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 is that people really, really like a great, well-executed D&D game, so we’ve got something like that. And with Snake Eyes, while it’s not a new IP, it’s hopefully going to be a shot in the arm for the G.I. Joe franchise and we can do some new things and express it in video games in a different way than we have traditionally.

Over $1 billion is being invested in video game development right now, and that is just these studios. That’s not to mention the other game investments that are happening. I’ve definitely seen the company put its money where its mouth is in terms of building these studios around strong leadership and thinking about the long game. We have a portfolio that’s much, much bigger than anything we’re talking about right now. What we’re doing in the video game space is definitely in line with that conversation. Video games are part of that thing when the company says it’s going to focus on certain things. Video games as a category is part of that. What we’re doing there is really very much in line with that larger Hasbro strategy.

For the company and for me, Baldur’s Gate 3 was a fantastic example of executing the brand in an authentic way. And the players came. They loved it and they want more. And I think you can see that with other brands as well. I’m old enough to remember a plethora of Star Wars games that maybe weren’t what we as gamers hoped they would be, but when those quality titles came out, the audience came with them… The appetite is there when we’re authentic and we’re focused on quality. And that is absolutely the priority, and in many ways the reason for the creation of these internal studios.

A common theme that you’ll see in all of these studios is leadership and teams that have done something similar to what we’re trying to do. Everything is going to stay in the oven as long as it needs to. We’re not going to rush anything. Video games are an integral part of Hasbro’s strategy for the next 100 years, and we need to make sure that everything that comes out is of the highest quality, is authentic, and is something that we can build on, because right now we’re talking about a couple of studios and a couple of games, but we have much bigger ambitions for this,” Ayoub said.

There are currently four AAA studios: Atomic Arcade in North Carolina (Snake Eyes GI Joe game), Invoke Studios in Montreal (Dungeons & Dragons), Skeleton Key in Austin, Texas (something scary is in the works), and Archetype in the same city (BioWare’s James Ohlen is working on a new IP, Exodus). In the 1990s, along with Hasbro Interactive, the company acquired the Atari brand and MicroProse to create retro-themed games and PC strategy, but eventually sold the whole thing to Infogrames, which is now starting to revive.

Good luck to them…

Source: Gamesindustry