The major industry of Hasbro is not games and toys but licensing. Most of Hasbro’s new games each year are the same games with new themes from movies, television shows, and other pop culture sensations.

Now, Hasbro is beginning to think of itself as a brand. Having acquired exclusive rights to some of the brands they use on their games, as well as having achieved top brand recognition for their own products, such as Monopoly, Hasbro’s new CEO is looking for ways to license their brands out to others, as is evident from recent news items about Hasbro movies, online games, game shows, and so on.

Which begs the question: are we going to see Hasbro products which are themselves the results of licensing end up relicensed to other products? A Powerpuff Monopoly television show, for instance? Maybe a Hannah Barbara UNO cartoon?

Where does it end? To paraphrase William Gibson (originally on Tommy Hilfiger ): There must be some sub-licensing event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more licensed, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul.

(source)

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Columbia games makes some well-regarded two-player block war games.

For a limited time, you can get all 15 Columbia games in a bundle for $700 (each priced individually would be $974.73, although they normally charge $150 for any three game.). The games:

• Quebec 1759
• War of 1812
• Liberty: American Revolution
• Athens & Sparta
• Napoleon
• Hammer of the Scots
• Crusader Rex
• Bobby Lee
• Sam Grant
• Gettysburg: Badges of Courage
• Pacific Victory
• Eastfront 2
• Westfront 2
• Eurofront 2
• Rommel in the Desert

(more information)

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Lacking a good adhesive for his miniatures, a war gamer from East Lancashire, UK invented War Glue. As described in the Lancashire Telegraph, Garry Grimshaw struggled for years to fix his Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer figurines before he was able to develop his own super-strength glue with another local gamer. Now he lives in hope that sales of the product will make him rich. To help him reach his goal, you can purchase the glue here.

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The Northern Advocate recently reported on the local Whangarei Wargaming Club, a group of miniatures gamers who play mostly Warhammer 40K. The article quotes one of the club founders as saying, “We get a lot of blank expressions when we explain it to people, but we’re proud to be geeks and fly our geek flags.”

(article)

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Reaper Miniatures has announced that the increasing cost of tin in international commodity markets is forcing the company to raise the prices of many of its products. At the same time, Reaper is exploring alternatives for keeping costs down, including the use of different metal mixes.

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After numerous customer requests, Litko Aerosystems is now offering markers in mini and micro sizes. The new markers, used in miniatures games, are splash, blast, flame, and smoke markers.

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