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It keeps coming up that there are folks that hope/wish/expect Hasbro to buy GW at some point in the not all that distant future.

Other folks disagree or even hate the idea that Hasbro might take over GW.

So, a poll....
You can pick multiple answers - this is not exactly a quest for exact information....

The Auld Grump

Sure. Hasbro gets most of my money already, doesn't matter to me if they get more of it.

Absolutely. Hasbro is a competent company, and GW is so bizarre and spiteful I can't imagine how any real company could make them worse.

Yes. GW as it exists today will never get a dollar from me ever again. There is nowhere to go but up.

I'd say yes, from what I've seen they appear to at least try to find the best guy for the job when they do take overs, so it may be quite possible that they would try to put someone who knows the hobby in a position to make policy.

'I Don't Care - It Is Not Like There Will Be Any Improvement."

I think it would take a major shake up after the acquisition for any positive ( at least positive to me) changes could occur.

Hasbro will at least make game design competent. They've gobbled up some of the best game designers that have been successful in growing a brand. While balancing the game would be difficult at first, I'd believe Hasbro would eventually do the right things.

Definitely no.

Hasbro ruined Marvel Legends and it will ruin (worse) Warhammer. Will it be more available to places? Yes. But if they follow a trend that they did with ML, you'll get less models, higher cost, and shoddier products. Feth that.

 AlexHolker wrote:
There is nowhere to go but up.

Timetowaste85 nailed it.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
But if they follow a trend that they did with ML, you'll get less models, higher cost, and shoddier products.

So at the very worst, nothing will change.

You will get everything that you claim to hate about GW, only magnified.

GW as-is might as well not exist to me, so if Hasbro takes over and somehow does any worse at managing things, I haven't really lost anything.

And who knows - maybe they could turn things around?

So I vote yes - go ahead and give it a go. Couldn't hurt to try.

Schmapdi wrote:
GW as-is might as well not exist to me, so if Hasbro takes over and somehow does any worse at managing things, I haven't really lost anything.

And who knows - maybe they could turn things around?

So I vote yes - go ahead and give it a go. Couldn't hurt to try.

This... pretty much covers my view.

The Auld Grump

What makes Hasbro a good idea to buy warhammer if ever?

People keep talking about them but why?

At least Hasbro knows how to make a large part of their customer base happy. All GW knows is how to drive players away, and they excel at it.

NO!

No more Kirby logic.
No more Ward /GW codex writer of choice hate.
No more Jervis and his wonderful world view.
No more Great News!
No more LoTD auto loss.
No more lonely nids.

Haha yes that's true, it probably would cut down on the number of rant threads, and on the grounds that people do like to have a moan that may be a bad thing?

I think anyone else getting involved wouldn't necessarily bring change - I think it would all depend on how much of an active involvement they take; whether they gut the upper management, but also try and put gamers/design people back in charge of both the new releases and the schedule of those releases, and away from the sales teams/bean counters.

I think that last point would be the key one as to whether you would see any significant improvement.

MRPYM wrote:What makes Hasbro a good idea to buy warhammer if ever?
People keep talking about them but why?

There have been rumours kicking about for years. Most likely because their business interests/focus intersects with GW, and also because they are potentially a large enough company to carry it off.

There were also rumours of Bandai at one point (9-10 years ago?) being interested after the LoTR bubble had burst.

I don;t know enough about Hasbro to have a valid opinion. Something needs to happen though.

If Hasbro bought GW they would give it to WOTC.

WOTC;
The company that ran out of ideas for Star Wars minis.
The company that can't well D&D to Role-Players.
Killed D&D minis
Killed Star Wars minis
Killed Heroscape
Couldn't even sell their own minis game Dreamscape with a tournament prize of $100,000.00

If Hasbro bought GW you'd all be crying. Hasbro does NOT know the gaming industry, they only know the family gaming industry, which is what they do well.

GW don't know the industry either....

 MRPYM wrote:
What makes Hasbro a good idea to buy warhammer if ever?

Because of GW's current situation: they have a strong IP, but terrible management of it. What GW's IP needs is a company that is willing to invest in professional game designers and proper development (something they have clearly done with MTG), and management that understands basic business concepts like marketing and customer research (again, something WOTC is clearly capable of). Replace the lazy and incompetent morons GW employs and the IP is instantly in a lot better shape and has much better long-term growth potential. This isn't a very demanding task and there are plenty of companies that could do it, but there's one key advantage Hasbro has: they actually have the financial resources to take over GW without being completely overwhelmed.

