Chris Cocks has been playing Hasbro’s award winning Dungeons & Dragons for 41 years and is delighted to see its 50th anniversary this year. And Mr Cocks is the Hasbro CEO so his opinion counts.
“If you look at ‘Dungeons & Dragons,’ if you look at our board games, more people are playing these games than ever before,” says Hasbro CEO, Chris Cocks in an interview on Washington’s non-profit NPR “Our satisfaction rates, the happiness that players have, are higher than ever.”
The company can point to the digital D&D adaptation “Baldur’s Gate 3” as the brand’s most recent success. The video game won the top prize at the 2023 Game Awards and has sold well over 10 million copies.
Hasbro’s CEO since 2022, Cocks previously headed Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro division that makes “Dungeons & Dragons” and the “Magic: The Gathering.” Card game.
“If you look at ‘Dungeons & Dragons,’ if you look at our board games, more people are playing these games than ever before”
Hasbro CEO, Chris Cocks
“I’ve been playing D&D since 1983,” says Cocks. “I’ve been playing ‘Magic: The Gathering’ since 1995. We don’t think about this as just a short-term sugar high. We think about this as stewards of the brands who come to it, not just as business people or designers, but as fans of these brands. And we want to pass the torch to new generations of fans even brighter than we found it.”
It has not all been plain sailing, however. Hasbro slashed more than 1,000 jobs last December, including some at D&D and “Magic: The Gathering. There was also a backlash over a leaked (then dropped) change to its fan licensing agreement, plus a disappointing box office for 2023’s film“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.” Even so, Cocks sees a sparkling future for D&D and Hasbro’s gaming properties.
Hasbro’s licensed mobile game “Monopoly GO!” earned $2 billion after its 2023 release; while“Magic: the Gathering” has made record profits in recent years. Hasbro has also invested $1 billion into video game projects which include the upcoming science fiction epic “Exodus” starring Matthew McConaughey.
“We’ve got one of the best game portfolios in the world,” says Cocks. “I think when you talk to Hasbro’s CEO on our second 100th anniversary 99 years from now, I think they’ll be talking about how we’re still in toys and how we’re still in games and how we’re talking about the next generation of exciting technologies or play patterns that we can be innovating on. That’s certainly what we’re trying to build for now, and I think I’m confident we’ll be building for it in the future as well.”
The early steps on the journey ahead can be assessed when Hasbro’s first quarter financial results are released on 24 April 2024.
