Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Let's say that when you wake up the next day, Hasbro surprises the wargaming community by sweeping in and buying GW out by burying them with a deal then proceeds to announce that it's going to look over the creative team for "assessment".

How would you react on the first day of this news? Who do you think is going to get the axe?

As the weeks roll by it announces a deal with IDW for an on-going 40k comic series will be sought after and the possibility of further merchandise down the line. Prior deals in place, such as with the creative assembly for the Warhammer fantasy game, are still kept intact. Hasbro also teases a 40k Transformers run and confirms a deal for a movie.

Would this be a positive or a negative change to 40k as a whole?

I know not much of this "Hasbro".

But I doubt they'd do a worse job balancing than GW. My worry would be even bigger brand name = anything not selling well gets completely cut.

Honestly, I'd be pretty nervous about how the fluff was handled, regardless of who got it. And Hasbro seem fond of big reboots, so I'd be especially worried for the fluff. Though I'd also be somewhat hopeful that the new merchandise would be good.

As for who'd get let go, not sure, so I can't really say.

 Troike wrote:
Honestly, I'd be pretty nervous about how the fluff was handled, regardless of who got it. And Hasbro seem fond of big reboots, so I'd be especially worried for the fluff. Though I'd also be somewhat hopeful that the new merchandise would be good.

As for who'd get let go, not sure, so I can't really say.

They only do Reboots whenever whoever owns it isn't doing well, they leave wizards of the coast to their own doings so long as they do good.

I'd be extremely happy. GW's IP is great, but everyone in the company needs to be fired and the rules need a complete redesign from scratch. And Hasbro seems to have the sense to let WOTC do their jobs as long as the profits keep coming in, so we could reasonably expect big improvements in rule quality/marketing/etc without any excessive changes to the fluff/models.

 Peregrine wrote:
I'd be extremely happy. GW's IP is great, but everyone in the company needs to be fired and the rules need a complete redesign from scratch. And Hasbro seems to have the sense to let WOTC do their jobs as long as the profits keep coming in, so we could reasonably expect big improvements in rule quality/marketing/etc without any excessive changes to the fluff/models.

See, that's the problem - GW is turning out the profit, despite everything. And because it is, it's fairly expensive for what it brings to buy out for Hasbro, which is probably why they (or anyone else) haven't.

I wouldn't like it, not after what they did to X-COM.

Maybe if they brought in someone who actually cared about the franchise, and understood the dark sense of humor that permeates the setting.

What will most likely happen is they will turn it into some generic good vs evil GI Jo nonsense, with the IoM being a bunch of poor, democratic good guys and Chaos is a bunch of Cobra Commander wannabes.

Marneus Calgar (r) action figure, and Space Hulk cartoon running every Saturday morning \o/

Backfire wrote:
Marneus Calgar (r) action figure, and Space Hulk cartoon running every Saturday morning \o/

Yep. Oh the horror

IG Joe: An Imperium Hero. That's gonna happen. Straken and Roadblock on the same side.

deepstriker wrote:
IG Joe: An Imperium Hero. That's gonna happen. Straken and Roadblock on the same side.

..I actually kinda wanna see that right now, damnit. It'd be the weirdest but incredible teamup.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
What will most likely happen is they will turn it into some generic good vs evil GI Jo nonsense, with the IoM being a bunch of poor, democratic good guys and Chaos is a bunch of Cobra Commander wannabes.

I seriously doubt it. Doing something like that would require them to completely fail to have even a basic understanding of what the 40k IP is about and why people like it, and to be willing to throw away everything that makes 40k different and worth buying in favor of turning it into a generic setting. And that would be incredibly stupid since they could just invent the new setting without any of 40k's baggage if that's what they want, and completely changing everything would instantly drive away all of the customers and throw away what little brand identity the 40k IP has.

I'd likely be mortified. They'd probably nerf the vicious violence and drop factions like Chaos down a notch in the horrible eldritch abominations notch with CSM's becoming less Chaotic Evil.

Just that chance would scare me, as Chaos is a big part of why I like W40K, especially the grimdark chaotic evil/chaotic neutral attitude of Daemons and CSM's. Or mess around with the Black Library.

I'd pretty much just be terrified for the whole process until they directly stated they weren't going to do anything to the fluff and just improve the tabletop. Which is something woefully needed.

Although some nice collectible W40K stuff wouldn't be that bad at all.

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'd likely be mortified. They'd probably nerf the vicious violence and drop factions like Chaos down a notch in the horrible eldritch abominations notch with CSM's becoming less Chaotic Evil.