 Ugavine wrote:
Hasbro does NOT know the gaming industry, they only know the family gaming industry, which is what they do well.

Yeah, they clearly don't know gaming, which is why MTG is such a hopeless failure.

As for their other games:

The Star Wars games died because of license issues, not WOTC's decisions. IIRC the games were successful, but when the license was up for renewal the new terms were financial suicide.

D&D had problems with 4th edition, but WOTC is at least attempting to fix those problems based on player feedback, something GW refuses to do. And note that one of the biggest problems WOTC has with D&D is their incredibly generous license terms (essentially "use the core rules in your products for free, just put a D20 logo on the cover") for the 3rd edition rules, which allowed a competing company to make D&D in all but name.

D&D miniatures (and their other minor games) suffered from the problem of not having any realistic market, something GW's IP doesn't have a problem with.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ugavine wrote:
Hasbro does NOT know the gaming industry, they only know the family gaming industry, which is what they do well.

Yeah, they clearly don't know gaming, which is why MTG is such a hopeless failure.

As for their other games:

The Star Wars games died because of license issues, not WOTC's decisions. IIRC the games were successful, but when the license was up for renewal the new terms were financial suicide.

D&D had problems with 4th edition, but WOTC is at least attempting to fix those problems based on player feedback, something GW refuses to do. And note that one of the biggest problems WOTC has with D&D is their incredibly generous license terms (essentially "use the core rules in your products for free, just put a D20 logo on the cover") for the 3rd edition rules, which allowed a competing company to make D&D in all but name.

D&D miniatures (and their other minor games) suffered from the problem of not having any realistic market, something GW's IP doesn't have a problem with.

They gave up Star Wars because they ran out of ideas! Seriously, a role-playing company that ran out of ideas? With Star Wars?!

They messed up D&D minis with rules changes, and role-players are not going to buy random packs.

Magic is their success, but do you REALLY want 40K to go down that route? Power creep in Magic makes 40K look the most balanced game on the market.

If WOTC aquired 40K I'd stop buying in an instant.

No

GW is running on Stupid at the moment (and has been for a fair while) but Hasbro has not shown a great ability to manage games that require steady releases other than the total free for all that is MtG

and if Hasbro got hold of GW that would be it, no chance for any other investor(s) to pull it away from them

 Peregrine wrote:

 MRPYM wrote:

Hasbro does NOT know the gaming industry, they only know the family gaming industry, which is what they do well.

Yeah, they clearly don't know gaming, which is why MTG is such a hopeless failure.

People always say that Hasbro are geniuses because MtG does so well, however I am not convinced about that. In other thread it came up that Hasbro's financial reports show that their gaming division has actually done WORSE than GW over last five years, with zero growth over the period. So sure, they have couple of wildly successful franchises (MtG and maybe couple of others). But other than that, their success seem to be middling at best.

I'm not qualified to have an opinion on Hasbro so cant give any pointers on a business view.

However,

If any company takes over the 40k license or GW completely I would be very upset if they lost the feel of it. I don't want another generic scifi game with american action heroes running around shouting 'get some get some'.

I feel that it might loose that British quirk that it still has (although that's getting a bit smaller each edition). Plus I would probably be rather annoyed if it wasn't made in the UK that's part of the charm. Or little island dosn't produce too many products in house as most of them get snapped up by larger companies and sent to China for all the work.

If they can do what that US company (cant think of the name Hershey maybe?) did with Cadbury's then I will be happy. Quality stayed the same, still made in the UK, still has the British quirk but now managed much better and many more countries are getting to enjoy the product.

As long I get to play with my space dudes and Astro Military, I don't mind. (OMG best band name idea: Space Dudes Astro Military)

No no no.

The thought of the 40K IP being subjected to the scrutiny of the marketing firm of a mainstream name like Hasbro is too awful to consider. There is no way it would survive in its current form.

Daston wrote:
I don't want another generic scifi game with american action heroes running around shouting 'get some get some.'

This.

40K's IP rights aren't going to go cheap - ever - and any company that spent the money on it would want to recoup their investment quickly - and that means 'broadening the appeal' of the IP, which would turn 40K into a parody of itself.

 ashcroft wrote:
which would turn 40K into a parody of itself.

Implying that GW hasn't done that already?