Loren Greenwood, #1 on our 2006 list of the Top Ten Most Powerful People in Hobby Games (see 'ICv2 TopTen Most Powerful'), has been CEO of Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast since April of 2004.  We recently interviewed Greenwood for the upcoming 'Future of Games' issue of our magazine, the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Games (coming out soon), and he also agreed to answer a few questions about Wizards of the Coast and its current activities.

Wizards raised some MSRPs and cut some discounts for its hobby accounts this fall. Can you talk about why the company felt that was necessary?

Sure. The economics of bringing games to market are ever-increasing. The positions that we took with our pricing and discount are reflective of what it takes both today and in the future to continue to bring those games to market in their existing form and quality and channels of distribution. It's just a reality of gaming in the global marketplace.
 

So your costs went up?

Absolutely.

Is that fuel related?

I think it's the wrong signal to say it's any one thing; it's the combination of virtually everything. It's no different than going to the grocery store or buying any of those things we buy as consumers -- prices don't seem to be going down, they're going up.

How's the Dragonlance animated feature coming along? Previous attempts to adapt the D&D property to film haven't worked out that well--do you think this has a chance to hit more than the core market for D&D?
First of all, I'm very excited about the new movie.  I think it's coming along very well. We're very much involved, along with Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. They're both working very closely with the producers to make sure we have a spot on D&D experience that speaks to the broadest audience out there. We've got a very robust history, and everybody loves dragons.

There's been demand in the hobby channel for a couple of Hasbro products that seem to be a good fit for hobbyists--Attacktix and Heroscape. I was hearing at the summer shows that there might be a possibility that Wizards would distribute those titles to the hobby. Is there any progress in that direction?

Yes. Wizards of the Coast will be distributing Attacktix and HeroScape. I don't have the timeline for it, but that is going to happen.  It's something that we will make available to all of our customers.

Will that happen in 2007?

There is a chance we can get into the market with some products in 2006, but certainly for 2007.

There are licenses out to other companies in a number of game categories for Marvel, which recently started its over-all relationship with Hasbro. Do you expect Wizards to produce any games based on Marvel IP?

Nothing specific at this juncture to talk about, but we're going to continue to look to opportunities with that master Hasbro license. If we see something we believe is appropriate for the core channel, then we're going to do our darndest to bring it to market.

Could you briefly talk about the opportunities you see in TCGs, CMGs, board games, and RPGs in 2007 and how they compare?

Certainly. We will continue to participate in those four categories; it's the cornerstone of what we do. The TCG business I see continuing for Wizards of the Coast to be robust, same thing for our miniatures business, and RPGs and board games, those are all the cornerstones. I do expect 2007 and beyond for those to continue to be our cornerstones.

Do you have any comparisons in terms of the relative strength of those categories for you going forward?

(laughs) I wish I could predict the future. I believe that the categories are going to be fundamentally about the same in 2007 as they were in 2006.