Hasbro

This article is about something that is considered by the overpowering majority of /tg/ to be fail. Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it.

That's no half-moon...

Hasbro is a corporation best known to the world as a maker of children's toys and games. Hasbro is particularly notable to /tg/ because it owns Wizards of the Coast, and is thus much beloved by WotC fanboys everywhere - specifically for providing a convenient scapegoat every time somebody dares criticize Wizards and their policies. Wallet-raping business strategy? Hasbro wants more money. Complete avoidance of somewhat "unwholesome" topics? Hasbro wants it more kid-friendly. Books released with glaringly obvious errors and little testing? Hasbro forced Wizards to rush it out. Licenses that stop just shy of giving Wizards the right to anally rape anyone stupid enough to sign them? Hasbro's lawyers' idea. While Hasbro is still a giant megacorp and is thus automatically Lawful Evil (your corporate motto isn't fooling anyone Google), that doesn't mean it's automatically behind every bad idea Wizards has.

Regardless of whose fault these things ultimately are, however, that does not make them suck any less for the rest of us.

Aside from owning Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro also owns Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers, which means that they are, by extension, the ones responsible for the shitty state of board games in the United States. And they own NERF, GI Joe, My Little Pony, Kenner (the company that did most of the original Star Wars toys) and basically the childhood of anyone who grew up between 1975 and, well, now. About the only things they don't own are LEGO, BRIO, or Playmobil on account of those being European.

From /v/ With Rage

Hasbro is not restricted to fucking over /tg/; it is notorious for the practice of acquiring IPs and smaller companies, asserting total creative control, and nose-diving their IPs - seemingly on purpose. A large number of the companies bought up were ones that brought about some pretty impressive gaming all their own, and the exact point at which their works went to absolute shit.

Casualties so far:

• MicroProse (Creators of X-Com, Fallout Tactics and Civilization, as well as some damned good flight-sims): After being forced by Hasbro's meddling to create X-Com Interceptor and X-Com Enforcer, both of which failed miserably, the company's stock nosedived and it Ceased to exist. MicroProse also published MechWarrior 3 and MechCommander, aka the two games in the franchise that were legitimately good, making Hasbro one of the many parties involved in the epic catastrofuck that is Battletech's IP ownership situation.

• Spectrum Holobyte (the guys who brought Tetris to the US): Was a partner of MicroProse, and likewise a victim of Hasbro as a result.

• Lauren Faust (The lady behind the new My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic cartoon): Say what you will about My Little Pony in general, but the fact remains it could have (and according to many bronies, the previous generations of MLP have) been WAY WAY WAY Worse. Lauren, whether for adults or little girls, put her whole soul into the show, basing characters off personal experiences, including a little yellow pony she based upon herself. She had a plan for a long and epic tale that would make even trolls cry (well, if it wasn't about magical ponies that is). Sadly, this required creative freedom to achieve and when she asked the overlords they replied "You want us to let you make a show NOT about selling our shit!?! YOU'RE FIRED!"
  • ...though she actually left the show on her own and stated the Hub gave her a lot of freedom - only guidelines, since they knew making a good show would result in more ratings, and more people watching means more people buying toys. But Bronies are too butthurt to remember that.
  • At any rate, it's considered more like your average kids cartoon now as opposed to something special, though what made it special in the first place was not necessarily the dark undertones, which if anything have increased from the first season (if King Sombra dying onscreen means anything - Hasbro's G.I. Joe never had the balls the do the same, funnily enough), but the fact that it was actually well-written.

They own your childhood

Hasbro don't only own Monopoly, but also is a very big fan of playing it using the real world as its board. Apart of the examples already given, they have brought a ton of toy companies, like Tonka (Gobots), Kenner (M.A.S.K, Centurions, the Star Wars license, and Nerf; actually Nerf has done better under Hasbro than Kenner), Playskool, and many other. Not to mention buying the main Marvel comics toy license. Basically, if you walk into a Toys´r Us (in the countries where it still exist, at least), you will see their logo every two steps.

But they haven´t stopped. Next in the schedule is the absortion of their long time partner Takara, which means the full ownership of the Transformers franchise, plus classic Japanese toylines Zoids and Choro Q. And in 2017 they presented an offer to Mattel, who refused.

Everyone is preoccupied with Disney buying everything (as they should), but these fuckers are the ones you have to keep an eye on.