[oflannabhra]

Hasbro is essentially upside down, with huge losses across all their brands being subsidized by enormous growth from their subsidiary Wizards of the Coast. Even with that growth, they are significantly down.

There was a big investor push recently (led by Alta Fox) to get Hasbro to spin WotC out into an independent company [0], which failed. The big concern being that forcing growth on those properties (Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons) to continue to support failed strategies with legacy properties could risk ruining those properties through mismanagement for short-term gains.

I really don't know where Hasbro goes from here. I don't think the toy market will ever recover, and the board game world has completely passed by properties like Monopoly. Chris Cocks, the CEO is the former head of WotC, so I'm hoping there is some level of understanding of stewardship of the WotC properties, but I'm really not confident. Even the recent D&D movie was disappointing from a business perspective (although surprisingly wonderful for fans). They also have a huge success in Baldur's Gate 3, although it is also disappointing from a monetization perspective. Even those recent lukewarm wins are within the WotC umbrella.

[0] - https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/hasbro-wins-wizards-of-the-coas...

[slimsag]

Hasbro needed to, and failed to (imo), transition into selling higher-end luxury toys for adults with nostalgia - and focus less on kids.

With the exception of DnD, everything else Hasbro-owned has failed to capture such an audience I think.

Their toys are generally priced ~$25 or less. Higher-end variants of their toys are not by Hasbro, but rather by other companies. Want a high-end nerf gun? You're going to Dart Zone, not Hasbro.

On Amazon their toys are competing on the same footing with the cheaper (often better) knock-off brands.

Their board games are dated and haven't really evolved. Monopoly is $15 while Catan is $100, /r/HotWheels collectors want old cars not the cheap new ones, etc.

By comparison, brands like Lego have evolved, are insanely expensive (>$100) and I constantly see adults with disposable income purchasing them en-mass while they're not really affordable as kids toys anymore.

[hilux]

Lego is a fascinating case study. They've gone entirely corporate - so many of their expensive new products are branded partnerships. I guess it had to be done. There must be an HBS case study, or several, about this.

[notzane]

Brick by Brick is a great book about the history of Lego and how it came back from near bankruptcy. It reads like a business case study—turns out they were saved by a McKinsey consultant.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jørgen_Vig_Knudstorp

[pfranz]

I wouldn't be surprised if branded partnerships have minimal profit and are mostly intended to keep a premium market perception.

Lego was pretty famous for doing branded partnerships and still struggling [1]. This lead them to come up with more of their own IP like Bionicle and Ninjago.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionicle#Concept

[Karellen]

> brands like Lego have evolved, are insanely expensive (>$100)

I thought that Lego prices had remained pretty steady over time.

https://realityprose.com/what-happened-with-lego/

OK, that study was published 10 years ago, but I haven't noticed any huge price hikes in the last decade for comparable sets. Yes, there are some bigger sets now than there used to be, but the small sets haven't gone away and are still there too, at what seem like reasonable (to me) prices. And while sets based on licensing deals (e.g. Marvel/Disney) are a bit more pricey than their own in-house ranges (City, Creator, Friends, Ninjago, etc...), again it doesn't seem like a huge gap?

[suzumer]

While price per piece may have remained relatively constant, Lego has been pushing out more and more expensive sets. I remember when the most expensive set was the 400 dollar death star, and that was the only 400 dollar set. Now, there are 26 sets that are 400 dollars or more, with 7 of those sets being 600 dollars or more, and the most expensive set being 850 dollars. All of this to target more adult fans of lego.

[Karellen]

Note that the $400 death star (set 10188) was released in 2008, and $400 in 2008 dollars is worth $570 in 2023 dollars.

https://brickipedia.fandom.com/wiki/10188_Death_Star

https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2008?amount=400

[wnevets]

> Hasbro needed to, and failed to (imo), transition into selling higher-end luxury toys for adults with nostalgia - and focus less on kids.

Isn't Pulse/HasLab that? For example they have a $300 Ghost Trap and P.K.E. Meter.

