Hasbro Quarterly Conference Call, Summary as to WOTC

joethelawyer · Oct 22, 2008

Well, i actually listened to thing thing. boring as hell.

As far as i can tell, and whoever else listened correct me if i am wrong, they mentioned WOTC once in the call. they said the duelmasters card game is doing well in japan.

they mentioned the digital initiative---this is pretty close to a quote:

"this quarter we continued to invest in digital strategy including wotc initiative and building relationship with electronic arts."

and a few sentences later, again, pretty close to a quote:

"some of the digital initiatives will continue throughout the year."

it seemed the electronic arts relationship is based around their other games though, they mentioned the website Pogo Games | Play Card Games, Board Games, and other Free Online Games as an example of what the relationship producing.

i can usually get the transcript a few days after the actual meeting (which was held yesterday morning). i'll post the relevant portions in this thread via copy-paste, when i get it.

if anyone else wants to listen to it, the link is easly found on the hasbro site.

again, i may have missed some stuff. take a listen for yourself and feel free to correct me. most everything in terms of product/brand discussion was about their licensing relationships between comics, movies etc.

cya

CharlesRyan · Oct 22, 2008

The transcript is out there--google it, and I'm sure you'll find it quickly.

You're about right on the WotC mentions. Games are up (7%, if I recall correctly), and MtG and Duel Masters were among the games that were cited as moving particularly well. DDI was mentioned as starting to generate revenue. I don't think there was anything else.

There's some analysis over at ICv2.

justanobody · Oct 22, 2008

DDI was mentioned as starting to generate revenue

So that is why they started charging this month. To be in time for fiscals.

Wouldn't surprise me, heck the USA fiscal year ends this month also. Just in time for you-know-what on the 4th....

Is this always some sort of conference call? Is this like a shareholders meeting type thing or just an announcment of revenue?

DanChops · Oct 22, 2008

justanobody said:
Wouldn't surprise me, heck the USA fiscal year ends this month also. Just in time for you-know-what on the 4th....

Sorry to be such a quibbler, but the USA fiscal year ended last month, on September 30th. Fiscal year 2009 began on October 1st. Just in time for the election a month later.

Chainsaw · Oct 22, 2008

I'm a high yield bond analyst in real life.. if anyone wants a nice copy of the transcript or any SEC documents, let me know. I don't cover high grade consumer products companies like Hasbro, but I do have significant financial data resources at my disposal, like access to Street Events, Bloomberg, etc.

AllisterH · Oct 22, 2008

And M:TG continues to kick ass....

Anyone remember when M:TG first started out and we all laughed and said, "flash in the pan, it will never take off...."

Boy, aren't we fools

Drkfathr1 · Oct 22, 2008

Interesting. MTG gets a mention as selling particularly well, but nothing about 4E DnD?

Although in all fairness its supposed to be selling really well. I'd love to know how the figures for 4E sales stack up to 3E and even 2E for that matter.

I guess I just find it hard to believe that DnD in general, being the monster of RPG's, and my favorite pasttime, is such small potatoes in the grand scale of things.

AllisterH · Oct 22, 2008

Drkfathr1 said:
Interesting. MTG gets a mention as selling particularly well, but nothing about 4E DnD?

Although in all fairness its supposed to be selling really well. I'd love to know how the figures for 4E sales stack up to 3E and even 2E for that matter.

I guess I just find it hard to believe that DnD in general, being the monster of RPG's, and my favorite pasttime, is such small potatoes in the grand scale of things.

*LOL*

Yeah, I don't think a lot of people realize just how little D&D the RPG meant to WOTC's bottom line.

Everything that has been mentioned by others is that there literally is a magnitude of at a least a 100 between what M:TG pulls in and what the RPG does.

Then you have the DDM line which does gangbusters AND the novels which do pretty well for WOTC and then throw in things like Heroscape and Avalon Hill?

To any other RPG company, D&D is by leaps and bounds the biggest RPG ever, but to WOTC itself?

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it only ranked 5th or 6th in terms of revenue for the company.

CharlesRyan · Oct 22, 2008

Here are some factoids about D&D's relationship to WotC and Hasbro from someone who knows*:

Hasbro is a very large company with literally hundreds of brands. Some (like Transformers) are huge. Others are quite small. D&D is probably about average.

D&D is not WotC's biggest brand. It is, however, one of its biggest brands. It is strategically important and has sales across multiple categories and channels. It is not a red-headed stepchild simpering quietly in a corner. It is not unknown to WotC or Hasbro senior management.

Hasbro is a very large company with literally hundreds of brands. It does not employ a cadre of "suits" to look over the shoulders of the people in charge of those brands. The Tonka team isn't ordered to do this or that by the "suits," and neither is the D&D team.

In other words, as hard as this is to believe, things that happen with D&D happen neither because the brand is shunned, nor because the Hasborgs "made" WotC do them.

The Hasbro quarterly conference call focuses on factors that drive substantial ups and downs in Hasbro's recent and future performance. Brands that perform within expectations are rarely mentioned--no matter how large or small they are. If D&D isn't mentioned, that's because it's doing what's expected of it.

This concludes Charles's traditional quarterly rant about peoples comments on the Hasbro conference call.

* Technically, someone who used to know. Haven't been in the building for a few years. But still well connected.

Chainsaw · Oct 22, 2008

As someone who listens to well over a hundred corporate conference calls a year (literally), I can attest to the validity of Charles' comment on what management teams focus on in conference calls - sources of substantial ups and downs. Anything that falls within expectations tends to be of little interest to the calls' target audience (professional equity and debt analysts).