"[QUOTE]["All they care about is pleasing there stockholders."

[Vaxalon]

All they care about is pleasing there stockholders.

I hear this an awful lot, usually in the context of complaining about Hasbro.

I might ask, what are they *supposed* to care about?

You know, if every gamer who has a 401(k) or other stock-based retirement portfolio put a significant amount of money into Hasbro stock, we'd become a n important voting bloc pretty quickly. Not a majority, surely, but it would have more impact than preaching to the choir.

 

[Wolfspider]

Hmmm....this is an interesting idea.

But how many gamers have 401K plans, I wonder?

 

[Wormwood]

You mean Warhammer 401k?

(Of course, the original poster is absolutely correct. A corporation's primary responsibility must be to it's shareholders.)

 

[Gizzard]

> All they care about is pleasing [their] stockholders.

Actually, I mentally translate this to: "All they care about is short term strategies that show immediate results on the bottom line."

Because of the trend towards rewarding executives with stock options, it's pretty difficult to separate the executives personal interest from his duty to his company. (Thats supposed to be a good thing; a motivator, but in practice it seems flawed.) Given this, its not clear how much input a group of gaming-oriented stockholders would have. "Hmmm, try to pump the stock today so I can buy a new Porsche? Or listen to those gamer geeks whine about the long-term? Hmmm."

Does anyone have the Hasbro annual report? They actually are a very old-school company in a lot of ways; they may not be as deep into this practice as other companies.

 

[teitan]

ME ME ME

Hmmm....this is an interesting idea.

But how many gamers have 401K plans, I wonder?

I have a great 401k program. Heh heh heh.

Jason

 

[Vaxalon]

I think more gamers than one might expect on the face of it. Yes, lots of us are teenager geeks with barely enough spare cash to buy the product, but lots of us are twentysomething and thirtysomething professionals with hopes that our retirement will be comfortable.

To tell you the truth, I'm looking forward to retirement; I think our little hobby will REALLY take off when lots of us have money, maturity, AND spare time!

 

[Yuan-Ti]

(Of course, the original poster is absolutely correct. A corporation's primary responsibility must be to it's shareholders.)

Absolutely correct! So, why are the execs always more worried about their own bonuses? Capitalism is great, but greed is a market irregularity. It corrupts the system and gives us our Enrons.

 

[2WS-Steve]

(Of course, the original poster is absolutely correct. A corporation's primary responsibility must be to it's shareholders.)

I've never really been quite clear what it means when business ethicists say this. How much weight do you assign a primary responsibility as opposed to the corporation's responsibility to its customers or employees?

I assume it's not the case that the shareholder's interests override all other interests any more than the owner of the local Quickie Mart's interests override all the interests of his employees or customers.

 

[Vaxalon]

What it means is that the shareholders are the owners, and what they say goes.

Now if a company mistreats its employees or its customers badly enough, the company won't do well financially and the shareholders probably don't want that. But if you can mistreat them in such a way that the company makes money, the shareholders will generally tolerate or even reward that.

 

[Krug]

Hasbro jettisoning D&D? More likely than you might think

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/stocks/timarango/10026106.html

Hasbro bought Wizards in 1999 for an initial payment of $325 million. Subsequent payments have brought the total up to about $500 million, according to regulatory filings. Hasbro does not break out Wizards' financials, but analysts estimate it accounted for between 5% and 10% of the company's $2.9 billion in annual revenue.

But in the past Wizards has been a much larger contributor, it appears from nuggets in company filings with the SEC. For example, the company disclosed that in 2000 Wizards' line of Pokemon trading cards alone accounted for 15% of the company's $3.8 billion in revenue. The wane in popularity of Pokemon cards was blamed, in part, for the decline in Hasbro's revenue in 2001.


Honestly I think Hasbro will divest itself of D&D eventually. 10% of $2.9 bil is about $290 mil, and a profit of $60 mil in 2001. It's hard to gauge D&D's popularity, but right now after putting out the core 3E rulebooks and the splatbooks, sales of D&D and related products are probably dwindling; maybe accounting for $100 mil of that revenue in 2001 or 2-3%? Furthermore, Every new D&D item put out by WotC noew is MORE narrow in scope and outlook, meaning less buyers and less revenue.

Then there's OGL? What? Letting other people use Hasbro's intellectual property? If you're a suit I doubt if you'd be happy with that.

Furthermore, how many CEOs or directors understand D&D or RPGs? Hasbro bought WotC for Pokemon and MtG. D&D seems more like luggage; the mole on the beauty's kisser. There's also D&D's PR problem which, folks, is unlikely to go away anytime soon. Frankly, I think that it's so much trouble that they would just jettison the whole unit. Even if it were profitable, D&D might be too much trouble and Hasbro's looking for the longball All-Star, not the single bases hitter.

My 2 cents.