[1] https://hasbropulse.com/collections/haslab/products/ghostbus...

[mcphage]

> By comparison, brands like Lego have evolved, are insanely expensive (>$100)

They have expanded their product range upwards, but they still have tons of inexpensive, non-3rd-party-brand Lego sets.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

I remember seeing the Hasbro Interactive logo when starting up MechWarrior 3. It seems they were a victim of the dotcom crash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MechWarrior_3

[tomatotomato31]

When I buy a 200€ Lego set I still build it up for a few hours.

I can't come up with something I would buy from Hasbro in that range and having something to do with it though.

And there is Lego master tv show which also makes a lot of sense.

[Solvency]

I don't get it. Merchandising is still huge business. Just look at Disney toy sales. Why don't Hasbro invest in new IP?

[Keyframe]

Eons ago, when I was in TV/movies business, I spoke with a prominent Forgotten Realms book author (if not _the_ author) about a certain book series he wrote that I thought it would make a fantastic TV series (in a world before netflix had their own production) and he nodded in agreement. I said let's make it it happen, let's warm up parties on both ends (I'm on production side, he would be on property side).. basically cold shower was that, hiw he told me, they (writers) were hired to write pieces for Hasbro and Hasbro didn't want to let go of anything (as in control) nor would it do anything on their own.

So much potential, such a large world, and nothing. Blizzard spun up large business around basically 1% of what they're sitting on top off. Toys can be their sideshow. Alas..

[faitswulff]

Was it R.A. Salvatore? I would love to watch Drizzt Do'Urden on the big screen.

[yurishimo]

I think it has to be. Nothing else makes sense. On the bright side, Brandon Sanderson is moving full steam ahead growing his brands into fully fledged productions. He has been a huge help in bringing Wheel of Time season 2 back in line for what fans want, and he's using that experience to begin re-writing some of his series' into TV scripts. While the franchises of our youth might be approaching the EoL, the future still looks bright for epic fantasy fans!

[bitexploder]

Ed Greenwood was also quite popular. And a couple other authors wrote a number of pieces for the Forgotten Realms series.

[Keyframe]

Yeah, it was Salvatore.

[Eumenes]

aw, you beat me to typing this out. I've only read them once so I suspect a massive wave of nostalgia.

[corethree]

There's valid reasoning why a company wouldn't let another company make a movie or TV series. It cheapens the IP if the movie/series goes bad.

It's hard to describe the effect. Essentially this is what happened with LOTR.

Also take for instance the recent D&D movie which was just ok/slightly good. The movie cheapens the D&D IP, while something like Baldurs Gate builds on it.

Maybe from a business perspective it's the most profitable move but for the original subject the IP was centered around, whether it was books, games loses the charm if the movie sucks and Hollywood churns out shit movies for a quick buck really fast.

It's not always bad though. While Marvel did well, DC did not.

It's weirdly irrational but that's just how people behave.

[sunshowers]

Honor Among Thieves wasn't quite the all-time great that Baldur's Gate 3 was, but I thought it was pretty fun and enjoyable.

I think the other D&D game that came out recently (Dark Alliance) is probably a better example of devaluing the brand.

[corethree]

Honor among thieves made the D&D lore appear generic. It wasn't a bad movie but it didn't utilize D&D to the extent it should have been utilized. It could have been just as good if it was a normal fantasy movie without the D&D IP. There's great depth in the D&D world and I would say much more complex and imaginative than LOTR.

Only the D&D universe allows for games like the BG series or Torment. It's all about the lore.

Let's make no mistake, D&D is all about the lore. The RPG mechanics are pretty generic. You have thousands of cookie cutter rpgs out there (especially jrpgs) with complex and interesting game play mechanics that are largely forgettable. D&D is still relevant not because of the game play mechanics, but because of the lore. And this lore was not really used very well in Honor among thieves.