Just that chance would scare me, as Chaos is a big part of why I like W40K, especially the grimdark chaotic evil/chaotic neutral attitude of Daemons and CSM's. Or mess around with the Black Library.

I'd pretty much just be terrified for the whole process until they directly stated they weren't going to do anything to the fluff and just improve the tabletop. Which is something woefully needed.

Although some nice collectible W40K stuff wouldn't be that bad at all.

Why does everyone think Hasbro will do this? They kept the evil stuff in MTG fluff and background, even some of the more horrific looking artwork.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'd likely be mortified. They'd probably nerf the vicious violence and drop factions like Chaos down a notch in the horrible eldritch abominations notch with CSM's becoming less Chaotic Evil.

Just that chance would scare me, as Chaos is a big part of why I like W40K, especially the grimdark chaotic evil/chaotic neutral attitude of Daemons and CSM's. Or mess around with the Black Library.

I'd pretty much just be terrified for the whole process until they directly stated they weren't going to do anything to the fluff and just improve the tabletop. Which is something woefully needed.

Although some nice collectible W40K stuff wouldn't be that bad at all.

Why does everyone think Hasbro will do this? They kept the evil stuff in MTG fluff and background, even some of the more horrific looking artwork.

Compare that to horrible eldritch abominations with legions of abominations that happily will engage in raping your soul or torturing you for possibly eternity if you're an Eldar, ripping your life essence to pieces before re-stitching it just to do it over and over again? Or the Dark Eldar and everything that makes them the Dark Eldar?

I'm pretty sure Magic the Gathering doesn't do grimdark horror like W40K. The simply existence of the Walkers in Magic prevents this.

Compare that to horrible eldritch abominations with legions of abominations that happily will engage in raping your soul or torturing you for possibly eternity if you're an Eldar, ripping your life essence to pieces before re-stitching it just to do it over and over again?

Yawgmoth

Or the Dark Eldar and everything that makes them the Dark Eldar?

Phyrixxians, I even showed you several of their cards that could be DIRECTLY comparable to Homenculi laboratory.


While they don't reach 40k level grimdark, the fluff is pretty damn dark at times and it shows they don't exactly shy away from the darker stuff, they even do black humor at times with the fluff text and such. This isn't going to become Kiddy40K overnight if Hasbro takes a hand at it.

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'm pretty sure Magic the Gathering doesn't do grimdark horror like W40K.

Of course not, because MTG is not a grimdark horror game. But the point is that Hasbro is clearly willing to allow grimdark things in their products, and so there is no reason at all to believe that they'd throw away the defining theme of 40k in favor of making a saturday morning cartoon out of it.

Hasbro's arguable flagship franchise, Transformers, itself has a dark and moody comic series.

It also has steampunk Optimus Prime fighting Cthulhu with buzzsaw hands. Which is metal as hell.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'm pretty sure Magic the Gathering doesn't do grimdark horror like W40K.

Of course not, because MTG is not a grimdark horror game. But the point is that Hasbro is clearly willing to allow grimdark things in their products, and so there is no reason at all to believe that they'd throw away the defining theme of 40k in favor of making a saturday morning cartoon out of it.

WotC cleaned up MtG from potentially "offensive" elements (including Demons and card art which could be seen as occult) some years before Hasbro bought them out.

I agree that Hasbro (or anyone else) probably wouldn't be as stupid to actually mess up the lore or feel of the universum signifantly. However, it is undeniable that any large company does feature corporate suckups and 'Image Consults' who would propose such a thing:
"This looks like really unique franchise with great potential. But what it needs is a brand extension to really broaden its appeal and power the franchise up to next level so it can compete with Star Wars brand! For starters, we need to make it somewhat more family-friendly. We have to remove all material which might be considered religiously offensive. Also, some of the violence need to be toned down. These Space Marines, with their multiple factions, bright colours, awesome names and distinct markings, they really have potential to be big! However, they need some modernizing - I note complete lack of female characters, for starters. Also, some stereotypical ethnic characters are needed to represent the minorities. Look at how George Lucas has done this - he is really good at this sort of thing! Now, as for other factions - Orks, Tau, these are really good...but these 'Tyranids', they do not talk! We really need to give them some dialogue so they can properly interact with others and make them more suitable for cartoons, comics, games etc. As for Imperial Guard - these Comissars? Summary executions? I'm afraid that's a no-no."

Never underestimate the stupidity of people who butt in from outside with their "great ideas" to "improve the product". You see it a lot in sports, for example.

