[UPDATE - May 20, 2026] It has come to light that Hasbro has recently canceled the D&D action/adventure game in development at Giant Skull, the studio founded by industry veteran Stig Asmussen.
[ORIGINAL STORY] Toy makers and Wizards of the Coast parent company Hasbro have spent a whopping $1 billion over the past eight years in an effort to flesh out its video game division and develop its own games with its own studios. Based on the last decade or so of the video game industry, you'd be right to assume that a company like Hasbro, with a wealth of IPs on hand, would look to lean on live service, or Games as a Service (GaaS) games, to lead its portfolio.
But that's not the whole strategy, and in a new interview with The Game Business, chief executive officer Chris Cocks makes his stance clear, which is a stronger desire to prove Hasbro's worth in the video game space, before it strives to make it big on video games.
Of course, Hasbro's entire strategy for how it moves in the video game industry does have some GaaS backing. Monopoly GO is already a massively successful mobile game, after all, but the game that made Hasbro difficult to ignore in video games for the first time in years was Baldur's Gate 3. A deep, narrative-driven RPG that is heralded as one of the best video games ever made.
But that was all Larian Studios' doing. Now, without Larian to lean on as that team becomes more independent, Cocks seemingly wants to prove that Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast can still be the place to look towards for big, incredible RPGs and narrative experiences within video games.
"We’ve got some big marquee brands, more casual games like Monopoly and Clue, and then our entertainment brands like My Little Pony, Peppa Pig, and then we have some more core brands like D&D and Magic: The Gathering. Maybe Transformers and G.I. Joe I’d throw into that camp," Cocks said. "That’s a really broad portfolio. So, where were we going to place our bets versus where we’re not? And we chose core games focused on PC and console, with more traditional business models. It was a safer bet for us."
Cocks explains that a more traditional style of console and PC game, like its upcoming Exodus and Warlock, are the kinds of games Hasrbo will look to create first, with a suite of more casual games and mobile games to follow. It's a playbook that's been established by the live service graveyard that has developed over the last few years.
"You can invest $100 million to build a really great mobile game, or a really great games-as-a-service, like a shooter. And the upside is you make billions and billions. But how many people achieve that upside? It's very low single-digit percentages, if even that. The downside is you don't make anything back, and it's basically a wash," Cocks said.
"If you look statistically, and that’s dangerous because it’s a creative enterprise, but if you invest a fair amount of money and give a fair amount of time to a talented team to do a more traditional game, you probably won’t make billions, but your chances of at least making your money back is much higher. And even if you fail, you’re probably making 50, 60, 70 cents on the dollar back. So, when we just looked at the risk-reward equation of that and we looked at the design sensibilities we have — frankly the kind of games we like to play, and I’m more of a traditional gamer — we felt that to be the safer route. I think there's always going to be demand for good games that deliver a nice 40 to 50-hours worth of content set at a fair price."
Cocks isn't wrong that there will always be a demand for good games at a fair price, and there are surely a lot of players who are at least a bit relieved to know the first wave of post-Larian games from Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast won't be yet another failed forever-game by design. But big, premium, triple-A games like what Hasbro has lined up are expensive to make.
Sure, you might stand a better chance at making some return, but it's not a hack to find profitability. As Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick likes to say in interviews, the business of making hits is "a high-stakes game for big boys only," one that he's okay to play, and so is Hasbro, because of the scale that both companies operate at.
"Do I want to be profitable? Yeah. Would I like it to be the next big business for Hasbro? Of course. Our shareholders want that, too. Are we going to be patient? Do we think it’s a long-term investment? Yeah. The near term is Exodus and Warlock coming out next year. It’d be great if they were profitable, but more importantly, if we set the foundation of… Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast know how to make great games, and we’ve set up a couple new franchises, and we have a nice long pipeline for the next decade of game development… I’d feel pretty good about that."
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