Maybe you're right though. The D&D universe is specifically designed to support complex narratives and generic ones as well. Though for honor among thieves with the D&D name featured so prominently in the title I'm sure most people unfamiliar with D&D walked away thinking that D&D was some generic fantasy universe. D&D Lore is better, deeper and more complex than GOT or LOTR by a huge margin. It's barely comparable it's like comparing GOT with the Harry Potter universe.

[sunshowers]

I agree with D&D having a richer lore (and as someone who bounced off of tabletop play, though that's more likely the groups I was playing with, I love that BG3 exists and I can sink deep into it).

I think the thing I enjoyed the most about Honor Among Thieves was how the different characters were manifestations of player archetypes. You have the master planner, the strong and silent, the high-level lawful good guest player who the DM sets up an extra-hard challenge for, and so on.

[Keyframe]

You're right, and they would be right in thinking that way too. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Thing was that they weren't even thinking of that direction, at all - internal, external, partnership, nothing; Dead end, and authors were just guns for hire, zero input on that. It wasn't their property anymore. I wasn't brazen enough to offer talks towards the dark elf immediately. Idea, which to be honest lingered for maybe a month before initial contact was shot down immediately, was to start with something smaller to test the (production and market) waters first like Cleric Quintet which could work but it could also open the forgotten realms brand into the TV world. Anyways, nice remembering this past life and an anecdote.

[red-iron-pine]

> There's valid reasoning why a company wouldn't let another company make a movie or TV series. It cheapens the IP if the movie/series goes bad.

Season 8 of Game of Thrones.

The spin off was alright but I didn't really care enough to keep it up, and I get a lot of people didn't. LOTR comes to mind too, ditto for a lot of the "slop" that Disney has been pushing for Star Wars.

There is a lot more stuff out there, and most of it isn't great, so Ima tune it out until the test of time determines if it's worth it.

[speeder]

I am a MTG player. Also I used to own my own game business.

I am not sure Chris Cocks will preserve wotc.

First an interesting fact: one of the people pushing Alta Fox to meddle with Hasbro is a guy that was MTG player in the 90s.

Now about Chris Cocks: after he became CEO of WotC, the company did grow but making lots of short term focused things, like ditching the Pro scene, spamming Commander and Modern products (and I am a heavy Commander player...) spamming foils and other collectible crap, and reducing good promotional prizes.

Also they ditched some good products to offer complete crap after he became CEO, for example the holiday boxes were wildly useful and today they are crazy expensive because how useful and cool they are, if you find them. But lots and lots of stores has the Chris era gift products stuck on shelves collecting dust.

Then after he became Hasbro CEO things got somehow worse, like the OGL stupidity, 35th anniversary product that is ludicrously expensive, selling pre-sale products on Amazon official WotC store so cheap it undercut stores so badly they lost money.

[tonfreed]

I'm a D&D player, and have definitely noticed a drop in quality of 5e products to the point where I just wasn't interested in buying anything after witchlight. Being a DM, I slurped up every book to steal ideas and encounters that I could use with little effort.

My group also all had the same visceral reaction to the OGL kerfuffle early this year and moved to Pathfinder 2e. I had a lot of fun with 5e, but it had already grown stale for me before all of the madness and short sighted decisions anyway.

[overstay8930]

Hasbro deserves their fate, they sold their IP to the highest bidder and they could have made a killing off of any one of their properties if they actually tried.

Imagine if they made good games, they could have locked down the most lucrative market for a company of its size and type.

[thereddaikon]

They burned a lot of goodwill WOTC had by pushing them harder and harder to carry the rest of the company. A move last year to change the terms of the OGL lead to massive community backlash. They are lucky Baldur's gate has been such a hit and GOTY material. If it wasn't for that a lot of fans would still have a bad taste in their mouth in regards to DnD.

[lotsofpulp]

The D&D movie is on Amazon Prime, and is probably the most fun movie I watched this year. I have zero knowledge or interest in D&D.

