WotC WotC Generates 75% Of Hasbro's Profit

ICv2 is reporting that WotC generated $110M of Hasbro's $147.3M operating profits in the first quarter of this year, with an increase of 15% on last year.

Of overall sales, WotC generated (only!) 22% of Hasbro's $1.1B.

The growth is attributed to Magic: the Gathering and D&D. Recently, Hasbro restructured with 'WotC and Digital Gaming' getting it own division.

WotC - D&D Gets A New Division At Hasbro

Hasbro is reorganizing and giving tabletop gaming -- Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering -- a higher priority. According to the Wall Street Journal, WotC's revenue last year was $816 million (a 24% increase on 2019). Brian Goldner, Hasbro's Chief Executive, says WotC is predicted to...

www.enworld.org

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Hasbro AFAIK has NEVER sold an IP, they put it on the shelf to use later.

That is not correct, I'm afraid, though a lot of people have claimed it:

Atari Interactive - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hasbro sold 100% of Hasbro Interactive to the French software company Infogrames.[5] The sale included nearly all of their video game related rights and properties, the Atari brand and Hasbro's Game.com division, developer MicroProse and all of its software titles up to that point except for the Avalon Hill property.

Emphasis mine.

On June 9, 2005, Hasbro bought back the digital gaming rights for their properties from Atari for $65 million.[10] In the deal, Atari's parent company acquired a 10-year exclusive deal to produce video games based on 10 key Hasbro franchises, including Dungeons & Dragons, Monopoly, Scrabble, Game of Life, Battleship, Clue, Yahtzee, Simon, Risk and Boggle. Hasbro bought back the digital rights to Transformers, My Little Pony, Tonka, Magic: The Gathering, Connect Four, Candy Land and Playskool.

They entirely sold the rights to some properties, and the digital rights to others. They were sold in perpetuity, note - this wasn't just licensing out. And then, realizing the mistake they'd made with some of those properties (but not all of them), they bought back those rights - luckily the buyer hadn't had much success with them!

 

[Dausuul]

With so much revenue, will Wizards of the Coast ever be able to purchase freedom from the Hasbro corporate enslavement? Like is there an escape clause in the contract that sold WoTC to Hasbro?

Escape? I think you have the nature of the relationship confused. With numbers like that, Wizards is not locked up with Hasbro; Hasbro is locked up with Wizards.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Escape? I think you have the nature of the relationship confused. With numbers like that, Wizards is not locked up with Hasbro; Hasbro is locked up with Wizards.

Are you saying WotC is Rorschach in this scenario? Is Hasbro going to end up electrocuted in toilet water?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

it is very much usually in the writing, and even good writers often have bad scripts.

I tend to find it is the acting and the music that makes or breaks a movie. Script, and especially plot, is pretty much irrelevant.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Regarding other brands, toys especially, it seems the higher price of oil impacts the margins of Hasbro's line like My Little Poney or Transformers. This is the reason why Hasbro published their plan to increase prices, and thus margins on toy lines.

That plus neither has major media offerings to push toy sales - Transformers last movie was Bumblebee which was well-received but had weakened sales due to Covid, and MLP is between shows right now (although the new show should be out later this year or early next year) - in other words, they're both in slumps.

Which isn't to say WotC isn't doing something amazing - they not only filled the gap but are matching what Hasbro was doing with it's best IP before.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I tend to find it is the acting and the music that makes or breaks a movie. Script, and especially plot, is pretty much irrelevant.

Fair enough. I'd say that in terms of both critical and audience reactions though, if a movie is going to fail, the most common point of failure now is the script. You can succeed with a terrible script, of course - particularly if you have flashy directing, decent acting, and strong VFX/music etc., but if you're going to crash and burn despite stuff like that, it usually down to the story and/or lines being terrible, or if a movie is going to just "hard to watch" it's likely that. It's actually quite rare to see bad acting outside lower-budget movies or certain comedies these days, I feel. Whereas in the 1990s, say, oh god, like 50/50 chance if one of the leads is just terrible and it's unclear how they even got the part. I guess the main point is the script needs to suit the movie - F&F scripts aren't epics of amazing writing, but they're perfect for the movies, and get the themes of those movies, and how they work (like the whole "family" thing).

 

[Dire Bare]

Good writing and directing are very important IMO. However, good writing and directing talent does not guarantee a well written screenplay and well directed movie (which you noted). Good talent, IMO, fails to deliver on these fronts more often than not. It is a difficult thing to do well and even good talent misses more than it hits IMO

EDIT: I think in this context, familiarity with the content is also a good thing (along with talent).

I think @dave2008 has a point re: writing, simply because looking at where medium-to-big budget movies fall down, 2010-present, it is very much usually in the writing, and even good writers often have bad scripts. For example, the same guy wrote the script for Arrival and the script for Bird Box, and not long apart either. Arrival was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars, and Bird Box... well... also an adapted screenplay... and not a good one. Yet then he went on to be showrunner and one of the writers for recent Netflix Shadow and Bone adaptation (if anyone needs an "Eberron" show there you have something close), which is solidly better than the book its based on. Or look at the same guy writing the final draft on Prometheus (appalling tosh) and the Watchman TV series (somehow about as good as the original, astonishing comic series). Indeed he's done a lot of "Ooof bad" and "Wow great" stuff. This is very much not how it was in the 1990s, say, where a lot more movies got let down by terrible acting or bizarre directorial choices.

If we're looking at point of failure, and you have experienced writers, actors, and director, writers are the most likely point of failure.

Yeah . . . that's what I said.

 

[TheSword]

For example, the same guy wrote the script for Arrival and the script for Bird Box, and not long apart either. Arrival was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars, and Bird Box... well... also an adapted screenplay... and not a good one.

Bird box is a great film.

Editors in my opinion have far more impact that anyone else. Bad edit and pacing has messed up more films for me than any other thing. Even when the cast, director and writer mean I should love the thing.

 

[dave2008]

Yeah . . . that's what I said.

Yeah, I kinda realized that after I wrote my post. However, I think what @Ruin Explorer and I are emphasizing is that writing is the weak link. Good acting and directing talent tends to be more consistent IMO. But good writing talent seems to be more hit and miss when it comes to movies.

 

[dave2008]

I tend to find it is the acting and the music that makes or breaks a movie. Script, and especially plot, is pretty much irrelevant.

I disagree to some extent. I think it is complex and no one component makes a good movie. I can often enjoy movies that have mediocre acting if the story, plot, VFX, etc are good. The one that typically stands out to me the most; however, is bad writing. If the dialog is bad and the plot / story isn't interesting then I typically enjoy the movie less. There are exceptions (giant monster movies), but that holds true for me in most instances.

I will use HBO's GoT as an example ( I know that is not a movie). The special effects got bigger and better as the series went on, but the writing and plot got worse. A lot of people think the last season or two were pretty bad because of the plot / writing, not the rather fantastic dragons and awesome battles.