Games Archive : Unternehmen : Hasbro Interactive Ltd. [Hasbro Interactive Ltd.]

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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 2000 and most of its properties were sold to Infogrames which completed its studio's closures in 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 property and the subsidiary existed for six years.

Strong growth

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

Hasbro Interactive embarked on both internal and external development, and acquired some smaller video game developers and publishers such as MicroProse for $70 million and Avalon Hill for $6 million both in 1998. Hasbro acquired the rights for 300 games when it purchased Avalon Hill. With those acquisitions Hasbro Interactive revenues increased 127% in 1998 to $196 million and profits of $23 million. Hasbro Interactive was growing so fast that there was talk of reaching $1 billion in revenues by 2002. They also purchased the remaining brands and other intellectual property rights of Atari Corp. 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.

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. 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.

Faced with these difficulties, in January 2001, Hasbro sold 100% of Hasbro Interactive to the French software company Infogrames. The sale included nearly all of their video game related rights and properties, the Atari brand and Hasbro's Game.com division, legendary developer MicroProse and over 250 software titles, but didn't include Avalon Hill property. Hasbro Interactive's sale price was $100 million being $95 million as 4.5 million common shares of Infogrames and $5 million in cash. 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. Hasbro Interactive became Infogrames Interactive and after May 2003 was renamed to Atari Interactive, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment, SA (IESA). 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.

Buy-back

On June 9, 2005, Hasbro bought back the digital gaming rights for their properties from Atari for $65 million. 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, Candyland and Playskool.