In a megadeal earlier this month, Hasbro Inc. inked a pact with the largest video game publisher in the world, Electronic Arts. With it, the Pawtucket-based toymaker expects to leverage the clout its brands like Monopoly, Scrabble and Yahtzee have into big bucks by tapping into the hottest trend in the virtual world of electronic gaming: casual gaming. According to numbers from Pacific Crest Securities, casual-game revenue is expected to jump 35 percent this year to $512 million. Following the announcement of Hasbro’s compact with EA, Senior Vice President Mark Blecher talked about the new partnership with the Redwood City, Calif., electronic game maker.
PBN: In the world of electronic games, what distinguishes casual games from other types of games?
BLECHER: They’re very easy to play. … They also tend to have shorter play sessions. With a typical video game you’ll sit down and play for a few hours. A casual game may be anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. … They reach a broad audience, too. Video games are targeted on youth, particularly males. Casual games are played by men, older people, younger people — it’s really a broad market.
PBN: What attracts that broader audience to casual games?
BLECHER: Casual games in the interactive space are similar to casual games in the offline space. If you think of the typical board game, there’s no specific demographic. There are kid games. There are adult games. There are family games. Casual interactive games are very similar. … And everyone has a computer these days. That’s the primary platform for casual games.
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PBN: Why have casual games taken off in the electronic games market?
BLECHER: One reason is that broadband penetration is in the majority of households. Casual games are more enjoyable to play when you have a high-speed connection.
Combined with that is you have a whole generation of kids who have been raised with the computer as a place for them to get entertainment. … A lot of large entertainment companies see a new market developing for people who want to play games but don’t have the time to play hard-core games.
PBN: Have mobile phones made any contribution to the electronic casual game market?
BLECHER: Mobile is the next big casual platform. As more people get cell phones and the capability to play games on them, it’s going to make gaming on cell phones stronger and stronger. It’s already a strong gaming platform in Europe.
PBN: And as phones improve, the experience will be closer to a portable gaming machine?
BLECHER: Yes, and with the iPhone, that definitely seems to be happening.
PBN: What kind of experience in electronic games has Hasbro had before cutting this deal with Electronic Arts?
BLECHER: We made some handheld games. We made some games that plug into your TV set. We also did some deals where we licensed some of our brands. But we’ve never jumped into the industry completely with all our brands with one partner. … We expect to turbocharge our efforts exponentially with this deal.
PBN: In July, Hasbro bought back the digital licensing rights to its board games from Infrogames, the parent company of Atari, for a reported $19 million. Why did Hasbro do that?
BLECHER: We decided we wanted to be in control of our own destiny. … [This] allows us to choose the best partner, as well as pick the platforms that we think our brands should be on and give us greater input on which brands should be on those platforms.
PBN: What trends do you see in the casual game area in the next three years?
BLECHER: More people will be playing casual games and a lot more will be playing them on cell phones. You’re also going to see a movement toward established brands. When you take games like Monopoly, Scrabble, Yahtzee – games people know – you’re going to see a lot of people wanting to play those games because they grew up playing those games. •
