Quote from: Jaeger on February 27, 2021, 09:37:04 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on February 27, 2021, 11:39:21 AM
WotC was more profitable than the entire of Hasbros toy and game division, by 112 Million.

I know! Amazing right!?

Have you caught on yet that no one is disputing that 5e is selling amazingly well?

But how much of that WOTC profit is D&D, and how much is MAGIC?

Did you know that WOTC did not beat the toy and game division by the number of products sold?

They beat the Hasbro toy and game division due to their higher profit margins on certain products.

I'm not sure what the margins are on Hardcover D&D books vs. little Magic cards... Anyone??

WOTC = D&D + MAGIC.

We don't know for sure what portion is which, all we know is D&D has gone up massively every year, while Magic is going down, and they just announced more prominence for D&D on multiple fronts. They're moving tons of people over TO D&D right now, and announced they will increase the product rate. Read the fucking room man. 

Quote from: Jaeger on March 02, 2021, 10:47:56 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on March 02, 2021, 10:36:42 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on February 25, 2021, 05:44:49 PM
https://www.wsj.com/articles/dungeons-dragons-gets-a-bigger-role-at-hasbro-11614254403?f

This article has a strange quote ... "Hasbro hopes the reorganization will allow it to replicate Wizard of the Coast's success in digital games."

So, it appears that WotC big increase in revenue has little to do with face-to-face RPGs like D&D and everything to do with MTG Arena.

Yes.

MAGIC was always the bigger earner over D&D by orders of magnitude.

Even Magic grew 23% this year...

Quote from: moonsweeper on March 02, 2021, 09:43:03 PM
...

...and the fact that they are 'all or nothing' yet realize their messaging only works in increments tells you how dishonest they are.  If the little brownshirts thought their message was true and not simply a way to project power, they would know that it could stand on its own...
...

Exactly.

Have you never heard of D&D Beyond and DMs Guild? Are you just unaware they're selling tons of content through Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds?

It's not Magic. Magic has been on the decline for years and it's growth is minuscule compared to the D&D growth. Why the fuck do you think they pushed forward so hard on the D&D movie? Why do you think they keep mentioning D&D in their stockholders meetings? Why do you think all the press coverage is focused on D&D?

Quote from: Mistwell on March 02, 2021, 10:50:29 PM

Have you never heard of D&D Beyond and DMs Guild? Are you just unaware they're selling tons of content through Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds?

Are you unaware that Magic still sells like crack cocaine?

Evidently, yes...

Quote from: Mistwell on March 02, 2021, 10:50:29 PM
It's not Magic. Magic has been on the decline for years and it's growth is minuscule compared to the D&D growth. Why the fuck do you think they pushed forward so hard on the D&D movie? Why do you think they keep mentioning D&D in their stockholders meetings? Why do you think all the press coverage is focused on D&D?...

MAGIC declining? You actually read the investors call press releases right?
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/hasbro-reorganizes-support-big-growth-dungeons-dragons-magic-gathering/

What part of MAGIC growing 23% over last year is hard to understand?

What part of "Hasbro  also announced that it plans to continue bringing crossover content to Magic: The Gathering." And other Pro-Magic initiatives announced by Hasbro are hard to understand.

What part of me saying MAGIC was the bigger earner, but D&D had the more exploitable IP was hard for you to understand. Which is why a lot of those media initiatives favor D&D. But Magic is getting its own media initiatives as well.

Research that then let us know what you find...

Everyone knows MAGIC was always a bigger earner than D&D.
From 2019:
https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-details/hasbro-reports-revenue-operating-profit-and-earnings-share
Entertainment, Licensing and Digital segment net revenues increased 24% to $92.0 million compared to $74.4 million in 2018. Revenue growth was driven by Magic: The Gathering Arena and consumer products licensing revenue. ...
Hasbro's total gaming category, including all gaming revenue, most notably MAGIC: THE GATHERING and MONOPOLY, which are included in Franchise Brands in the table above, totaled $243.4 million for the first quarter 2019, up 20%, versus $203.5 million for the first quarter 2018. ...

Ohh look, there's Magic bringing in that digital money too...

Do you just throw those links up hoping that I won't actually read them?

5e is selling amazingly well. Stupid silly.

But Magic is still fucking Magic...

Quote from: Jaeger on March 03, 2021, 12:09:39 AM
But Magic is still fucking Magic...

So it is not just me that remembers WotC buying TSR from essentially their cash on hand?

Quote from: Shasarak on March 03, 2021, 12:37:06 AM

Quote from: Jaeger on March 03, 2021, 12:09:39 AM
But Magic is still fucking Magic...

So it is not just me that remembers WotC buying TSR from essentially their cash on hand?

To be fair, TSR had been run into the ground by that point thru mismanagement.

Quote from: Jaeger on March 03, 2021, 12:09:39 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on March 02, 2021, 10:50:29 PM
It's not Magic. Magic has been on the decline for years and it's growth is minuscule compared to the D&D growth. Why the fuck do you think they pushed forward so hard on the D&D movie? Why do you think they keep mentioning D&D in their stockholders meetings? Why do you think all the press coverage is focused on D&D?...

