• by Karl Greenberg , August 13, 2007

Hasbro and digital game maker Electronic Arts (EA) have inked a deal that allows EA Casual Entertainment to create digital games based on Hasbro board games like Monopoly, Scrabble and Yahtzee.

EA will develop interactive versions of these games, launching next year, for mobile, online, handheld, PC and consoles, per the companies. Casual games, such as EA's Boogie and Tetris and EA's portfolio of games on Pogo.com, are either free to play, pay-for-download or subscription-based.

EA marketer Chip Lange will lead the overall Hasbro business initiative as vice president and general manager. Hasbro Senior Vice President Mark Blecher will head up Hasbro's digital gaming initiatives.

The reciprocal agreement--the initial term of which runs through 2013--also gives Hasbro rights to develop toys based on EA games and allows EA and Hasbro the opportunity to unlock new creative opportunities and game concepts for some of Hasbro's classic franchises.

The companies say the deal may be extended for an additional four years after 2013.

Lange, who has been with the company for 12 years, says EA has done similar deals in the past, but not of this scope. "One of the important points is that both companies have put both feet in the water, which gives us great potential in development, co-marketing, retail opportunities," he says.

The arrangement also weds Hasbro to EA as sole licensee. The company has pre-existing deals with Activision, notably for Hasbro's Transformers toys. "But everything else going forward will be with EA, so it was big step for Hasbro and EA to commit to this scale. In order to justify our being able to handle a licensing-rights arrangement of that scope, we had to make people at Hasbro confident we have the development scale to activate their brand."

He says that mobile and casual-gaming is the logical start point because EA is the leading mobile-game developer, and there are iconic brands in Hasbro's stable that are "perennial players" such as Monopoly, Yahtzee and Life. EA's casual-games portfolio includes Boogie for the Wii, Tetris for mobile phones and the online gaming destination Pogo.com.

Pogo.com is really a Web-based portfolio of single- and multi-player games that are either available for free or by a subscription that allows a suite of extra features and benefits.

"We believe Hasbro will help as an incentive to draw people there," says Lange. "With Pogo.com, we really invented a large community for casual PC players. When you combine that with names like Monopoly and Scrabble, it's one plus one equals three--the best of both worlds."

Lange says the deal will go beyond causal games to include Nintendo, Xbox and PlayStation downloadables.

"Because we have such scope, we are trying to take an unexpected approach [to developing games based on Hasbro products]. A lot of Hasbro has been under-leveraged in terms of opportunities to date. We got teams together and white-boarded opportunities for casual and family gaming, and they are coming together quickly."