WotC Hasbro Gaming Down 17% But D&D Remains 'Bright Spot'

ICv2 reports on Hasbro's latest quarterly report, noting that "Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons were two bright spots in Hasbro’s Q3, an otherwise tough quarter with sales and earnings both hit by actual and threatened tariffs on goods from China".

Other notes from ICv2:

• Hasbro Gaming, which does not include franchise brands Monopoly and Magic: The Gathering, was down 17%
• Total gaming sales, including Magic and Monopoly, were roughly flat, a big change from the 26% growth in Q2
• WotC has close to a dozen [digital] games in development for delivery over the next five to six years
• Hasbro believes that WotC sales can be doubled over the next five years, “…as we’ve accomplished over the past five years.”

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

There are fewer births and this means less children buying toys, but there is future for adult collectors. And some franchises can survive in the digital media. Some eggs should be in the basket of the videogames.

My suggestion is a dungeon crawler board game for +7y children, with a right and fun gameplay.

 

[darjr]

A light game like Dungeon! but more cooperative would be amazing.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I think this deserves a call-out too:



"only a small perecentage" can mean a lot of things, I suppose, but to me this suggests that most D&D sales are still happening at the small retailer level rather than the big online sellers or the chains like B&N. Is there another way to read that claim that I'm not seeing?

All the digital copies of the D&D books being bought on DNDBeyond, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, etc?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I was thinking about something like "Hero Quest" but with other name "Endless Quest" because reasons of trademark, and with a right leveling up, earning coins to buy item. I didn't like 2002 version because the leveling up was automatic as the milestones system, and there was a limit for number of weapons. If you find a new weapon and wanted to keep it, then you had to descart other.

Somebody may want an advanced version but this could be a free PDF to download from internet to your computer, or your tablet. Or with an optional single player mode where the IA would be an app in the mobile or tablet. This wouldn't control the game really but showing when a PC falls in a hidden trap or telling dialogues with nPCs as the kidnapped princess.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Huh, why am I so ... suspicious that we will probably never see more than one of these and that will only be some sort of alpha demo?

I mean, MTG Arena has been overwhelmingly successful by the accounts I've heard. Like it took 20 years to get from Shandalar to today, but they really did make the game work digitally with a fairly intuitive interface. The only complaints I've heard about it are: a) the automatic mana tap algorithm can be a bit stupid (but you can tap by hand), and b) you still have to use MTG Online to play with sets that predate MTG Arena.

 

[Jer]

All the digital copies of the D&D books being bought on DNDBeyond, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, etc?

I thought about that, but I can't believe that would overwhelm sales on Amazon and through retail bookstores to the point where they could claim that those two sources were "only a small percentage" of their sales.

Even if they're including the percentages they're getting from DM's Guild sales in there I find it hard to believe that those sources put together would amount to more than the big retailers, but maybe?

 

[gyor]

ICv2 reports on Hasbro's latest quarterly report, noting that "Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons were two bright spots in Hasbro’s Q3, an otherwise tough quarter with sales and earnings both hit by actual and threatened tariffs on goods from China".

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Other notes from ICv2:

• Hasbro Gaming, which does not include franchise brands Monopoly and Magic: The Gathering, was down 17%
• Total gaming sales, including Magic and Monopoly, were roughly flat, a big change from the 26% growth in Q2
• WotC has close to a dozen [digital] games in development for delivery over the next five to six years
• Hasbro believes that WotC sales can be doubled over the next five years, “…as we’ve accomplished over the past five years.”

You mean a dozen new games, not including updates to say Magic Arena, Magic Online, and Nevergood Online?

I know of a MtG CRPG MMO being developed by Crytic who made the fun Star Trek Online and the aweful Nevergood Online, and I know about BG3 from Larian Studios, but I'm curious about the other ten or so games.

I wonder if they are counting officially licienced SRD games like Solasta?

Or maybe BG4 or an Eberron Single Player CRPG or a Pool of Radiance 3, or Planescape: Torment 2 or something completely unexpected. I just hope they aren't going to go back to generic boring trash games.

 

[gyor]

I'll admit that as much as I hate Nevergood, cryptic is a master of exploiting gambling addiction via loot boxes so WotC likely makes a lot of money on Nevergood.

 

[Zardnaar]

Morally opposed to loot boxes. I just boycott any game with them.

 

[Parmandur]

Wait, WotC sales doubled over the last five years? The duration of this edition? I would love to know how much of that was D&D.

A lot of it will be D&D, but Magic is also as popular as it has ever been, bigger than Monopoly now, so probably mainly Magic.

Don't forget Avalon Hill, WotC has been doing some fun stuff with board games, too.