Hasbro Interactive

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Hasbro Interactive
TypeSubsidiary
IndustryVideo games
FoundedDecember 8, 1995; 25 years ago (1995-12-08)
DefunctJanuary 29, 2001; 20 years ago (2001-01-29)
FateSold to Infogrames, merged into the current Atari Interactive
SuccessorInfogrames Interactive (renamed Atari Interactive in 2003)
Headquarters50 Durham Road,
Beverly, Massachusetts
,
United States
ParentHasbro
Subsidiaries

Hasbro Interactive was an American video game production and publishing subsidiary of Hasbro, the large game and toy company. Several of its studios were closed in early 2001 and most of its properties were sold to Infogrames which completed its studio's closures at the end of 2001.

History[]

Hasbro Interactive was formed late in 1995 in order to compete in the video game arena. Several Hasbro properties, such as Monopoly and Scrabble, had already been made into successful video games by licensees such as Virgin Interactive. With Hasbro's game experience, video games seemed like a natural extension of the company and a good opportunity for revenue growth. Hasbro Interactive's objective was to develop and publish games based on Hasbro properties.

Strong growth[]

In 1997, revenues increased 145% going from US$35 million to $86 million.[1]

Hasbro Interactive embarked on both internal and external development, and acquired some smaller video game developers and publishers such as MicroProse for $70 million[2] and Avalon Hill for $6 million[3] both in 1998. Hasbro acquired the rights for 300 games when it purchased Avalon Hill.[3] With those acquisitions Hasbro Interactive revenues increased 127% in 1998 to $196 million and profits of $23 million.[1] Hasbro Interactive was growing so fast that there was talk of reaching $1 billion in revenues by 2002.[1] They also purchased the remaining brands and other intellectual property rights of Atari Corporation from JTS, and engaged in some other video game licensing, such as Frogger from Konami. They sought to use Hasbro board game brands, MicroProse titles, Avalon Hill and Wizards of the Coast as leverage to increase revenues. In July 1999, Hasbro Interactive purchased Europress, an educational software publisher.[4]

Hasbro Interactive became the #3 video game publisher within three years of its founding. But in 1999, Hasbro Interactive lost $74 million on revenues of $237 million a growth of just 20% over the previous year.[1] Late in 1999 with several game projects underway and dozens of new employees, many of whom moved just to work for the company, Hasbro Interactive shut down several studios in a cost-cutting move. The studios affected included the former MicroProse offices located in Alameda, California and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A game development company, Vicious Cycle Software, was started by employees laid off in the North Carolina Hasbro Interactive studio closing. In 4 years, Hasbro Interactive's revenue increased 577%.

Sale to Infogrames[]

By the middle of 2000, the dot-com bubble had burst, Hasbro share price had lost 70% of its value in just over a year and Hasbro would post a net loss the first time in two decades.[1]

Faced with these difficulties, on January 29, 2001, Hasbro sold 100% of Hasbro Interactive to the French software company Infogrames.[5] The sale included nearly all of their video game related rights and properties, the Atari brand and Hasbro's Game.com division, developer MicroProse and all of its software titles up to that point except for the Avalon Hill property. Hasbro Interactive's sale price was $100 million, $95 million as 4.5 million common shares of Infogrames and $5 million in cash.[6][7] Under the terms of the sale agreement, Infogrames gained the rights to develop games based on Hasbro properties for a period of 15 years plus an option for an additional 5 years based on performance.[7] Hasbro Interactive became Infogrames Interactive and after May 2003 was renamed to Atari Interactive, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment, SA (IESA).[8][9] Infogrames (now itself known as Atari, SA) still maintains ownership of the original Atari properties received through Hasbro which are kept in their Hasbro Interactive originated placeholder, Atari Interactive, Inc.[9]

Buy-back[]

On June 9, 2005, Hasbro bought back the digital gaming rights for their properties from Atari for $65 million.[10] In the deal, Atari's parent company acquired a 10-year exclusive deal to produce video games based on 10 key Hasbro franchises, including Dungeons & Dragons, Monopoly, Scrabble, Game of Life, Battleship, Clue, Yahtzee, Simon, Risk and Boggle. Hasbro bought back the digital rights to Transformers, My Little Pony, Tonka, Magic: The Gathering, Connect Four, Candy Land and Playskool.

Published games[]

Main article: List of Hasbro Interactive video games

Hasbro Interactive published over 160 games on several interactive media.[11] Included among them are:

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Hasbro Interactive from Tuck School of Business (PDF)
  2. ^ "Hasbro Buying Alameda's MicroProse" from the San Francisco Chronicle
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b "The Fall of Avalon Hill" Archived February 3, 2013, at the Wayback Machine from the Academic Gaming Review
  4. ^ "Europress falls into Hasbro clutches".
  5. ^ "Infogrames to Acquire Hasbro Interactive". IGN. December 6, 2000. Archived from the original on November 19, 2001. Retrieved September 30, 2019.
  6. ^ "Company News; Hasbro Completes Sale Of Interactive Business" from The New York Times
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b Infogrames Entertainment to Acquire Hasbro Interactive and Games.com[permanent dead link] press release archive from Thomson Financial
  8. ^ Atari Interactive, Inc. from Allgame
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Summary of Atari Inc. from Yahoo! Finance
  10. ^ Hasbro buys back digital rights from Infogrames from MCVUK.com
  11. ^ Games published and developed by Hasbro Interactive Archived November 18, 2007, at the Wayback Machine from IGN

External links[]

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