A Casual and Hasbro today announced a partnership geared at bringing the board-game and toy giant's properties to the video-game world. While the announcement put family and casual games in the spotlight, with titles like Littlest Pet Shop, Yahtzee Adventures and Operation, that's not all gamers have to look forward to. We talked with Chip Lange,  EA's Hasbro Studio VP and general manager, and learned that the deal also means GI Joe could be around the corner, as well as games based on Wizards of the Coast's properties.

Game Informer: Can you set the stage and tell us a little bit more about today’s announcement and how it came together for EA and Hasbro?

Chip Lange: We announced a breakthrough, landmark deal with Hasbro in August. Why I think that was a breakthrough is a couple-fold: One is that it was a long-term deal—I’m not able to disclose exactly how long, but it was long enough for us to be doing a different type of business planning than we would normally do with a license partner. One of the problems with these short-term license deals we do in the industry is that you’re always looking for your exit. In this one, the exit is so far off that, really, we’re starting to talk about some real strategic ways in which Hasbro and EA can come together and change the ways that families and kids are entertained on their television and computer screens. In a lot of cases, that type of statement would be lip service. It’s really not here, because both of us have a real vested interest in accomplishing what I just said.

The other thing is combined with the release today, and the reason that it took the form factor that it did is that this is truly a cross-platform, cross-consumer deal. I don’t know of any other deal of this type that’s ever been done in our business, where you take a company that’s got the ability to put games on the deck on a mobile phone, the number one subscription casual-gaming service online, the best packaged-goods distribution and studio business on the planet—and combine all of those and take the right products and get them out on the right platforms at the right time for the right consumer. Probably, most importantly, from the right studio. What you’re not seeing here is an exercise in us trying to shovel as many Monopoly games through one producer as possible. That might be how some deals like this have been handled in the past—not necessarily with Hasbro, but with other licensing deals. This is really allowing these different products to come to life in their most ideal form factor on their respective platforms, built by people and marketed by people who understand that market and that platform.

People have been asking me, “Why did you put mobile and Pogo
 and all the packaged-goods stuff all in the same place?” It’s really to make that point that we really are looking at this holistically across every single interactive form factor that casual gamers are utilizing to entertain themselves with.

In terms lightning-rod points for me, I feel lucky to be working on this, but I also feel that it’s a tremendous opportunity for our industry to take a step forward and really change the way that families and people are entertaining themselves together. I think if you look at the Wii, you look at the success that Pogo’s enjoyed—even some stuff like the DS—what you’re seeing is a real shift. You’ve seen how we’ve gone from hardcore to whatever this is now, which is more family entertainment, and I think the fact that families are coming together around the TV and they’re entertaining themselves together and they’re using gaming on the TV as a form of social and family interaction—and similarly on the Web, when you see some of the play mechanics that are happening at Pogo and the fact that people are using the Web as a way to come together and play socially. Facebook’s another great example of how people are using interactive gaming in new ways to come together and socialize. I think that’s a really good accomplishment for our industry. I think it’s been somewhat overlooked in terms of how quickly that social mechanic has redefined itself, and I think when you look at the lineup of products we announced today—but also the slate of brands that we have access to—it really speaks to how powerful of a trigger that Hasbro can play in bringing families together of all ages, of all genders in order to play together and develop relationships.

GI: How does the deal work? Hasbro, as you know probably more than most, has an enormous library.

Lange: Unmatched by probably any other toy or game IP holder. Let’s just put it this way: There are far more brands there than I could ever operationalize at this company. So it’s an embarrassment of riches.

GI: If it’s not currently that way, Hasbro’s licensing rights have been a bit of a crazy mess. Do you have access to the company’s entire library?

Lange: That’s the long-term spirit of the deal. Obviously, with every deal, there are outliers and things like that. The reason that I’m speaking about Hasbro and EA as partners is because the spirit of the deal’s exactly that: We’re their interactive partner, and for all their primary and secondary consumer brands—with the exception of the legal outliers—we’re going to be the ones taking those to market. And not just the stuff that exists now, but as we start thinking about… I’ve been out in Rhode Island a lot, looking at what they’re thinking about coming out with, and how can we partner together to launch new entertainment brands together.

GI: Would Wizards of the Coast properties and Dungeons & Dragons fall into the legal-outlier department?

Lange: No, Wizards of the Coast is right in our sweet spot. Dungeons & Dragons is currently licensed elsewhere, but Wizards and that whole property line falls within the scope of this relationship, and we’ve spent a lot of time talking to those guys.

The other thing that a lot of people miss, because of the partnership nature of this deal, is that within the walls of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro and Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers—who are sub-brands of Hasbro—are some of the best entertainment designers on the planet. These people have been entertaining families longer than I’ve been alive, and having access to that wealth of design expertise and family-socialization skills is something that we’re absolutely leveraging as we start working out what our designs are going to look like.