A year after the release of Baldur's Gate 3, Hasbro and its subsidiary Wizards of the Coast are betting even more on video games, with both companies believing there's room in nearly every genre for their wealth of intellectual property.
Talking with Gaming Industry.biz At Gamescom in Cologne, SVP of digital licensing Eugene Evans said that while Larian Studios’ hit RPG has been a big boost for the company, the IP owner is exploring Dungeons & Dragons and Magic The Gathering (Hasbro’s largest IP in terms of revenue) beyond licensing more AAA games.
“We have AAA games in development,” he says. “We've announced some of the partnerships we have with companies like Starbreeze and Gameloft to create D&D games. I'll leave it up to you to imagine how far they can go.”
“But we believe that beyond roleplaying games, there are many ways to express D&D and Magic. We're just beginning to explore what digital expressions of Magic can be.”
He points to Magic: The Gathering Arena, a free-to-play PC and mobile recreation of the collectible card game, as well as the company's collaborations with established games.
The company has already carried out a number of brand collaborations with popular titles to celebrate Dungeons & Dragons’ 50th anniversary this year, including cosmetic items and armour in Bungie’s Destiny 2 and the use of iconic villain Vecna as a killer in Behaviour Interactive’s Dead By Daylight. And Evans says there will be “more surprises to come in the next six to eight weeks”.
The executive tells us that Hasbro has 80 live games and/or active contracts in the gaming market, with 40 games or collaborations that are currently in development with partners. All of them are scheduled to be released in the next two to three years, with 18 of them arriving throughout 2024.
This isn't too surprising, of course, given that CEO Chris Cocks said alongside the company's latest financial data that Hasbro is “doing everything it can to become a digital games company.”
Evans says future releases range from mobile games like the smash hit Monopoly Go, which has already grossed more than $3 billion, to bigger titles for PC and consoles. More importantly, he says it spans nearly the entire range of Hasbro's IP, which includes D&D, Magic: The Gathering, Transformers, Mr Potato Head, Monopoly, Sorry!, Clue and more.
“If there's a game you played as a kid, there's a 50% chance we'll have it,” he laughs. “We seem to be signing new deals to bring in new partners as fast as we can release games. There's hardly any IP we're not talking about or already have a product in development for.”
This is largely due to the success of Baldur's Gate 3 and Monopoly Go. Since both games took off, Evans reports that developer pitches and meeting requests have been “off the charts.”
It's not just hopeful developers who want to create the next Hasbro-led hit. Evans believes that in these turbulent times for the video game business, more studios are trying to improve their chances of success with the company's “absolute wealth” of intellectual property.
“Right now, with so much risk and concern within the industry as a whole, people are trying to find ways to mitigate that risk and bringing an established IP to market is a very effective way to do that,” he says. “You reduce marketing costs and maybe you have a better chance of creating a game that's successful.”