Hasbro Interactive

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 at the end of 2000.

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 Corporation 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, on December 6, 2000, 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 all of its software titles up to that point except for the 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.

Published games 

Hasbro Interactive published over 160 games on several interactive media. Included among them are:
 Action Man: Operation Extreme — Sony PlayStation (PS)
 Axis & Allies (1998 video game) — Windows
 Barney: On Location: All Around Town
 Battleship: The Classic Naval Warfare Game — Windows
 Beast Wars: Transformers — PS, Windows, Macintosh
 Boggle — Windows
 Candy Land — Windows
 Centipede — Windows
 Clue — Windows
 Daytona USA 2001 — Sega Dreamcast
 Frogger (1997 video game) — Windows/PlayStation
 Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge — Windows/PlayStation/Dreamcast
 Furby: Big Fun in Furbyland — Windows
 Game of Life — Windows
 Glover — Nintendo 64, PS
 H.E.D.Z. — Windows
 Jeopardy! — PlayStation, Windows
 Monopoly (1997) — Windows, PlayStation
 Monopoly Star Wars — Windows
 Monopoly (1999) — Nintendo 64
 Monopoly (2000) — Windows
 Mr. Potato Head's Activity Pack — Windows
 Mr. Potato Head Saves Veggie Valley — Windows
 My Little Pony: Friendship Gardens — Windows
 NASCAR Heat — Windows, GameCube
 NASCAR Racers — Windows, GBC
 Nerf Arena Blast — Windows
 Nicktoons Racing — Windows, PS, GBC
 Pac-Man: Adventures in Time — Windows
 Play-Doh Creations — Windows
 Playskool Puzzles — Windows
 Pong — PS
 RISK — Windows
 RollerCoaster Tycoon — Windows
 Rubik's Games — Windows
 Scrabble — Windows (MacScrabble — Macintosh)
 Sorry! — Windows
 Thomas & Friends: The Great Festival Adventure — Windows
 Thomas & Friends: Trouble on the Tracks — Windows
 Thomas & the Magic Railroad: Print Studio — Windows
 Tonka: Construction — Windows
 Tonka Dig 'n' Rigs — Windows
 Tonka Search & Rescue — Windows
 Trivial Pursuit Millennium — Windows
 Wheel of Fortune — PlayStation, Windows
 X-COM series, Windows version
 X-COM: Email games — Windows
 Yahtzee'' — Windows

References

External links 
 Hasbro Interactive History at MobyGames
  Hasbro Interactive by William Achtmeyer from Tuck School of Business (PDF)

Category:Defunct video game companies
Category:Hasbro subsidiaries
Category:Video game companies of the United States
Category:Video game companies established in 1995
Category:Software companies disestablished in 2000
Category:1995 establishments in the United States
Category:2000 disestablishments in the United States
Category:Entertainment Software Association
Category:Video game companies disestablished in 2000