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Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

polygon.com

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Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#151

Post by sunshowers »

corethree wrote: post #147
sunshowers wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honor Among Thieves wasn't quite the all-time great that Baldur's Gate 3 was, but I thought it was pretty fun and enjoyable. I think the other D&D game that came out recently (Dark Alliance) is probably a better example of devaluing the brand.

Honor among thieves made the D&D lore appear generic. It wasn't a bad movie but it didn't utilize D&D to the extent it should have been utilized. It could have been just as good if it was a normal fantasy movie without the D&D IP. There's great depth in the D&D world and I would say much more complex and imaginative than LOTR. Only the D&D universe allows for games like the BG series or Torment. It's all about the lo…

I agree with D&D having a richer lore (and as someone who bounced off of tabletop play, though that's more likely the groups I was playing with, I love that BG3 exists and I can sink deep into it).

I think the thing I enjoyed the most about Honor Among Thieves was how the different characters were manifestations of player archetypes. You have the master planner, the strong and silent, the high-level lawful good guest player who the DM sets up an extra-hard challenge for, and so on.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#152

Post by Keyframe »

faitswulff wrote: post #70
Keyframe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eons ago, when I was in TV/movies business, I spoke with a prominent Forgotten Realms book author (if not _the_ author) about a certain book series he wrote that I thought it would make a fantastic TV series (in a world before netflix had their own production) and he nodded in agreement. I said let's make it it happen, let's warm up parties on both ends (I'm on production side, he would be on property side).. basical…

Was it R.A. Salvatore? I would love to watch Drizzt Do'Urden on the big screen.

Yeah, it was Salvatore.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#153

Post by Keyframe »

corethree wrote: post #94
Keyframe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eons ago, when I was in TV/movies business, I spoke with a prominent Forgotten Realms book author (if not _the_ author) about a certain book series he wrote that I thought it would make a fantastic TV series (in a world before netflix had their own production) and he nodded in agreement. I said let's make it it happen, let's warm up parties on both ends (I'm on production side, he would be on property side).. basical…

There's valid reasoning why a company wouldn't let another company make a movie or TV series. It cheapens the IP if the movie/series goes bad. It's hard to describe the effect. Essentially this is what happened with LOTR. Also take for instance the recent D&D movie which was just ok/slightly good. The movie cheapens the D&D IP, while something like Baldurs Gate builds on it. Maybe from a business perspective it's the…

You're right, and they would be right in thinking that way too. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Thing was that they weren't even thinking of that direction, at all - internal, external, partnership, nothing; Dead end, and authors were just guns for hire, zero input on that. It wasn't their property anymore. I wasn't brazen enough to offer talks towards the dark elf immediately. Idea, which to be honest lingered for maybe a month before initial contact was shot down immediately, was to start with something smaller to test the (production and market) waters first like Cleric Quintet which could work but it could also open the forgotten realms brand into the TV world. Anyways, nice remembering this past life and an anecdote.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#154

Post by pfranz »

hilux wrote: post #112
slimsag wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasbro needed to, and failed to (imo), transition into selling higher-end luxury toys for adults with nostalgia - and focus less on kids. With the exception of DnD, everything else Hasbro-owned has failed to capture such an audience I think. Their toys are generally priced ~$25 or less. Higher-end variants of their toys are not by Hasbro, but rather by other companies. Want a high-end nerf gun? You're going to Dart Z…

Lego is a fascinating case study. They've gone entirely corporate - so many of their expensive new products are branded partnerships. I guess it had to be done. There must be an HBS case study, or several, about this.

I wouldn't be surprised if branded partnerships have minimal profit and are mostly intended to keep a premium market perception.

Lego was pretty famous for doing branded partnerships and still struggling [1]. This lead them to come up with more of their own IP like Bionicle and Ninjago.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionicle#Concept

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#155

Post by notzane »

hilux wrote: post #112
slimsag wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasbro needed to, and failed to (imo), transition into selling higher-end luxury toys for adults with nostalgia - and focus less on kids. With the exception of DnD, everything else Hasbro-owned has failed to capture such an audience I think. Their toys are generally priced ~$25 or less. Higher-end variants of their toys are not by Hasbro, but rather by other companies. Want a high-end nerf gun? You're going to Dart Z…

Lego is a fascinating case study. They've gone entirely corporate - so many of their expensive new products are branded partnerships. I guess it had to be done. There must be an HBS case study, or several, about this.

