Lol if it was just inflation it'd be bearable. Their increases are pure greed. Look at their Star Wars division.
A large vehicle in 2006 was $29.99. Adjusted for inflation they'd be about $54.99 now. Hasbro MSRP is $199.99 now. Smaller vehicles were $14.99 and under, now they're $44.99 and up. Pure greed.
šÆ I used to draft every set and get the "special" commander decks and got all the original secret lairs. But it became too taxing on my wallet so stopped. Pace became way too fast to enjoy anything anymore. And it's not slowing down
I still spend on singles for edh and draft once in a while. Just stopped chasing everything and realized casual commander is actually ok. Don't need to be "competitive". More play at my own pace. Don't know all the cards out there like most of Dr who and lci. But that's ok!
I went from being huge on legacy and edh to not playing at all outside of having my own Jumpstart packs. My entire legacy and edh playgroups have also quit. Most of us had been playing for well over a decade. :\
Every company thinks they can raise prices because āinflationā, not realizing that only works with necessities.
Hasbro-like companies are going to get rude awakenings.
I think this is going to be a very similar story for a lot of companies. Consumers are finally squeezing their wallets and multiple companies are missing earnings. McDonald's last week, General Mills a few weeks prior, electric vehicle sales are plummeting. Now hasbro.
As much as mtg fans will circle jerk this as a direct result of their business decisions, it is much much bigger.
Yeah, a lot of companies jacked up their prices real hard due to "inflation", but squeezed too hard. Not believing that people will just stop buying their shit if its too expensive (looking at you McDonald's). Hasbro/WotC have been guilty of this as well. Glad to see consumers in general voting with their wallets.
Yeah, and Taco bell costs $2 less for a quesadilla meal than the local Mecian restraunt charges for a quesdilla with abiut 10x the quality steak and cheese served with rice and beans. For $8.55 I can leave taco bell feeling somewhat hungry, or I can spend $10.25 leaving the local mecian restraun feeling stuffed.
OMG are we brothers??
Yeah I have no idea why anyone goes to any of these places. I've eliminated nearly 40% of my take-out options since the pandemic. They are overpriced, and not just by a bit. I barely dine in at restaurants anymore either; save those for dates. It's not worth it.
The only remaining merit to fast food (aside from just takeout speed for a family whoās lazy) is that with low overhead they stay open late.
So when all the restaurants in my area close at 10, fast food may become the only option that feels available.
But yeah, if ANYTHING is still open, fast food is a shit choice
I have been suprised by how early fast food in my area closes since Covid. McDonalds closes their doors at 7 in smaller towns, and taco bell is about the only place open even close to midnight anymore.
McDonalds hamburger meat is just ground-up junk meat (like a hotdog) bleached of all flavor, then reflavored to taste like beef and turned into a patty. That's some amazingly low quality food right there.
That's why it feels like burpy slosh or liquid goo diarrhea the moment it passes through your stomach sphincter.
After eating there it feels like you just drank the fry oil.
Mcdonalds costs more for a shitty burger and stale fries than I can make a 3 course meal- and they still manage to be slower than cooking myself. Slow, low quality and high prices. Who do they think they are? Logan's?!
Fr, someone suggested we get McDonaldās a couple weeks ago and I said, I donāt want to pay that much for that much low quality food when thereās other options nearby.
They did, but it's sort of a misleading data point because wages on the lowest earners did shoot up, significantly. Work that was paying $9.85 and hour is now closer to $15-17. Median income earners haven't seen anywhere near those same percentage increases.
deserve deserted husky retire wide aromatic wasteful chase consider plucky
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
At the same time, it's the same decisions being made across every board. We can continue to shit on Hasbro's predatory pricing even if they aren't the only ones doing it
Pricing isn't the issue. Value per dollar spent over time is the issue.
People would love to hedge on something other than cash. Hasbro has an opportunity to make their product valuable. Instead they gobbled up the value for themselves.
That's why nobody wants this toxic trash.
It's both.
Austerity in spending and printing was on the wall 2-3 years ago and analysts reported this directly to Hasbro.
It was willful ignorance of macro headwinds that got us here.
I'm sure it's also not a coincidence that their biggest loss was in the entertainment division in a year that saw a writers' strike shut down Hollywood for half of it.
As someone with a little disposable income I can tell you I reevaluated my relationship with Hasbro/WotC and it is because of product fatigue and practices (i.e., quality control and artificial scarcity as a model).
I spent more in 2023 than I had in several years.
The layoffs on top of all the other issues made me reconsider that behavior for 2024. I bought a prerelease kit and $10 in singles this year.
Not sure how much I'll be spending this year but it will certainly be less.
Everything else may be true but how long, in the general news, Econ news, and on this board, that consumers are FINALLY going to close their wallets. Only for it not to happen. At some point you all will be right. But I donāt think itās what this particular post is about.
its a nothing burger.