Honestly, I'd be indifferent. Hasbro has shown in the past that they aren't complete idiots when it comes to managing their IPs. So I doubt we'd see any real changes to the fluff outside of a few new comics and other things. In fact, I think it would be good for Warhammer in general. They could get rid of a lot of the bad writers and leadership at GW and they already have a large group of people via WOTC that have experience working on gaming systems. It'd probably end up a little more balanced.

Backfire wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'm pretty sure Magic the Gathering doesn't do grimdark horror like W40K.

Of course not, because MTG is not a grimdark horror game. But the point is that Hasbro is clearly willing to allow grimdark things in their products, and so there is no reason at all to believe that they'd throw away the defining theme of 40k in favor of making a saturday morning cartoon out of it.

WotC cleaned up MtG from potentially "offensive" elements (including Demons and card art which could be seen as occult) some years before Hasbro bought them out.

I agree that Hasbro (or anyone else) probably wouldn't be as stupid to actually mess up the lore or feel of the universum signifantly. However, it is undeniable that any large company does feature corporate suckups and 'Image Consults' who would propose such a thing:
"This looks like really unique franchise with great potential. But what it needs is a brand extension to really broaden its appeal and power the franchise up to next level so it can compete with Star Wars brand! For starters, we need to make it somewhat more family-friendly. We have to remove all material which might be considered religiously offensive. Also, some of the violence need to be toned down. These Space Marines, with their multiple factions, bright colours, awesome names and distinct markings, they really have potential to be big! However, they need some modernizing - I note complete lack of female characters, for starters. Also, some stereotypical ethnic characters are needed to represent the minorities. Look at how George Lucas has done this - he is really good at this sort of thing! Now, as for other factions - Orks, Tau, these are really good...but these 'Tyranids', they do not talk! We really need to give them some dialogue so they can properly interact with others and make them more suitable for cartoons, comics, games etc. As for Imperial Guard - these Comissars? Summary executions? I'm afraid that's a no-no."

Never underestimate the stupidity of people who butt in from outside with their "great ideas" to "improve the product". You see it a lot in sports, for example.

Yep. This is what I'm afraid of.

Backfire wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'm pretty sure Magic the Gathering doesn't do grimdark horror like W40K.

Of course not, because MTG is not a grimdark horror game. But the point is that Hasbro is clearly willing to allow grimdark things in their products, and so there is no reason at all to believe that they'd throw away the defining theme of 40k in favor of making a saturday morning cartoon out of it.

WotC cleaned up MtG from potentially "offensive" elements (including Demons and card art which could be seen as occult) some years before Hasbro bought them out.

I agree that Hasbro (or anyone else) probably wouldn't be as stupid to actually mess up the lore or feel of the universum signifantly. However, it is undeniable that any large company does feature corporate suckups and 'Image Consults' who would propose such a thing:
"This looks like really unique franchise with great potential. But what it needs is a brand extension to really broaden its appeal and power the franchise up to next level so it can compete with Star Wars brand! For starters, we need to make it somewhat more family-friendly. We have to remove all material which might be considered religiously offensive. Also, some of the violence need to be toned down. These Space Marines, with their multiple factions, bright colours, awesome names and distinct markings, they really have potential to be big! However, they need some modernizing - I note complete lack of female characters, for starters. Also, some stereotypical ethnic characters are needed to represent the minorities. Look at how George Lucas has done this - he is really good at this sort of thing! Now, as for other factions - Orks, Tau, these are really good...but these 'Tyranids', they do not talk! We really need to give them some dialogue so they can properly interact with others and make them more suitable for cartoons, comics, games etc. As for Imperial Guard - these Comissars? Summary executions? I'm afraid that's a no-no."

Never underestimate the stupidity of people who butt in from outside with their "great ideas" to "improve the product". You see it a lot in sports, for example.

This is exactly what I fear and might end up me giving up entirely on the current direction if it happened, just sticking to GW material but buying any models they produce. But I'd rail against them if they dared touch CSM's or Chaos Daemons. Hopefully there'd be enough nerdrage to force them to back off if such a thing happened.

Hasbro bought WotC and killed D&D miniatures because it did not make as much $$ as Magic (go figure). Then put out 4th ed and killed that too. Hasbro =\ good for gamers (RPG/Table top/strategy.

Backfire wrote:
WotC cleaned up MtG from potentially "offensive" elements (including Demons and card art which could be seen as occult) some years before Hasbro bought them out.