MAGIC declining? You actually read the investors call press releases right?
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/hasbro-reorganizes-support-big-growth-dungeons-dragons-magic-gathering/

What part of MAGIC growing 23% over last year is hard to understand?

What part of "Hasbro  also announced that it plans to continue bringing crossover content to Magic: The Gathering." And other Pro-Magic initiatives announced by Hasbro are hard to understand.

What part of me saying MAGIC was the bigger earner, but D&D had the more exploitable IP was hard for you to understand. Which is why a lot of those media initiatives favor D&D. But Magic is getting its own media initiatives as well.

I think Jaegar is right here. From what I can see, D&D is growing faster than Magic -- but it is still a much smaller profit earner. From ICv2 numbers (from hobby stores), the general collectible game market was about $600 million in 2018, which was ten times the size of the tabletop RPG market at around $60 million. ENWorld maintains a summary of those.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/top-5-rpgs-compiled-charts-2004-present.662563/

I suspect the key is that Magic players are more active and buy more than D&D players. A D&D player might one or two books that lasts them for years, while there is much more profit from a Magic player, who regularly buys new cards. Below are numbers from 2019 from a source that may count differently, so might not be directly comparable, but it was estimated the Magic brought in $500 worldwide.

QuoteWith a reported three million active users on MTG Arena, Hasbro banked $2.45 billion in net revenue last year, much in part to the MTG brand (tabletop and digital). Magic and Monopoly were the only brands to profit while others like Transformers, Play-Doh, Nerf, and My Little Pony didn't, according to Hasbro's annual reports. And it's estimated that MTG has already brought in around $500 million this year.

Source: https://dotesports.com/mtg/news/mtg-continues-to-make-millions-for-hasbro


D&D has had bigger growth in the past few years, but it's still a much smaller profit margin overall. The total number of players seems roughly comparable. Both games have had around 40 million people who have ever played, and maybe 10 to 15 million active players.

QuoteHasbro said that about 38 million people worldwide have played "at least one round" of Magic, though not all of these players are active now. On the earnings call, the company was hopeful that Arena, which can be played online, no trip to the local card game store required, would encourage lapsed players to return to the game.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurenorsini/2019/07/24/magic-the-gathering-leads-hasbros-second-quarter-earnings/?sh=92c99d62f54f

QuoteAccording to Wizards of the Coast, the company that has published D&D since the late '90s, over 40 Million people are estimated to have played Dungeons & Dragons.

Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/02/dungeons-dragons-creators-and-celebrity-players-explain-its-recent-surge-in-popularity

Magic is growing much faster than the rest of Hasbro, it brings the entire rest of the company up. As long as Magic is there producing good numbers the Hasbro executives look smart every year. Magic would be more valuable outside of Hasbro than inside of Hasbro, so there could be some investors who push for a sale, but it's unlikely.

D&D by itself can't possibly be worth enough to sell. If you assume D&D is $40m a year in sales, that's worth about $250-500m, it doesn't seem worth it.

Magic makes enough for Hasbro megacorp to care about it.

The entire point of D&D, though, is the brand. That property has "licensing" written all over it. Video games and twelve movie deal with a couple of Tv shows thrown in with a toy line and comics and wood burning set all leveraged off of it. They don't care about D&D sales. They care about the D&D brand and will build that brand in whatever way they need in order to get those sweet sweet licensing deals. Fuck the books. They will do just enough to keep it going while they cater to the younger audiences in twitch, etc ... all in order to build the brand.

Further, modern megacorp theory is that no brand is worth owning unless it can enhance, and be enhanced by, the other brands. Hence a D&D magic setting, or D&D in magic. Or in Transformers, or boardgames, or whatever. There is at least one person at WOTC whose job it is to leverage other brands at Hasbro and be leveraged by them ... all in order to build profits and brand.

Quote from: bryce0lynch on March 04, 2021, 10:42:08 AM
Magic makes enough for Hasbro megacorp to care about it.

The entire point of D&D, though, is the brand. That property has "licensing" written all over it. Video games and twelve movie deal with a couple of Tv shows thrown in with a toy line and comics and wood burning set all leveraged off of it. They don't care about D&D sales. They care about the D&D brand and will build that brand in whatever way they need in order to get those sweet sweet licensing deals. Fuck the books. They will do just enough to keep it going while they cater to the younger audiences in twitch, etc ... all in order to build the brand.

Further, modern megacorp theory is that no brand is worth owning unless it can enhance, and be enhanced by, the other brands. Hence a D&D magic setting, or D&D in magic. Or in Transformers, or boardgames, or whatever. There is at least one person at WOTC whose job it is to leverage other brands at Hasbro and be leveraged by them ... all in order to build profits and brand.

Exhibit A: the recently announced Warhammer 40K Magic cards.

Quote from: bryce0lynch on March 04, 2021, 10:42:08 AM
Magic makes enough for Hasbro megacorp to care about it.

The entire point of D&D, though, is the brand. That property has "licensing" written all over it. Video games and twelve movie deal with a couple of Tv shows thrown in with a toy line and comics and wood burning set all leveraged off of it. They don't care about D&D sales. They care about the D&D brand and will build that brand in whatever way they need in order to get those sweet sweet licensing deals. Fuck the books. They will do just enough to keep it going while they cater to the younger audiences in twitch, etc ... all in order to build the brand.

