Transformers: One - New Animated Prequel coming September 20th, 2024 - New Toy Official Images!

[MrBlud]

Oh goodie, another Hasbro pivot.

Can’t wait for them to buy a game studio for 400 million. Pour 200 million into making a game. Game releases to positive reviews but middling financial success. Hasbro then sells the whole thing for 500k as fast as possible.

Just like the TV network, and the film studio, and eOne, and…

 

[Sabrblade]

Just like the TV network, and the film studio, and eOne, and…

...a partridge in a pear tree!

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Just like the TV network, and the film studio, and eOne, and…

And the last game studio. They've done it before.

 

[Steevy Maximus]

And the last game studio. They've done it before.

Several times!

 

[Blot]

Oh goodie, another Hasbro pivot.

Can’t wait for them to buy a game studio for 400 million. Pour 200 million into making a game. Game releases

We're still waiting on this one!

 

[CoffeeHorse]

This is why I'm not so pessimistic about this doom spiral Hasbro seems to be in. They're always lurching from one grandiose dream to the next. We're just between dreams right now. They're going to come back with an idea so crazy that it actually works for a while. They always do.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

For once, I don't blame Hasbro. Just look at how good One was. Now look at how they promoted it. Now look at how it performed.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

We're just not used to this routine anymore because their Hollywood dream lasted an unusually long time. But, financially it really didn't last that much longer than their usual ventures. They just took longer than usual to give up, because those initial returns were so surprisingly good.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

It's not hard to figure out what happened.

They licensed Transformers out to Paramount and got a series of incredibly lucrative blockbusters that revitalized the franchise, which came at at time where less and less kids were into toys (versus videogames) and the adult collector market was still pretty niche. Pivoting to media made sense. But they weren't really able to reproduce that success with any other franchise and then the luster wore off of the TF films and they weren't performing as well either. Now we're in this post-covid slump where only a few films actually become large successes and most of the rest kind flounder if not tank completely. (This is combined with the ballooning costs to MAKE these films. The new captain America film is reportedly costing as much as Endgame did.) and owning and investing in their own media enterprise makes less and less sense. Especially after movies like D&D and TF: One were critical and fan acclaimed, and still did not put up the numbers.

They're basically offloading that risk entirely to the licensees now and persuing more lucrative avenues. (Games, or more specifically IMO, microtransactions)

 

[lastmaximal]

I agree with that. It's a long timeframe like CoffeeHorse said, but it's the most likely course of events. They went in on something that was very profitable, figured they'd build something out of it. But that something was more expensive and demanding than they were ready for, so they pivoted out. The next try with eOne was caught up in covid, and by the time the world got back to a semblance of normal, the industry had shifted again.

Movies these days cost a lot partly because of reshoots that stack up and add onto the original budget; Cap4 is infamous for having to undergo retooling to roll with the changes in the larger MCU and the industry. Quality movies that perform well can still be made for a reasonable sum. However, the box office slump was confusing last year and commonplace this year, so even if they avoid messy and costly production practices like relying on reshoots it's still very uncertain. So I can understand not wanting to be on the hook for that anymore.

Moving into gaming, though... it's also a question mark. Even that's having a whole ballooning-costs situation, with AAA games costing way more than it feels they should to make. I guess if they keep to simpler retro fare akin to Rita's Rewind or Shredder's Revenge rather than big CGI fests, but more cautious than optimistic right now.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

There's a chance. Simpler, lower budget games are all they can really afford to do right now, and also all I would actually want.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

I mean, the article says two games a year over the next two years. It's unlikely those are going to all be big budget AAA games. Like reactivate might be one, but the other three are probably smaller experiences, likely phone games.

 

[Agent X]

Is this different from the (seemingly) yearly Transformers games from publisher "Outright Games?
(Who have also done two My little Pony games in as many years)

 

[ZacWilliam1]

I like the look of the retro Power Rangers and Joe games we've just seen happen.

