'Magic' the 'Largest Game Brand'

Morrus · Feb 8, 2012

It's somewhat tangential to RPG news, but has relevancy in that Magic: The Gathering is D&D publisher WotC's largest brand by far - and thus speaks to WotC's importance as a division of Hasbro, their RPG lines notwithstanding. ICv2 is reporting that M:tG is the largest game brand in the US.

Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner told analysts in the company’s conference call this week that Magic: The Gathering is “…the largest game brand in the U.S.” (apparently excluding videogames from the comparison). And for the first time, a Hasbro exec has characterized the size of the brand, implying that it’s $200 million or more. In praising the Wizards of the Coast management team Goldner noted that the team had taken Magic, “which totaled less than $100 million in revenues in 2008 and was on the decline, to where it is today,… more than double the size it was just three years ago.”

Gundark · Feb 9, 2012

I am wondering if has anything to do with the new D&D? Maybe with Magic doing so well they have eased off of D&D needing to be a 100 million dollar contender?

Or not...

SnowleopardVK · Feb 9, 2012

Whenever Magic does something new, all the shipments of D&D and Pathfinder stuff at my FLGS gets delayed by 2 weeks. Always 2 weeks exactly.

This news kind of helps explain why that happens. Still not happy about it though...

William Ronald · Feb 9, 2012

Gundark said:
I am wondering if has anything to do with the new D&D? Maybe with Magic doing so well they have eased off of D&D needing to be a 100 million dollar contender?

Or not...

Possibly Hasbro might think that WotC could dramatically increase the value of the Dungeons and Dragon brand, and may try to include peripheral products -- board games, books, toys and other merchandise -- into their calculations for the potential size of the brand.

Relique du Madde · Feb 9, 2012

I think one reason for this is might be because the costs involved with the production of one Magic expansion could be insignificant compaired to the costs involved with the production on one run of DnD books. That and the very nature of collectable card games causes the players to buy multiple copies of a product (a booster or starter set) unlike DnD where each table can have as little of one copy of each book (if any).

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GSHamster · Feb 9, 2012

Gundark said:
I am wondering if has anything to do with the new D&D? Maybe with Magic doing so well they have eased off of D&D needing to be a 100 million dollar contender?

It's possible that WotC attributes the latest successes to a change in process, how they create Magic sets. They might be experimenting with applying the same processes to D&D.

If you look at some of the comments they've made about D&D Next, it's clear that they've formed into a Design team and a Development team, which is how Magic sets are created. As well, some people from the Magic side have moved to D&D.

Doubling the sales of Magic is a very impressive feat, especially when you consider that most CCGs are fads, and build to a peak before dying out. Maybe WotC thinks it can do the same with D&D.

Hussar · Feb 9, 2012

Didn't they always have a Design Team and a Development Team?

catsclaw227 · Feb 9, 2012

My FLGS has weekly scheduled regular and junior Magic tournaments and they fill all the tables in their gaming room.

An awesome FLGS, for sure - they have regularly filled Board-Game nights, Tuesday and Wednesday Encounters, open RPG nights, Pathfinder Society, and I think Yu-Gi-Oh.

But the Magic evenings, when I have stumbled in to browse by accident, are PACKED. Young and Old.

Nikosandros · Feb 9, 2012

Hussar said:
Didn't they always have a Design Team and a Development Team?

I'm positive that they had such an arrangement for producing 4e. I'm not sure if they had implemented this structure even earlier. The credits for the 3.5 PHB do not list a development team.

Henry · Feb 9, 2012

Relique du Madde said:
I think one reason for this is might be because the costs involved with the production of one Magic expansion could be insignificant compaired to the costs involved with the production on one run of DnD books. That and the very nature of collectable card games causes the players to buy multiple copies of a product (a booster or starter set) unlike DnD where each table can have as little of one copy of each book (if any).

-Sent via Tapatalk

The first statement would be pretty debatable, though -- You still have significant art costs, and the mechanical design work for a new MtG set is probably on par with the mechanical work for a D&D rules expansion, because they have to figure out not just new interesting mechanics for the expansion, but also account for how those rules work with previous releases, pretty same as for an RPG, but without the mitigating influence of a referee at said table. (Based on my experiences, D&D 'rules lawyers' have got NOTHING on MtG 'rules lawyers', especially because without a referee, breaking the game is pretty definitive.) So, while I'm guessing R&D for Magic is a hefty chunk of change, I'd agree with the second one -- I used to buy boxes and boxes of the same expansion in Magic, just to get 4-of-a-kind for every card as much as I could.

Fortunately, common sense and marriage finally burned out my Magic-insanity years ago.