Hasbro’s CEO has an AI Peppa Pig help design toys
Today, I’m talking with Chris Cocks, CEO of Hasbro.
You know, Hasbro — the toy and game company that makes some of the most iconic products in the world, from toy lines like Transformers and My Little Pony to board and tabletop games like Monopoly, Magic: The Gathering, and Dungeons & Dragons.
Chris was last on the show three years ago, as he was first stepping into the role, and we spent quite a bit of time then talking about his plans to collect more data, spin off parts of the company, and think about the future of collectibles… which, at that time, meant NFTs. Look, a lot’s happened in three years! NFTs just weren’t one of them. You’ll hear Chris laugh about this throughout, actually.
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You know what did happen, though? A global supply chain and manufacturing nightmare precipitated by tariffs, the AI explosion, and, of course, the endless chaos of the video game industry. Oh, and there’s the relentless continuation of a trend that defines the modern toy industry: more and more toys and games are made for adults, who have a bunch of money, instead of kids, who don’t. Chris and I talked about that quite a bit, and I think his point of view is at once totally logical and also completely surprising.
Chris and I also talked a lot about Hasbro investing so heavily in games and digital media. For example, you’ll hear Chris mention several times how big the mobile game Monopoly Go is for Hasbro. And while Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons are already huge, load-bearing brands, Hasbro is also trying to expand more into the video game space with original games, like Exodus, which is slated to release next year. That’s another huge set of challenges, in an era where video game studios are shutting down more or less weekly, and the distribution market is controlled by a small handful of players, like Sony
