Potential Hasbro and Mattel Merger?

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According to a report today from Bloomberg Business, Hasbro (owners of the Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering brands) and Mattel have been in talks about a possible merger. The talks started in 2015, and were instigated by Hasbro.
The article listed the net worth and stock values of the two companies: "Mattel shares rose 1.7 percent to $32.29 at 4:26 p.m. in New York, valuing the company at about $11 billion and extending a streak that has seen the stock gain 19 percent this year. Hasbro rose 1.3 percent to $75.96 after climbing as high as $78.45, valuing the company at about $9.5 billion." Bloomberg experts say that a merger would allow for a stronger competition against Denmark's LEGO.

This isn't the first time that the two companies have talked about a merger.

The important question for tabletop gamers, should the merger go through, is how would the Wizards of the Coast​ division fare in all of this?

 

[Remathilis]

Everyone that hopes for cross-pollination, we've not seen it within Hasbro since WotC got bought by Hasbro 10+ years ago. No GIjoe RPG, no D&D Monopoly. The best we can hope for is that it doesn't affect WotC and especially D&D. But I have my doubts...

There was D&D Clue...

EDIT: Ninja'd. Serves me to read the thread first.

 

[Remathilis]

What I mean is: what do they produce besides LEGO? Sure they've got everything from elves to ninjas and patent deals from Star Wars but they don't produce any other types of toys. So if you don't like having to assemble your toys, you're not going to buy anything from them.

You're not familiar with LEGO Dimensions then, are you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Dimensions

 

[Cergorach]

It was. In North America, Hasbro/Parker Brothers owns the publishing rights to Clue.

It wasn't, it was licensed to USAopoly. Just like Attack Wing is a licensed product made by WizKids...

 

[darjr]

There are Lego movies and video games and TV series and my kids don't consider the Bionicles Lego.

 

[Xavian Starsider]

But who licensed it? If Hasbro owns D&D and the publishing rights to Clue...

I think I can solve this mystery.

 

[Morrus]

What I mean is: what do they produce besides LEGO?

Movies, video games. There's no narrative that doesn't make LEGO enormous. They're an 800lb gorilla.

 

[Xavian Starsider]

There are Lego movies and video games and TV series and my kids don't consider the Bionicles Lego.

And Theme Parks. But Lego lets other companies manage the non-toy uses of their brand. Of what you mentioned, Lego is focused only on the bionicles.

Lego does what it does to very high standards. It leads in an industry it more or less created and has been maintaining standards for excellence and creativity for over 50 years. Hasbro and Mattel cannot diminish what Lego has done without at least a decade of foresight and innovation. Kreo and Megablocks are like Gobots to Transformers, Bratz to Barbie.

One brick to rule them all.

 

[Morrus]

There are Lego movies and video games and TV series and my kids don't consider the Bionicles Lego.

Well, your kids notwithstanding, they're still LEGO products, and they're a pretty major thing. I'm sure LEGO considers them LEGO!

 

[Sunseeker]

Movies, video games. There's no narrative that doesn't make LEGO enormous. They're an 800lb gorilla.

But both Hasbro and Mattel have no standing in those departments anyway, Battleship was a horrible failure and should really teach everyone a lesson about turning board games into movie. You can't be "more competitive" in an area that you are completely non-competitive. Mattel has several direct-to-video properties based off their doll-lines as well as similarly-based video games, but nothing spectacular.

So it begs the question: how is a Mattel-Hasbro merger going to improve their ability to compete in markets they have done almost nothing with?

At the end of the day, LEGO's success is on the fact that is has a product without needing trademarks. Hasbro and Mattel do not. So it's likely that Hasbro and Mattel simply have to spend big bucks to get Star Wars, Avengers, and so forth, otherwise they have nothing to sell.

You're not familiar with LEGO Dimensions then, are you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Dimensions

But that doesn't change the product. Okay, they've got a video-game. It relies heavily on trademarks established by someone else (Star Wars, Marvel, LOTR, etc..). Hasbro relies heavily on the same trademarks. So LEGO has a video game that makes up a tiny fraction of the video-game market.

My point remains: Hasbro and Mattel aren't competing in these markets. So how can they get better at something they don't do by working together?

 

[darjr]

Major they are. Just from how many I've bought for the kids could be enough for that.

But nope, I said the same thing, to their friends too. The LEGO goes into one bucket and the Bionicle into another, even if some of the pieces are, to me, identical.