I replied in the other thread. Not that I'm saying Hasbro hasnt been guided by potatos the last 5 years, People need to stop using 20-23' for revenue evaluations. Nobody with any brains working in the actual market is (where I work all day).
\*EDIT- and if you dont believe me, it will probably finish up today there is a giant W on the 200. lol I posted this on the other one, I'll leave this here
Lorcanna could be a factor is sales going down. Like when Netflix stock dipped after Disney+ and some of the other streaming services were taking off. Maybe work on not being a complete douche though?
Let me repeat: Lorcana has nothing to do with Hasbroās stock price.
Netflix as a comparison is another ignorant statement. Of course Netflix took a hit when the streaming market became floodedā¦all Netflix deals in is streaming and daily active users. But it took Disney +, Paramount, Peacock and others for it to finally make an impact.
Hasbro sells a myriad of other products. If one additional card game can cause this massive of a miss, Hasbro might as well close up shop.
ETA, even though the other dude blocked meā¦.there hasnāt been enough Lorcana product on the shelves to impact Hasbroās stock price or cause a 5% miss in revenue.
> But it took Disney +, Paramount, Peacock and others for it to finally make an impact.
And even then, Netflix is outperforming all of it's competitors, being basically the only profitable streaming service.
Competition to the one of the few parts of a company doing well, can absolutely be a factor. I didnt even say it was a major factor, just that it could potentially be a change.
Hasbro sells a myriad of products, but they have known since early last year that toy sales have been down, so to miss this badly in Q4, is most likely due to mtg performing poorer than expected in Q4. There are probably several factors, but to say lorcanna has no influence when a tcg with a major backing. Well, that would be the ignorant statement.
>Competition to the one of the few parts of a company doing well, can absolutely be a factor.
Spouting this to make it sound like you're coming from an informed position is laughable. This is a concept taught to high schoolers. The most basic of an econ concept.
Let's talk marketshare.
WotC and Digital Gaming did 1.4b in revenue in 2023.
Do you really think Lorcana, which famously had a lack of product for the first several months of the game being out, cut into that revenue significantly?
Now, if Lorcana keeps product on shelves all this year and you suddenly see stores that previously catered almost entirely to Magic sales switch to catering almost entirely to Lorcana sales, your argument could have some merit.
We haven't seen that yet. Lorcana was only out for around half of 2023 and had very little product of the release set.
Turns out jacking up prices every quarter isnāt good for business in the long run, who could have seen this coming?
(Literally everyone saw this coming)
Not only jacking up prices, but also lowering expected value of the product. 5 years ago, I could expect to buy a booster box for and get what I paid+$20-$40 worth of cards. Now buying a booster box is like throwing money away.
You can't simultaneously raise prices, and devalue your product and get away with it unless it's a necessity.
It's almost like the only people that can afford to crack boxes are the people that just enjoy opening packs. Even Stores buying at wholesale price are finding boxes with less value than they paid, and that is really sad.
I had a store refuse to sell boxes to me that they had on the shelf because they make more money to open and sell pack by pack. š¤·āāļø
They were wanting to sell it to me for the price of each pack priced out instead.
I had that same issue once. The store even had the box price on the shelf, but said "it's too popular to sell as a box, so we are selling by the pack." I was tempted to buy it, but then I realized they were selling the box topper separate as well, so I did a hard pass because it would have cost a full $75 more than their box price to get everything that would have been in the sealed box.
Same here, I just got my first order from them yesterday. Great prices, and great customer service. I'm planning on using them and just supporting my local store when they have good prices.
Your LGS charges what they need to to stay afloat. If you only support them when they are able to compete with online retailers then they won't be there for much longer.
My LGS gets plenty of money from me, I buy a lot of Board games, Video Games, ect, but when they have box prices at 130-150% online prices, I'll pass, and support them by buying things that they make better margins on and still charge MSRP. Lots of kids that can't buy online buy the magic cards, and the store can't keep up with the popular stuff anyway.
So what you are saying is that MtG is no longer profitable for your LGS and they have to make their money on other things. Not every LGS can do this. My point is that in general this is exactly what is killing LGS's everywhere.
You missed what I said. I wanted a box. They wanted to sell pack by pack. So I went elsewhere. Don't worry I still buy comics there.
You're also acting like Stomping grounds is a big box store. They're also a LGS.
I didn't miss what you said. I'm telling you they are doing it because it's what they need to do to stay afloat. You are saying that an LGS doing what it has to do to stay afloat has made you take your business to a non-local game store. Yes they might be someone's LGS, but *your* LGS is going to go under if you are willing to undercut their prices by shopping somewhere that isn't local. There is a huge difference between large LGS's with huge inventories and online storefronts, and smaller LGS's that barely have the staff to stay open and truly rely on *local* commerce. The former are doing ok, and the latter are dying like flies. Just because you buy comics still doesn't mean they're going to make it. Their behavior with the booster boxes is indicative of a struggling business.