Further, modern megacorp theory is that no brand is worth owning unless it can enhance, and be enhanced by, the other brands. Hence a D&D magic setting, or D&D in magic. Or in Transformers, or boardgames, or whatever. There is at least one person at WOTC whose job it is to leverage other brands at Hasbro and be leveraged by them ... all in order to build profits and brand.

No wonder we're getting stuff like the Cauldron book and such. Any sane game publisher would've asked these folks, 'Why are you devaluing our products?'

Quote from: jhkim on March 03, 2021, 04:13:46 PM
...D&D has had bigger growth in the past few years, but it's still a much smaller profit margin overall. The total number of players seems roughly comparable. Both games have had around 40 million people who have ever played, and maybe 10 to 15 million active players. ...

Exactly! And It is that D&D growth that has given them the confidence to pursue all the big dollar D&D media projects.

But until those projects bear fruit, Magic is the trading card crack-cocaine gift that just keeps on giving.

Quote from: jhkim on March 03, 2021, 04:13:46 PM
I think Jaegar is right here...

What's funny, is that if you look back at our first exchange – I was actually agreeing with him because I thought he made a very good point!

Especially about how Hasbro is seizing the moment to try and make the D&D IP a permanent franchise independent of the RPG. Literally zero attacks or disagreement from me about anything he wrote in his post that I responded to!

But he had to be double right or something, and chose to rehash an argument from another thread that he lost. I guess he wanted to relive the experience.

And then he tries to Mike-Drop the WOTC press releases showing how profitable they are. Trying to insinuate two things IMHO:

1: D&D is so profitable, it is Woke-Proof.

2: Conflate: WOTC growth = D&D   


#1 Busted with the well-known examples of the DC and Marvel Superhero comics industry and the "new" Dr. Who tv show.

#2 Busted in the last few posts.

Worth noting that even in the case of Dr. Who – it took seven years of pushing the woke from their all-time ratings high to get to the state that they are in right now. Fans are longsuffering when it comes to their favorite IP.

And D&D has grown so much compared to any other RPG, I do not think that it is out of the realm of possibility to suggest that even if they go full woke; they could afford to lose half their audience, and still be the #1 selling RPG...

Of course, in such a case the SJW's would point to the "still #1" status of D&D as an unequivocal endorsement of the stunning and brave direction they have taken the RPG hobby in!


As for signs of HASBRO letting WOTC go full woke...

I had been chided in previous threads for daring to suggest that HASBRO, a for-profit company might allow woke messaging to interfere with the almighty bottom line.

Mentions of Ms. Monopoly, and the attempts to un-gender Mr. potato head have been brushed off as anomalies.

After all, surely HASBRO would step in and get things under control before WOTC starts to go Full-Woke...


To that line of thinking, I can only offer Exhibit A:
https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1364316059747016706

Quote from: Jaeger on March 05, 2021, 08:17:09 PM

To that line of thinking, I can only offer Exhibit A:
https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1364316059747016706

She is so fucking toxic. I don't think WOTC will have the sense to dump her like Arena.Net did.

Quote from: Mistwell on February 25, 2021, 05:44:49 PM
Big WOTC announcement today:

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 double revenue from 2019 to 2023.

Hasbro is dividing into three 'units' -- Consumer Products (toys, classic board games); Entertainment (film, TV, licensing); and Wizards & Digital (WotC plus digital licensing).

Hasbro bought WotC in 1999 for about $325M.

Link:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dungeons-dragons-gets-a-bigger-role-at-hasbro-11614254403?f

And yet they shitcanned the Transformers CCG. 

It's not a coincidence that even back in 1994, the ones among us who spoke english referred to Magic as "Magic: The Gathering of Your Money".

I actually feel physical pain at the thought of how many more TSR-era books and boxed sets I might have if I hadn't spent a considerable amount of money on Magic between 94 and 98.

It's made worse by the fact that our money was worth a lot in those days. in 94-95 the US Dollar was worth only between 80 and 95 cents of Real. As a consequence, it was pretty easy to get imported stuff at reasonable prices. Nowadays, the exchange rate is over 5 Reais for 1 USD...the pain...

MY ROUGH estimate of 2020 for the breakdown of MtG v. D&D is about $520m/296m. Given projections, the 2023 unit would have revenue of about $1.3B (and I'd guess $900m for MtG and about $400m from D&D)... but much depends on the movie.

There is no way HAS sells WOTC when its performance in as it is. There would have to be serious equity-owner pressure or obvious divestiture valuation that puts WOTC at a higher value outside the HAS corporate model. There's probably a scope of economies premium of around $100m favoring the cross-unit leveraging of brands.

Coming soon to a happy meal near you? Probably magic cards and nice D&D figs. I'd guess within 3 years. (My son just bought 10 happy meals and gathered up his 25th anniversary Pokemon cards... he's setting up his sales, probably about $250 in the collector market, though he does have a rare holo card we're going to keep and frame).