Hasbro has invested $1 billion in internal game development
Dan Ayoub, head of digital production at Wizard of the Coast, one of the brands owned by Hasbro, told GamesIndustry.biz in an interview that the company has about $1 billion in games in development.
“The biggest thing to takeaway, which is honestly a little surprise to a lot of people, is that Hasbro is in fact making video games,” Ayoub says. “And we have a considerable investment in our studio structure; we’ve got over $1 billion in games right now being developed.”
Now Hasbro has 4 AAA studios: Atomic Arcade, which is working on the Snake Eyes GI Joe game, Invoke Studios, which is working on a D&D game, Skeleton Key, which has something creepy in the works, and Archetype, which has BioWar natives working on the new Exodus franchise.
“One of the great things we took 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 to the G.I. Joe franchise and we can do some new things and express it in different ways in video games than we have traditionally,” noted Ayoub.
When asked why players should believe that Hasbro is in the gaming industry for the long haul, Ayoub emphasized that more than $1 billion has been invested in these four studios alone, but the company’s portfolio is “much, much bigger than anything we’re talking about right now.”
Hasbro has already given third parties the right to develop games based on its franchises. The latest such projects are Baldur’s Gate 3, critically and gambling-wise recognized, and Monopoly Go, which has already earned more than $2 billion.
Hasbro is also known for its catalog of brands, which, in addition to Dungeons & Dragons and Monopoly, also includes Magic: The Gathering, Cluedo, NERF, Transformers, Play-Doh, Peppa Pig, and others.