This happened a long time ago, at the height of the "demons in games are the work of Satan" idiocy, and that policy was reversed a long time ago. Demons and similar elements are back in the game and WOTC does not show any reluctance to use them.

However, it is undeniable that any large company does feature corporate suckups and 'Image Consults' who would propose such a thing:

Except that Hasbro has already demonstrated the ability to let WOTC run their games without turning them into saturday morning cartoons. They care about profit, obviously, but they aren't stupid and they aren't going to destroy the 40k IP (the only thing worth buying) just to make a bit of extra money. I am pretty confident that anyone with a bit of sense can look at the 40k IP and realize that the grimdark elements are the only interesting parts, and getting rid of them leaves you with just a generic scifi setting. And at that point why would you risk damage to your precious IP for something so hopelessly generic when you can just invent a new setting to exploit the market for a "not grimdark" 40k variant?

And no, Star Wars isn't comparable. It's an incredibly popular IP that everyone is familiar with, so it makes a lot of sense to use the "Star Wars" brand name to sell variant products. As long as you avoid doing too much damage to the core brand any spinoff product with the "Star Wars" name attached already has a huge advantage over a similar product line with an entirely new setting. 40k, on the other hand, is such a niche product that the target audience would respond exactly the same way to "Warhammer 40k" and "Battleclub 9999". That is, they would both be brand new product lines that would be evaluated purely based on their content, not their brand history.

 Peregrine wrote:

Except that Hasbro has already demonstrated the ability to let WOTC run their games without turning them into saturday morning cartoons.

That's only because WOTC does have Saturday morning cartoons already.
Not about Magic, though. (yet).

 Peregrine wrote:

They care about profit, obviously, but they aren't stupid and they aren't going to destroy the 40k IP (the only thing worth buying) just to make a bit of extra money. I am pretty confident that anyone with a bit of sense can look at the 40k IP and realize that the grimdark elements are the only interesting parts, and getting rid of them leaves you with just a generic scifi setting. And at that point why would you risk damage to your precious IP for something so hopelessly generic when you can just invent a new setting to exploit the market for a "not grimdark" 40k variant?

Oh, I didn't say they definitely would do such a thing, quite the contrary. Just that it can't be ruled out. Obviously, something being stupid does not mean someone wouldn't try it. Otherwise nobody would ever do anything stupid, would they?

There is another aspect to this. At the moment, GW is not very attractive target for buyout. Though their last financial wasn't great, the company is still doing nice profit for its size and not in danger to run out of cash, and the stock price is not particularly undervalued either. A large company would not buy GW out simply to enjoy about their profit. For company like Hasbro, GW's annual profit is pittance, and not worth the buyout hassle. GW has little major growth potential since miniatures wargaming is a very mature hobby. Even if Hasbro puts out some corporare genius at the helm who could double the sales (I think even most optimistic would see it as highly unlikely), that's still not a huge gain for giant like Hasbro.
IF large company was to buy GW at this point, it would be only because they saw potential for major exploit of its IP: and that, ladies and germs, brings out highly dreaded phrase of "brand extension"...

 Wyzilla wrote:
Compare that to horrible eldritch abominations with legions of abominations that happily will engage in raping your soul or torturing you for possibly eternity if you're an Eldar, ripping your life essence to pieces before re-stitching it just to do it over and over again? Or the Dark Eldar and everything that makes them the Dark Eldar?

Wizards of the Coast under Hasbro has done some stupid things - replacing Slivers with Slivers In Name Only is exactly the sort of bs that people are afraid of with regard to factions like the Tyranids, but Games Workshop has already been doing the same gak, giving them special characters and one-of wargear.

After the disappointing financials GW just turned in, and the closing down of shops all across Europe and the US, I doubt Hasbro will touch GW with a 10 1/2' pole.

If, and I do mean IF, Hasbro took over...

Kiss every licensed IP use of anything related to GW good bye. No more Fantasy Flight Games RPG. No more video games. All new projects in development by GW would come to an abrupt halt. Nothing new would be released for about a year.

So much went on behind the scenes when Hasbro acquired Wizards of the Coast that you would not believe it. People let go- people long involved with D&D and M:tG. Whole projects where canceled or indefinitely shelved. Employee dress and appearance standards implemented. There was a ton of other changes that went on as well. Such things are NOT publicized, but rest assured, there would be some sweeping changes when it comes to the IP of Games Workshop.

I'd bet we see no new products for 6-12 months. The manufacturing facility in the UK would be closed down almost immediately and all new manufacturing would be folded into the China/Taiwan factories that Hasbro already owns.

