The billion dollar gambit

I'll be honest. I'm not a big fan of Hasbro. Maybe it's that name. The presumptive expectation that they are like a brother to me. Who do they think they are? To covert the title of 'Kyodai' without fronting the requisite blood, sweat and tears to be considered worthy of my respect- to think they could stand back-to-back, shirt off, in the midst of a  Kamurocho street brawl and hold their own? What absolute pretentious hacks! Or maybe I'm just reading too much into a stupid name and my real problem is actually how they've conducted themselves particularly in regards to Wizards of the Coast. Or even more specifically- Baldur's Gate 3 and what they want to start doing to my Gaming hobby. (I'm not exactly looking forward to the coming years.)

Of course, any company that grows big enough unchecked is something of a Megacorpo in my eyes, and thus worthy of only my disrespect. ("Destroy all Corpos, V. Delete all Corpos. Eradicate the Corpos, V") When you see something so cynical and soulless weigh into matters of life and love, surely those aren't the kinds of voices you take seriously- are they? If your calculator jumped to life and gave you pointers on how to ask out that girl you like, would you listen to it? (I mean after you got over the life reshaping shock of finding out you've essentially been lugging around a sentiment being you've forced to work for you like the slave owner you are.) Of course not, it's a calculator- the hell does it know! And what is art but a manifestation of matters of life and love? And Hasbro but a big corporate calculator trying to add together assets to output some revenue? (I'll admit, I kind of freeballed that analogy but I think it came together in the end.)

But what Hasbro has in mind is particularly foul for the Games Industry, if not entirely unexpected. Turns out recent years have alerted Hasbro to the actual value of the property they have under them, Dungeons and Dragons. Not least of all the successful movie promptly followed by Baldur's Gate 3- currently the most universally celebrated video game of all time giving it's unique slate of cross-industry awards it has swept. Essentially Hasbro has been sat on a goldmine for a very long time and only just realised that today- and what do you do if you're a 1940's Baron with no regard for human life? You kick off a rush of course! Not for gold- that stuff is played out- but for the great green jewel! Uranium fever! (Okay, that analogy ran away a bit, I'll admit.)

What I'm trying to say is that Baldur's Gate 3 did a little too well and now Hasbro want another Baldur's Gate 3. They want infinite Baldur's Gate 3's- year after year in perpetuity. Imagine that sting of disappointment you felt when you heard Larian were going to stop development on Baldur's Gate DLC and move on- now multiply that by twenty and put on a business suit- you'll be cosplaying Hasbro when they heard. Now Hasbro have to try and court any one else with a pulse to be their new superstar video game developer and lacking the industry connections to actually meet with some solid talent, or the ambition to reach out and create such connections- Hasbro are doing what every hack does: they're throwing money at the problem and hoping that will do.

In an interview during the Game Developers Conference Hasbro head of game studios and publishing apparently declared that video games are "an integral part of Hasbro's strategy going into the next 100 years." Which is an absolutely unhinged ultimatum to just drop out of nowhere. These fellas are so wired in they've got the next 100 years of their business laid out before them like they're receiving consultations from the damn Bene Gessirit. I wonder if video games are only in their view for the next century if because after that Hasbro is going to evolve into a cult-gang of marauding motor-heads scouring the desert wastes of scorched Earth that remains, inspiring fear across the Wasteland through brutality and feverent faith to the unspoken horror of the before-god: 'Peppah Peeg'.

In the meantime, however, Hasbro have boasted that they've already invested $1 billion into it's internal studios to try and drive those innovation metrics and maybe one day stand up to the behemoth that is Lego but not really because that is a pipe dream. (If they wanted to, Lego could buy all the land around you, demolish your home, buy out your local government when you try to complain, and overthrow your national government if you tried to take it higher.) Now it should be said that Hasbro aren't just throwing all their eggs in the Dungeons and Dragon's basket. They do still own the pig, so there is a not 0 percent change that the next genre defining mega block buster is designed around the vast and complex world of... let me check here... wait... she lives in 'Peppatown'? The town is named after her? Or wait... is the world named after her? Is all the reality of the TV show merely a construct of her eldritch powers, a fake shadow of reality entirely under her control through which she conducts the mundane lives of the animal residents like a puppet master, delighting in how she can bend and twist their little minds without breaking the simple beings of our toy world? Is that why no lessons ever stick, nothing is ever learnt? Because these characters have no agency over themselves and their lives, they aren't even really 'sentient' in the traditional sense. They are flesh puppets on a pastel stage manipulated by a megalomaniac who plasters her name on the townhall- they will never be free. (What- is this blog about again?)

Now of course the funny thing about all this is that Hasbro don't really know what they're doing. Like many of these multimedia brands who get a bit of taste for the industry, they expect to be able to just tip their toes in, wave a bit of funds around and make something of a name for themselves. Which sure, 15 years ago that might have worked- we're in a bit of a different stage nowadays. In the modern industry you either have to have Money (note the capital and the bolding) or be passionate enough to stand out from the crowd. Even if they were to invest that full billion into the production of a single game to try and top Baldur's Gate 3, they would only have put in enough capital to make one third of a GTA 6. Try and swallow that one down! You ain't gonna outspend your way into the games industry, you'll have to do the Larian route and talent your way in with overwhelming passion and drive. Good luck there!

But at the end of the day I welcome newcomers to the industry. Unless they are Amazon. I never welcomed them and I still kind of cringe whenever I see New World being advertised. (In the middle of my watch-through of the Fallout series? Have some tact!) Heck, Hasbro have even already gotten ahead of laying off 1000 members of staff- they're really getting into the games industry way of doing things, aren't they? Still- they now know that people like Dnd Video games still, so perhaps we may get a Icewind Dale style side game based on Baldur's Gate 3 ground work- that could be cool! Or hell, maybe they could put in the base amount of effort into getting Icewind Dale 2 up to snuff so Beamdog can make an enhanced edition of it? That'd be cool. Wouldn't need a billion for that...