Avalon Hill, manufacturer of classic boardgames like Squad Leader, Feudal, and Runequest, has ceased to exist following its purchase by game giant Hasbro, Inc.

Avalon Hill, which has dominated the market for serious boardgames for the past 30 years, ceased to exist in August 1998 when parent company Monarch Avalon, Inc., sold the games division to Hasbro for $6 million cash. Avalon Hill's entire design and development staff was subsequently dismissed.

While Hasbro manufactures popular, family-oriented boardgames like Monopoly, Risk, and Axis and Allies, it does not produce anything for serious gamers comparable to Avalon Hill's more than 200 products. Hasbro has an extensive distribution network that includes retail chains Toys-R-Us and K-Mart, and game pundits say simpler Avalon Hill games like Diplomacy, History of the World, and Starship Troopers may do well in such venues and possible expand the market for games of this ilk.

However, hardcore wargames like D-Day, Gettysburg, and Squad Leader, which comprise the majority of Avalon Hill games, are less likely to do well in a toy store setting. Most of those products will most likely no longer be manufactured, and nearly completed games like Galaxy: The Arena and the revised RuneQuest roleplaying game will probably never be published. Game collectors have already begun to speculate upon which Avalon Hill games will no longer be available and about which are most likely to appreciate and how much.

While Hasbro has not officially announced what Avalon Hill games it will continue to publish, rumors in the industry suggest that the larger company intends to convert well-known board games like Diplomacy and Squad Leader into IBM-format computer games. Existing Avalon Hill computer games, including Operation Crusader, Stalingrad, and Third Reich, are likely to be scrapped.

To many smaller game companies, Avalon Hill seemed a large and stable bastion of the gaming industry, and its collapse is being viewed as an ominous sign in what has always been a tough market.

"If someone like Avalon Hill can get eaten up, can you imagine what can happen to the rest of us?" asked the CEO of a small gaming company who spoke only on condition of anonymity. "Most companies like ours are privately owned, and we just don't have the resources to compete head-to-head with gargantuans like Hasbro. Whether they send G.I. Joe to kick in the door or Barbie to shake her tail and offer us the right incentives, it might not pay to resist."

Other Hasbro subsidiaries include well known game makers Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley.