WotC $HAS Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call + D&D and Chris Cocks on AI usage transcript excerpt (26Feb10)

[bedir than]

Hopefully there's more about D&D in the live Q&A. I never get up early enough for that

 

[aiouh]

In other news, HAS is up 7,20% since yesterday.

Hopefully there's more about D&D in the live Q&A. I never get up early enough for that

Eric Owen Handler

ROTH Capital Partners, LLC, Research Division

Okay. That's helpful. And I know a lot of this stuff goes hand in hand. You're spending a lot of time talking about entertainment-
driven properties for your consumer products. Wondered if you could talk about the outlook in 2026 or sort of like your first-party
types of products?

Christian P. Cocks

President & COO

Yes. Well, certainly, I think Magic is going to do pretty well. I think D&D is going to do pretty well as well, and Peppa Pig has some significant room to grow. I think our board games and PLAY-DOH also look pretty good. Some of our more entertainment-driven properties like Transformers are probably going to have a down year. But that's held up remarkably well. We grew Transformers
last year despite not having any entertainment. And so I think for our first party, we see upside. We would like to grow that as a
percentage of our business while still working with partners and growing them because obviously, it's margin accretive. And we feel
pretty good about the hand that we have. I don't know, Gina, do you have anything to add?

Gina Goetter

CFO & COO

Ferby will be down here, I'm just think about that one.

Christian P. Cocks

President & COO

Ferb is kind of getting near the end of its life cycle.

That's the only mention of it in the Q&A. All investors are interested in seems to be Magic and Monopoly Go!

 

[mearls]

I suspect it is because Hasbro really doesn't want people to know the exact earnings trajectory of MtG and D&D. Its harder to defend exact numbers than vibes. "Magic is doing really well and D&D is doing good" seems like a comfortable place to be.

To be fair, that’s how all companies do it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Non-WotC seems to be taking a massive non-recurring hit to their operations this year.

Uh-oh.

Last time WotC did good and was profitable, and non-WotC Hasbro did poorly, WotC saw huge cuts to staff. Maybe the stock going up will prevent them feeling the need to do that at least.

 

[Reynard]

Uh-oh.

Last time WotC did good and was profitable, and non-WotC Hasbro did poorly, WotC saw huge cuts to staff. Maybe the stock going up will prevent them feeling the need to do that at least.

Man, I do not understand how corporations make decisions.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Man, I do not understand how corporations make decisions.

It's sadly a truism that cutting staff causes your stock price to go up, even often in situations where cutting staff doesn't obviously benefit the company and might potentially harm them. As execs tend to have a lot of shares in the company (often it's a major part of their renumeration, making up for on-paper "only" 6 or very low 7 digit salaries) it behooves them to do literally anything to make those shares go up in the short term, especially if they're not planning on sticking with the company indefinitely.

 

[Reynard]

It's sadly a truism that cutting staff causes your stock price to go up, even often in situations where cutting staff doesn't obviously benefit the company and might potentially harm them. As execs tend to have a lot of shares in the company (often it's a major part of their renumeration, making up for on-paper "only" 6 or very low 7 digit salaries) it behooves them to do literally anything to make those shares go up in the short term, especially if they're not planning on sticking with the company indefinitely.

My #1 wish for D&D is that it would go back into the hands of private company run by people that love D&D.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My #1 wish for D&D is that it would go back into the hands of private company run by people that love D&D.

I mean, I'm not sure D&D has ever really been in that situation for very long at any time. You could perhaps say when TSR was small that was the case, and then again when WotC first got hold of D&D that was the case but Hasbro bought WotC like, what less than three years after WotC bought D&D? They did outwardly seem to mostly stay out of WotC's business in the 3E era, except for the truly demented decision by Hasbro to immediately throw away all D&D's videogame rights forever (literally), for an absolutely paltry sum. This lead to a decade largely barren of D&D videogames, and half a decade of lawsuits (as some may recall) before Hasbro eventually managed to arm-twist sufficiently that they were allowed to buy the rights back.

 

[Reynard]

I mean, I'm not sure D&D has ever really been in that situation for very long at any time. You could perhaps say when TSR was small that was the case, and then again when WotC first got hold of D&D that was the case but Hasbro bought WotC like, what less than three years after WotC bought D&D? They did outwardly seem to mostly stay out of WotC's business in the 3E era, except for the truly demented decision by Hasbro to immediately throw away all D&D's videogame rights forever (literally), for an absolutely paltry sum. This lead to a decade largely barren of D&D videogames, and half a decade of lawsuits (as some may recall) before Hasbro eventually managed to arm-twist sufficiently that they were allowed to buy the rights back.

Oh, I did not want to suggest that was likely, or even a state of affairs that (like you say) has ever been true for very long.

I guess the other option would be for it to lose its pop culture appeal and go back to being relatively obscure, so no one in corporate cares enough to mess with creative.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I guess the other option would be for it to lose its pop culture appeal and go back to being relatively obscure, so no one in corporate cares enough to mess with creative.

I don't think that would stop them, sadly, when owned by a corporation.

I think, based on the history of D&D at WotC/Hasbro, there's a very narrow band of existence between "The execs have Big Ideas for D&D! < shark-like grin >" and "We've decided to vault the respected D&D IP for now until conditions are more favourable". Indeed "Make big money or D&D gets it!" was the stick behind 4E's digital subscription-oriented push.

The flipside is that if you want a D&D that isn't owned by a corporation and doesn't have pop culture appeal there are a lot of D&Ds out there like that!