There’s an elephant in the room. No one talks about it, but it’s there. Its name is Hasbro, founded as Hassenfeld Brothers in 1923. (Someone later had the good sense to change the name.) They sold textile remnants, and soon moved on to producing pencil boxes and school supplies. Today they control 80% of the billion-dollar tabletop gaming industry.
The story of how they did so is a tale of corporate interest run amuck and of the death of anti-trust legislation in the United States. It’s summarized in a single word, monopoly, which is ironically both America’s best-known game and one that Hasbro now controls through its corporate buyout policy.
When looking for causes, we can ultimately blame My Little Pony. And G.I. Joe and The Transformers. In 1983 the FCC reversed a fourteen-year old ruling, which had prohibited cartoons based on toy lines. Late that year Hasbro debuted their G.I. Joe cartoon, followed by Transformers in 1984 and My Little Pony in 1986. By beaming these 30-minute commercials straight into the living rooms of impressionable children, Hasbro multiplied their already notable success; the same year that The Transformers debuted, Hasbro began their gaming industry roll-up with their purchase of Milton Bradley.