I'd be up for something of the type for TFs.

-ZacWilliam, though ideally it'd have to be something different from a beat-em up to make the transforming matter.

 

[Steevy Maximus]

I like the look of the retro Power Rangers and Joe games we've just seen happen.

I'd be up for something of the type for TFs.

-ZacWilliam, though ideally it'd have to be something different from a beat-em up to make the transforming matter.

Truthfully, though?
The bulk of Devastation is just a 3D implementation of those old school beat-em up. Aside from a few “runner” stages and the open nature of the rest, the vehicle modes really don’t contribute THAT much to the actual game design.

That said…I AM getting a bit tired of a “TMNT-esque belt scroller” becoming the de facto design style for retro properties.

 

[Anonymous X]

And the last game studio. They've done it before.

Incidentally, remember when Hasbro owned Atari Games? (Or possibly all of the Atari IP including the hardware, can’t remember the specifics.) They punted all that off to Infogrames after 5 or so years, IIRC.

 

[MrBlud]

Get Roberts to script a Telltale like Transformers game.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Incidentally, remember when Hasbro owned Atari Games? (Or possibly all of the Atari IP including the hardware, can’t remember the specifics.) They punted all that off to Infogrames after 5 or so years, IIRC.

That's what I'm talking about. Hasbro was trying to break into videogames for the fourth or fifth time, so they bought Atari. It was an odd move considering Atari was seemingly next to worthless at the time, but Hasbro saw potential in it.

As is often the case with Hasbro's crazy ideas it was actually kinda working for a while. They sold it off because they were struggling elsewhere and needed cash badly.

 

[Sabrblade]

As is often the case with Hasbro's crazy ideas it was actually kinda working for a while.

"Sometimes crazy works."

"Sometimes."

 

[Steevy Maximus]

That's what I'm talking about. Hasbro was trying to break into videogames for the fourth or fifth time, so they bought Atari. It was an odd move considering Atari was seemingly next to worthless at the time, but Hasbro saw potential in it.

As is often the case with Hasbro's crazy ideas it was actually kinda working for a while. They sold it off because they were struggling elsewhere and needed cash badly.

HISTORY TIME!

Hasbro (under Stephen Hassenfeld’s final days) was looking to get into gaming with a VCR based game console in the late 80s. When Alan took over after Stephen’s death, the game console lost its biggest supporter and was scuttled. Tom Zito would take the tech and material produced for the console to make Digital Pictures. In fact, I believe Hasbro still owns rights to Night Trap and Sewer Shark (which were produced under contract for Hasbro’s unmade console).

Fast forward 5 years, and the “multimedia revolution” was in effect and Hasbro made another effort in the gaming space, leading to successful growth until 1998 when they acquired Microprose and the remnants of Atari (by that point, pretty much an “IP husk”). All was well until the dot com crash, well, crashed their stock along with under performance of numerous product lines (Star Wars Episode 1, Beast Machines, the impending loss of the Batman license, etc), along with new management.

Then, in the mid-2010s, mobile gaming was the hot thing and Hasbro bought themselves a mobile studio (Backflip). But then mobile gaming cooled off and consoles started to see a resurgence so…Hasbro dumped that.

And in the past few years, Hasbro has committed to new internal game development because, well, AAA games are expensive and time consuming to make. The reason we’ve gotten so many…mediocre…titles for Transformers and GI Joe is because they were done quick and cheap. Because no major publisher or studio are compelled to invest 4-5+ years and hundreds of millions into a AAA game without at least some level of guarantee Of success. Major IPs like Star Wars and Marvel DO bring that (at least to some degree), Transformers is MAAAAYBE. GI Joe? Not a chance.
That said, barring a really impressive offering? It would not surprise me if Hasbro largely backs out of video games if Transformers ReActivate and the AAA GI Joe title don’t garner some significant commercial traction.

Assuming either of those ever actually see the light of day…