Chris Cocks, CEO of Hasbro, explained in the company’s quarterly report how they plan to get more involved in the gaming industry and gave a timeframe for doing so.
Wizards of the Coast has hired veteran John Hight to do the heavy lifting. In a year and a half, the goal is to release 1-2 games per year, thanks to an investment of about $125 million per year. This is no easy task, and Cocks knows it: he believes he can turn Hasbro into a digital games company with a lot of licenses to choose from (Baldur’s Gate, for example, or Transformers, which is based on Dungeons & Dragons, a Hasbro IP):
“John, I think, is a luminary hire. He’s had a big hand in a number of franchises: Warcraft, Hearthstone, God of War, and even going back to Command & Conquer. He’s worked on some great stuff, which I think fits perfectly with what Wizards of the Coast is all about and what our digital gaming strategy is all about, which is expanding a bunch of great mid-core and hardcore brands and an expertise in designing for those kinds of audiences and helping us digitize what those brands can do. I think between our board moves and the talent that we have brought on board, most recently with John, but even before that, studio leaders that we have like Ames Kirshen, who was responsible for the Batman: Arkham series; James Ohlen, who was the head of creative design at BioWare, responsible for the first Baldur’s Gates, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect.
We’re fully committed to becoming a digital gaming company. Roughly speaking, our capital budget is about $250 million a year. About half of that is going into digital games. Our goal is to ship one to two new games a year starting as early as late 2025, possibly early 2026. And I think we have a balanced approach to that. If you look at our game, if you look at our portfolio of investments in games, whether they’re partnerships or JVs that we’re doing, they’re just completely internal investments.
And then if you look at our entire portfolio of licensed games, we have 150 projects that are either active in the market or in development. I think it’s important for us as a publisher to have a hand in managing our franchises and working on the areas and the audiences that we think are hyper-important. But I also think it’s important for us to work with the best partners in the business and extend those franchises into areas where we either don’t have the expertise or we don’t have the platform. And I think we’ve done a good job of that. There’s a reason why I think we’re the number one licensor in the space. And I think eventually we’re going to be a top publisher in the space, and we’re going to take our time and we’re going to do it right,” Cocks said.
Cocks has previously said that Hasbro wanted to strengthen its gaming presence with Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), but last year Wizards of the Coast canceled FIVE games! There were two D&D projects. One was developed by Hidden Path Entertainment, the other by OtherSide Entertainment. Archetype Entertainment under the company is working on a Mass Effect-esque sci-fi RPG (Exodus), Atomic Arcade is making a AAA GI Joe game based on the character of Snake Eyes, and Invoke Studios (formerly Tuque) is making a Unreal Engine 5 AAA D&D. There’s also Skeleton Key.
Baldur’s Gate will also continue, but Hasbro is still negotiating who will get this not easy task…
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