Parmandur
Book-Friend
Why not Zelda...? That's even better than Godzilla MtG cards!
WotC Hasbro Reports First Quarter Earnings
Why not Zelda...? That's even better than Godzilla MtG cards!
LuisCarlos17f
Legend
Because Zelda is a known franchise, and enough open to allow a "reboot".
Don't trust Amazon sales ranks as a form of financial data. Those numbers of intentionally modified by both Amazon and sellers to get you to buy more stuff. And even if they were reliable, there's simply no way to compare one section to another.
I know it might be unexpected, but Monopoly (as a brand) is possibly outselling the entire TTRPG industry, combined. The order Hasbo listed things in were in order of financial importance. Here's some hard numbers for you to consider. I'm going to focus on 2017 a lot, because it's a recent year that I could get a lot of freely accessible data on.
For starters, the board game market is probably about 5 times the size of the TTRPG market ($55M vs $280M in 2017):
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
This is a compilation of the icv2.com retailer surveys of Top Five Roleplaying Games. They are generally compiled quarterly (with some exceptions). ICv2 notes that "the chart [are] based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers." Thanks to jodyjohnson for sterling...
www.enworld.org
But, that's considering the games only. You also need to consider merchandising, spin off computer and phone games, advertising tie ins, movies, etc, etc. For example, right now there are at least 5 Monopoly branded games in the Google Play store right now, with at least 15M downloads (total). Not to mention Monopoly on iOS, Switch, Playstation, Xbox, Windows, and even Kindle. Meanwhile Waterdeep sits at around 1M downloads on Android and Neverwinter Nights got a Windows special edition re-release in 2018.
In 2017, Hasbro listed Transformers, Nerf, Monopoly and My Little Pony as their biggest sources of revenue:
They didn't give an exact breakdown, but they said that these four brands accounted for about half of their annual revenue. Magic: The Gathering, Play-doh, and Littlest Pet Shop were the other names on the top of their list.
In 2017, Monopoly had a total brand valuation (not the same as income, but a valuable quantifier for comparison) of $132M, ranked at #16 on this list:
By comparison, Nerf (Hasbro's self proclaimed "largest brand") was valued around $297 at #5, MLP was $198M at #10. M:tG was not listed in USD, but was slot #18. But, you'll notice that Monopoly is the only individual board game on the list of top #25 toy brands. It's #1 in a market that's 5x the size of D+D's.
The important takeaway, here is that D&D doesn't even rank on these lists. It's been consistently well documented that M:tG significantly outperforms D&D in terms of revenue. Even if D&D is growing at a rate of 50% a year since 2017, it still hasn't caught up to M:tG, and M:tG trails behind Monopoly.
Our hobby is owned by Uncle Pennybags.
Giltonio_Santos
Hero
I've played with all that stuff and I think this is well-deserved. I can't wait for the toddler to grow up, so we can run around the house doing some harsh battle with nerf weapons. Who needs geeky Dungeons & Dragons anyway?
Parmandur
Book-Friend
Why not both?
Giltonio_Santos
Hero
Sure, maybe we'll try to find the spare time to do some exploration at the Moathouse and a bit of social interaction at the village of Hommlet. It builds character, after all!
That's called "larp".
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