I mean, I could go on and on about all the changes, but rest assured, GW would undergo massive changes, and we would not necessarily recognize the end product.

I'd think it could be worse. They could be bought by Activision-Blizzard. There's a grim dark future

Okay. I want to direct people at this Blog:

http://masterminis.blogspot.de/2013/08/the-future-of-games-days-games-workshop.html

It basically says, that at the moment, GW is making a profit, but at the cost of sacrificing future profitability. But they have come to an end in what they can do to increase their profit margin. I think we've seen the bubble pop, so to speak with their stock prices dropping.

Now: How is this relevant to this thread? While yes as Tamwulf replied, There would be culture changes within Games workshop, that's nothing new everyone does it.

Will Hasbro cancel all existing licences? I don't think so. For the simple fact that one of the things GW needs to do is diversify its revenue, and royalties is one of the things that they have under developed as it is. Could there be a delay while Hasbro makes sure all these other projects are up to their standards? Of course. Perhaps they would want to move the 40K RPG to WoTC. But this is conjecture.

The only thing that would draw Hasbro to Games Workshop, IS their IP and what can be done with it, not the profits they would immediately start taking in.

The biggest thing I fear: Is they will want to change it to the "pre-painted random boosters" like they seem to do with other WoTC miniture games.

Kain wrote:Hasbro's arguable flagship franchise, Transformers, itself has a dark and moody comic series.

It also has steampunk Optimus Prime fighting Cthulhu with buzzsaw hands. Which is metal as hell.

Holy crap that sounds awesome. Link me!?

Backfire wrote:
"This looks like really unique franchise with great potential. But what it needs is a brand extension to really broaden its appeal and power the franchise up to next level so it can compete with Star Wars brand! For starters, we need to make it somewhat more family-friendly. We have to remove all material which might be considered religiously offensive. Also, some of the violence need to be toned down. These Space Marines, with their multiple factions, bright colours, awesome names and distinct markings, they really have potential to be big! However, they need some modernizing - I note complete lack of female characters, for starters. Also, some stereotypical ethnic characters are needed to represent the minorities. Look at how George Lucas has done this - he is really good at this sort of thing! Now, as for other factions - Orks, Tau, these are really good...but these 'Tyranids', they do not talk! We really need to give them some dialogue so they can properly interact with others and make them more suitable for cartoons, comics, games etc. As for Imperial Guard - these Comissars? Summary executions? I'm afraid that's a no-no."

Never underestimate the stupidity of people who butt in from outside with their "great ideas" to "improve the product". You see it a lot in sports, for example.

Have you seen D&D? I mean, I know people crap all over 4e and all that, but half the stuff you just listed (religiously offensive material, violence, various alien races being completely alien) remains alive in D&D. GI Joe comics already exist, as do 40k comics, so I'm not sure why you think Hasbro would do a complete 180 on either of those.

You make it sound like Hasbro has 0 business sense when it comes to existing IPs, or would be 100% in the dark on what 40k is. I would think neither of those are true, especially if as in our hypothetical, Hasbro is buying out GW.

Ralis wrote:Okay. I want to direct people at this Blog:

http://masterminis.blogspot.de/2013/08/the-future-of-games-days-games-workshop.html

It basically says, that at the moment, GW is making a profit, but at the cost of sacrificing future profitability. But they have come to an end in what they can do to increase their profit margin. I think we've seen the bubble pop, so to speak with their stock prices dropping.

Now: How is this relevant to this thread? While yes as Tamwulf replied, There would be culture changes within Games workshop, that's nothing new everyone does it.

Will Hasbro cancel all existing licences? I don't think so. For the simple fact that one of the things GW needs to do is diversify its revenue, and royalties is one of the things that they have under developed as it is. Could there be a delay while Hasbro makes sure all these other projects are up to their standards? Of course. Perhaps they would want to move the 40K RPG to WoTC. But this is conjecture.

The only thing that would draw Hasbro to Games Workshop, IS their IP and what can be done with it, not the profits they would immediately start taking in.

The biggest thing I fear: Is they will want to change it to the "pre-painted random boosters" like they seem to do with other WoTC miniture games.

I agree with everything you posted up until the part in bold. The "random boosters" thing already sunk two of their lines, and would require a complete change to an existing system. D&D minis and SW minis were not existing ranges, and neither did fantastically because of their random nature. I believe the latest iteration of D&D minis (Dungeon Command) is actual faction groups.