by Wally Monk originally published 15 June 2024
Uh-oh. That headline looks like a red flag. It’s pretty much an indicator that an old grognard and gatekeeper is writing this editorial, right?
Not even close. Well, grognard perhaps – but gatekeeper, not so much. (The free dictionary, Wiktionary, defines a grognard as “(slang) Someone who enjoys playing older war games or roleplaying games, or older versions of such games when newer ones are available.”)
I will state up front that I have two copies of Talisman 5th Edition on pre-order, and just pre-ordered three copies of the Talisman: Alliances expansion, too. I’ll always support the Talisman brand, even if I have absolutely no intention of playing a new iteration of the game myself.
To be fair, the releases showing pictures of the new edition look fantastic. I’m even a fan of the inverted artwork on the main game board, which is an interesting concept. Kudos to Hasbro, too, for increasing the size of the cards in gameplay, so older gamers like myself can read the print without squinting. And the miniatures … well, while I love 4th Edition Revised, the miniatures for this new edition are nothing short of fantastic. I haven’t even held them in my hand yet, I’m just going from what I see in the pictures (see below). You’ve got to admit they’re well worth the price of admission. With all of these positives in mind, you might ask “why so glum, chum?”
The answer is one word: Hasbro.
I’m not a fan of Hasbro or any other company that grabs up properties for merely making a profit at the expense of everything else. I wasn’t born yesterday, and I certainly understand we’re in a capitalist society that will suck the financial marrow out of anything that can make money. But Hasbro is better at that than most.
Look at Magic: the Gathering, owned by Hasbro and managed by their subsidiary Wizards of the Coast.
I played MTG back in the early 90s when it first came out but gave up shortly after the Mirrodin block (late 90s, early 2000s?). Today, there are dozens of kinds of decks, cards, and crossovers. Holofoils, Challenger decks, rare cards, differently priced packs, decks based on Godzllla (limited edition), decks based on Transformers (limited edition), and any other franchise that could lead people to the store to drop their cash.
In a 2022 article over at kotaku.com, writer Ethan Gach wrote an article about WoTC (a Hasbro subsidiary company) defending their perceived flooding of the market.
A month after Bank of America downgraded Hasbro’s stock over fears it was “killing its golden goose” by oversaturating the market with Magic: The Gathering cards, the toy manufacturer says that’s not the case. “There is no evidence that Magic is overprinted,” Wizards of the Coast president Cynthia Williams told investors during a recent corporate strategy “fireside chat.”
Magic: The Gathering is currently on its third printing of the latest Warhammer 40K crossover set. To some fans, it’s an exciting time for the decades-old card game about dueling wizards amid a flurry of new releases and spin-offs. For others, fatigue is beginning to set in as they accuse publisher Wizards of the Coast and parent company Hasbro of flooding the market with too many cards. Executives at those companies argue that’s nonsense.
https://kotaku.com/magic-gathering-hasbro-wizards-coast-warhammer-d-d-1849875411
So based on Hasbro’s ownership of Talisman, what will we see next? Hasbro’s promotions and constant crossovers with many of their games remind me of the toy-crazy marketing of the 1970s. Take for example the Land of the Lost, a cult favorite among many kids of that era. While one might expect dinosaur toys, action figures, and maybe even camping equipment, what did fans get? How about the ephemera below…
Anybody want a Land of the Lost Moon Spinner or Cosmic Signal? I didn’t think so.
Suffice it to say that Hasbro’s ownership of Talisman worries me. I fear that they will put out too much, too fast, and ruin the community of fans that the game has developed since it first appeared in the 1980s. I strongly support making Talisman available for a new, younger audience – that’s great! Even if I don’t like this edition, that’s OK. I can still dabble in my favorite earlier editions and I’ll always have piles of miniatures and fan-made expansions for all five editions to pour through. But I do fear spin-offs and marketing on steroids; we already saw a touch of that with the Batman, Harry Potter and Star Wars editions of Talisman. Hasbro could do that to a much greater extent!
And this leads me to the final irony, and a tie-in to the title of this editorial. I mentioned in the first few paragraphs that I would be buying multiple copies of the game – and its expansions – because I want to support the brand. So in some ways, I am contributing to what I fear the most – the oversaturation of the product and the proliferation of more and more expansions and spin-offs just because people buy them. Strange world we live in, isn’t it?
Talisman is dead. Long live Talisman!
As always, I am –
Wally (AKA The Paint Monk)