Hasbro CEO: "We're going all in on becoming a digital play company"
"Our goal is to be shipping one to two new games per year starting as early as late 2025, potentially early 2026," Chris Cocks says
As part of Hasbro's Q2 financial results, CEO Chris Cocks has expressed the company's commitment to focus on "digital play," mentioning a $125 million capital envelope for video games, and one to two new releases yearly from late 2025/early 2026.
In the Q&A portion of Hasbro's earnings call (as transcribed by Seeking Alpha), Cocks noted that the recent appointment of John Hight as president of Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming, as well as an increasing number of execs with video games background to the company's board, is in line with the company's strategy.
He mentioned the aim to expand some of its "mid-core and hard-core brands" and "digitise" them.
Cocks said that Hasbro's "capital envelope" is about $250 million a year, and that "about half of that" is going into digital games.
"We think that's roughly around a steady state for us," he continued. "Our goal is to be shipping one to two new games per year starting as early as late 2025, potentially early 2026."
Cocks added that, looking at the company's full line-up of licensed titles, Hasbro has 150 projects that are either out or in development.
He commented: "I think between our board moves and between talent that we brought on board, most recently with John, but even before that, studio leaders we have like Ames Kirshen, who was in charge of Batman Arkham series of Warner Bros, James Ohlen, who was the head of creative design at BioWare, responsible for the first Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect. We're going all in on becoming a digital play company."
Looking at Hasbro's Q2 numbers, revenue in the Wizards of the Coast & Digital Gaming segment was up 20% year-on-year, in stark contrast with declines in other verticals at the company. Consumer Products was down 20% and Entertainment was down 90% year-on-year as Hasbro sold its eOne film and TV segment to Lionsgate.
For the first half of 2024, Wizards of the Coast & Digital Gaming's revenue was up 20% year-on-year.
The success of the segment was, in part, attributed to Scopely's Monopoly Go, which has now grossed over $3 billion in revenue, making Hasbro the "top licensor of video games over the past year according to Aldora," Cocks said.
The continued success of Baldur's Gate 3 was also mentioned as a contributing factor to the segment's good quarter.
"As we look at the business of play, it's clear that digital is here to stay and a bigger factor than ever in how successful toy and game companies will grow and strengthen their brands," Cocks said. "We're years ahead of our peers, having already spent hundreds of millions of dollars building out our own studio capacity and expanding our brands through digital partnerships. Games like Baldur's Gate 3 show us what the future looks like."
Hasbro announced it would be laying off 1,100 employees in December 2023, following a first round of redundancies which saw 800 peope losing their jobs.
We talked to Hasbro head of digital product development Dan Ayoub in April, about the firm's $1 billion bet on internal game development.