Brick by Brick is a great book about the history of Lego and how it came back from near bankruptcy. It reads like a business case study—turns out they were saved by a McKinsey consultant.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jørgen_Vig_Knudstorp

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#156

Post by suzumer »

Karellen wrote: post #135
slimsag wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasbro needed to, and failed to (imo), transition into selling higher-end luxury toys for adults with nostalgia - and focus less on kids. With the exception of DnD, everything else Hasbro-owned has failed to capture such an audience I think. Their toys are generally priced ~$25 or less. Higher-end variants of their toys are not by Hasbro, but rather by other companies. Want a high-end nerf gun? You're going to Dart Z…

> brands like Lego have evolved, are insanely expensive (>$100) I thought that Lego prices had remained pretty steady over time. https://realityprose.com/what-happened-with-lego/ OK, that study was published 10 years ago, but I haven't noticed any huge price hikes in the last decade for comparable sets. Yes, there are some bigger sets now than there used to be, but the small sets haven't gone away and are still there…

While price per piece may have remained relatively constant, Lego has been pushing out more and more expensive sets. I remember when the most expensive set was the 400 dollar death star, and that was the only 400 dollar set. Now, there are 26 sets that are 400 dollars or more, with 7 of those sets being 600 dollars or more, and the most expensive set being 850 dollars. All of this to target more adult fans of lego.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#157

Post by op00to »

hotpotamus wrote: post #118
op00to wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This - I worked at a place that paid bonus quarterly and firings while rare seemed to happen just before the quarter end. Now we are paid bonus yearly and I see firings in December. I think it does align to expenditures like bonus, for sure.

I guess I didn't get dicked too hard in my mid December layoff (a couple years back); they gave me a pro-rated yearly bonus so I only lost like 2 weeks of it. The severance wasn't too bad either so all in all I took my money and shut up like they wanted me to. As I say in all these comments, I just wish that healthcare access wasn't tied to an employer - that seems like the cruelest aspect of modern America. Get too…

Certainly one of the the cruelest aspects. But there's so many.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#158

Post by Karellen »

suzumer wrote: post #156
Karellen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> brands like Lego have evolved, are insanely expensive (>$100) I thought that Lego prices had remained pretty steady over time. https://realityprose.com/what-happened-with-lego/ OK, that study was published 10 years ago, but I haven't noticed any huge price hikes in the last decade for comparable sets. Yes, there are some bigger sets now than there used to be, but the small sets haven't gone away and are still there…

While price per piece may have remained relatively constant, Lego has been pushing out more and more expensive sets. I remember when the most expensive set was the 400 dollar death star, and that was the only 400 dollar set. Now, there are 26 sets that are 400 dollars or more, with 7 of those sets being 600 dollars or more, and the most expensive set being 850 dollars. All of this to target more adult fans of lego.

Note that the $400 death star (set 10188) was released in 2008, and $400 in 2008 dollars is worth $570 in 2023 dollars.

https://brickipedia.fandom.com/wiki/10188_Death_Star

https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2008?amount=400

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#159

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #134
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~$37M for the execs listed, vs 1100 workers laid off - probably mostly making under $100k. This is one of the rare cases in the layoff discussions where the exec salaries do seem quite excessive. Hasbro had been averaging profits of around ~$250M for the last several years. Paying ~5 people >10% of your profits is INSANE. Continuing to reward them handsomely as your profits drop from ~$250M to -$500M is REALLY INSANE…

> Hasbro had been averaging profits of around ~$250M for the last several years. > Paying ~5 people >10% of your profits is INSANE. Wouldn't profits be determined after wages are paid?

No, they're paid in diluted stock, which does not impact the balance sheet.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#160

Post by manuelabeledo »

FredPret wrote: post #119
manuelabeledo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like toys are being superseded by other forms of entertainment among the youth.

So, competition then.

"Competition" assumes that the market is the same. It is not.

A good example would be cable TV, and the introduction of videogames and streaming services. While the latter both are technically competing with cable TV, prices didn't change for the better.

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