[parl_match]

Call it poor marketing, or a concept that just didn't resonate with cover-judgers, but a common perception of it by those who didn't watch it is that it is a cash-in kid's B-movie. Some pap you get for free on a streaming service. Disappointing that perception exists.

[tapoxi]

I liked the D&D movie, though it definitely felt budget with some awful CG at times.

For some reason, call it mid-pandemic boredom, my wife and I saw Hasbro's GI Joe film "Snake Eyes" in theaters. That was pretty awful.

[floren]

The best parts about the D&D movie were the practical effects, which were obviously effects but obviously practical and therefore charming.

[teddyh]

Warning: There is more than one “D&D Movie”: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dungeons_%26_Drag...>

According to most people, the one from 2023 is the good one.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

The first one was ... not so inspiring ... It had some top-shelf actors, but the "acting" was a bit ... over the top, shall we say.

The next two were a bit less inspiring.

[lotsofpulp]

Yes, I meant the 2023 one. Didn’t know there were others.

[hiisukun]

As someone who enjoyed board games for a little while, while playing with a group of friends on and off, I will say I was taken aback by just how separate these two categories are:

* hasbro board games * enjoyable board games

In fact, I would say that hasbro, and especially monopoly, are responsible for a huge chunk of people thinking all board games are terrible. When I was younger, I never understood why they didn't use their large corporate resources to either purchase or create some better games.. But nowadays I realise they are more like a toy and branding company - it's just not how they work.

[TheCaptain4815]

BG3 was disappointing from a monetization perspective? How on earth, it sold over 20 million copies in less than a year!

[entropicdrifter]

It's a one-time purchase, not a subscription. Hasbro's income from BG3 pales in comparison to MTG boosters from this year alone, let alone the income over time.

[Macha]

It's also clear from Hasbro's own statements they didn't expect it to do so well.

Maybe they thought it would have sold like a Divinity 3 and as such gave Larian a better deal on the IP licensing than they think they could have got if they'd known in advance how well it would sell.

[heelix]

BG3 was the first game I've paid full price for, since Doom 3. Almost any of the 'modern' game sales concepts - game passes, ridiculous DLC, loot boxes, etc - have me waiting years after release for the GOTY version at a heavy, heavy discount.

I would buy the heck out of another DnD game like BG. Shame anyone would look at that and say meh, more battlefield.

[happytiger]

They just need to innovate to keep up with entertainment changes, and they haven’t. They’ve become crystallized in brand management and focused on very traditional and impotent MBA-lead strategies to “monetize the portfolio” and completely missed the chance at gaming innovation leadership.

They should make WotC’s management in charge of the overall company. I had a chance to work with them extensively on MTG internet properties and they are a cut above most management teams.

Chris is an interesting mix and as long as he makes long-term choices instead of them plethora of short term profit driven choices he’s been criticized for he is capable and thoughtful. I don’t think we’ve seen what he can do as he has always been beholden to the parent corporation’s culture.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I like toys and I have children, so I got some experience buying toys.

Hasbro stuff is just garbage quality. I'm sure there is a problem with my adult taste expecting more, but the plastic they use is horrible at touch.

That's about it, I just don't buy garbage stuff.

We live in a parallel toy world where every toy I had was substantially better quality then my children. Really annoying. I often have to buy model stuff to give them decent toys (and those break!).

[bhouston]

> toy market will ever recover,

Also people are having less kids these days -- for better or worse (I think worse) -- so people have less need for toys. Also kids love just paying video games on tablets and PCs, so also less need for physical toys.

[VirusNewbie]

I think MtG and D&D have a lot of potential though.

My four year old son found a "search and find" D&D book for kids at the store, and it is now one of his favorite books. He loves the kid friendly D&D products, and will presumably continue to be a fan.

Unlike other huge IP franchises that are spear headed by a single set of characters or story, D&D has an enormous world with no single focus that makes it easily adaptable to various media and spin offs.

My son is now enthralled with the various dragons, monsters, and the idea of heroes looking for treasure. I hope they continue to make toys, games, minis and media for all age groups!