Game

Hasbro's CEO wants to refocus the company on having fun.

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks is ready to work and play. The Microsoft veteran, who joined Hasbro in 2016 as president of its Visage division - which includes everything from Marvel: Party to Dungeons & Dragons - is looking to redouble his efforts to bring these worlds into the hands of video gamers with new Marvel and Dungeons & Dragons games in the pipeline. Dungeons & Dragons games in the pipeline, doubling down on his efforts to bring those worlds to video gamers.

Cox, who took the helm in 2022, led the company to an initial boom during the epidemic, but sales slumped as kids returned to school and the company has since laid off more than 1,000 employees. Hasbro had previously invested $1 billion in video game development. In an interview with Bloomberg, Cox said the company will spend $100 million to $150 million a year on games such as Exodus, which will be developed by Archetype.

“We want to reach fans where they want to play, and that's increasingly through the digital expression of their favorite brands,” Cox explained. The CEO also confirmed that Hasbro is developing its own D&D video game, while the Wizards branch is working on a video game focused on the Marvel: Party Commander format. This is based on the GIG Joe action-adventure game, which is in pre-production.

D&D games are nothing new, as TSR partnered with Black Isle Studios and BioWare to develop the first Baldur's Gate game 25 years ago, which was set in the Forgotten Realms campaign and used the 2.5 rules, and Mattel even released a video game for the Intellivision. However, given the overwhelming popularity of last year's Baldur's Gate 3, it seems like a logical solution to try the series again.

“What made Magic successful will also drive Hasbro's future success,” Cox added. “It's based on games.”

Under Cox's watch, Magic's sales jumped to $1.4 billion between 2019 and 2023. That figure is attributed to Cox's love of the game, which has led to the release of new card packs for Marvel and an online video game version called Marvel: Arena. He hopes Hasbro finds a way to make Marvel more digitally collectible, similar to Marvel Snap or the Pokemon TCG Pocket, which was recently nominated for Best Mobile Game at the Game Awards.

Details on either game have not been revealed at this time, and with Larian Studios ending production on Baldur's Gate 3 and deciding not to move forward with Baldur's Gate 4, the possibilities for what these new games could look and play like are seemingly endless.