The history of the American toy industry has many chapters, but one of them is the story of small companies with a good idea for a toy or board game each getting sucked up by a bigger company, and those companies getting sucked up by conglomerates, and those conglomerates getting sucked up by Hasbro. Thumbing through the company's timeline of sterling acquisitions - Play-Doh, Tonka Trucks, Milton Bradley (Life, Yahtzee, Twister, Connect Four), Parker Brothers (Monopoly, Risk, Nerf), Coleco (Cabbage Patch Kids, Scrabble), Cranium - is sort of like watching the descent from Mount Olympus in reverse. In fact, most heroes in the pantheon of 20th-century toys not currently owned by Hasbro are products that were developed in-house by Mattel, the biggest U.S. toy company in terms of sales (by 50% over Hasbro at #2) and the one that likes to take big risks (including rare but gargantuan acquisitions, a roller-coaster ride of a balance sheet, and plenty of scandals).

Hasbro's current, deep-discount game sale on Amazon is a bargain-basement browse through the company's uneven track record with "family games," and a reminder that the company is still working towards redeeming itself after a lost decade-and-a-half spent hooked on the performance-enhancing drug known as cross-brand licensing, pitching brands like My Little Pony and the Transformers through every department while the company's creative organs withered and the real talent fled. The rise of platform video games has basically put an end to branded schemes like the one Hasbro ran in the 80s and 90s. Don't believe me? Just compare adaptive gaming strategies like Pokemon, which features a patented form of open-ended, social gameplay, with what Hasbro was launching in the 90s (Clue Jr., anyone?) while it relaunched classic games with reduced quality standards, stunning parents who remember pounding on their own Hungry Hungry Hippos. (The newer version uses plastic pellets instead of marbles, and is flimsy enough that anyone looking for that hippo-riffic game should consider going vintage.)

Fast-forward to the current decade, and you'll see a Hasbro struggling to wean itself off the juice. The brand's board gaming options for kids still look a lot better in tree form - Monopoly Jr. Disney/Pixar Toy Story and Beyond, anyone? - and the company has pretty much lost the war when it comes to developing new board games for sentient adults. But they have also followed subsidiary Nerf's lead in developing games that better capitalize on the soft collision of indoor and outdoor play ushered in by latchkey kids and video games; Nerf's Cosmic Keep-Away, currently on sale at around $15 - 55% off the retail price of $35 - and Electronic Hyper Slide, one of the best-received "active games" of the past year, on sale for under $20, are two great examples of the wide open spaces that remain to be colonized. If the Wii and other physical gaming platforms don't eat this dream for breakfast, that's where Hasbro's in-house gaming future lies.

Then again, the early, halcyon days of product-line expansion - giving newly-acquired talent a sudden budget boost, and reaping their creative output - is what Hasbro does best. We recommend (heck, predict) a Hasbro-style takeover of Wild Planet Toys, creator of our favorite active game of 2007, Hyper Dash (currently on sale for 33% off, at around $20), as well as a stable of kids' spy "toys" that could have knocked The Parent Trap down to an efficient ten minutes of subterfuge, blackmail, and foam darts.