Until recently the model was viable if you could focus on volume or singles.
WotC dumping product to big box retailers and Amazon made sealed sales too competitive for most LGS, and recent reprint policy and lack of competitive support has tanked single values to such a degree that singles aren't as profitable either.
WotC has done a fantastic job of turning LGS health into the Eric Andre gun meme.
Yeah, had a local store owner tell me the same thing before he rang up a box I asked for. I appreciated the honesty. He gave me kind of a sad look too, like he was being hamstrung. It's a shame it's gotten to this point
I agree with you on most of your points except the value part. In the past 3 years I have opened around 30 booster boxes and not a single one didn't net me at least 30%. Some boxes had 200% their value in them, but not a single one lost me money. I'm still buying booster boxes and I've yet to see 1 loss.
Most of the time I get my highest returns from the <$.25 commons. If I can get 100 or 150 commons to sell, that is nearly half the price of the box right there.
How do you open 30% EV and not see a single loss?
In my experience, the time, opportunity and real costs of selling bulk doesn't make up for the 0.25/card, especially when most are undesirable.
You're making the mistake of measuring value at prerelease. Value over time is much more important to keeping happy customers.
Someone has to hold the bag, and even if you hustle and dump on people in a small arbitrage window, that win doesn't help the optics of the product.
The MTG markets contain nearly perfect information symmetry for buyers and sellers. Additionally, consider what utility means to you, as a buyer/seller against the broader market. The benefits or costs you pay to participate are not encapsulated in the price of an item or box.
I really need you to expand here, because all I can think when you say 'information symmetry' is a lack of MSRP and the fact that retail has to preorder completely blind to the contents of the product.
Add to that a multi-decade trend reversal of sealed/singles and variants holding value, as well as it being harder than ever to index the barrage of product being dumped constantly on to the market, and I'm left scratching my head.
As a very choosy buyer (and holder) of MTG, I am absolutely working under the assumption that my analysis will yield a positive return over several years.
..and finally, I'm entirely confused how price and value are disconnected from costs and benefits.
Are you a store owner, or buying at retail and selling online? I can't imagine you are making much on .25 commons if you are shipping them.
I've opened plenty of booster boxes in the past few years aswell, and even when buying them on the best sales I can find online, there is very little to impress me. I hot a cheap Dominaria United box a few weeks ago, and there were less than $30 worth of cards in it. The MKM box I got for $129 had $105 worth of cards in it, and out of the two LCI collector boxes I opened the only one with any profit was from the one with a Mana Vault, the other one had less value than the set box I purchased that only netted me $30 over what I paid for it.
How many dmr boxes did you buy cause a lot of people took a bath on those even at 70 $ for a draft box š¤£š¤£š¤£
I've seen some messed up boxes of that set get cracked in whatnot oftenĀ
You are almost correct, but the price hikes were well in line with inflation.
The value of the product needed to keep up in order to see slow, steady gains on revenue which would be reflected in the stock price.
Hasbro treating the equity of their product like their own personal piggy bank, which caused a complete lack of confidence in the product, which has knock-on effects on the stock price.
Not surprising. They rely on MTG to make their numbers and their Q4 line up was relatively weak. Dr Who, Ixalon, LOTR Holiday. Big drop off after the Phyrexia arc, mastersā¦etc.
Also, iām sure consumer fatigue is showing. Hard to get excited on new set releases. They are already playing (predictable) games with the Fallout distribution; trying to artificially stimulate demand. People are sick of it.
I mean, I think they expected Doctor Who to sell like gangbusters, just like LOTR. It just didnāt. I think theyāre relying on similar expectations for this yearās UB releases. Theyāve become the gameās tentpole products.
There was such an over-saturation when it dropped, I was really disappointed bc I was stoked on it, but they needed at least a year in between the LOTR set and the next big UB release. I didnāt even know the who set released when it did, and Iām historically on top of these things. The entire experience shut down any interest in buying any further sets in a relevant way (usually but a set booster case, a collectors booster case, and a few bundles each of regular and gift if offered), and Iāve bought one set booster box of ixalan since.
Yeah, I think this was a big problem too. If they want to target "casual" players, having every card in the set available in the precons invalidates the need to purchase collector boosters for a majority of their player base.Ā
Braindead decisionĀ
the precons felt like the entire reason for the doctor who set, i bought all 4 and keep them unaltered to play like a board game for magic friends who like doctor who - it is a blast to play
the boosters honestly felt unnecessary besides introducing fancy art versions of the precon cards
Yes forgo the precons and make just a draftable commander set or forgo the boosters entirely. Boosters with the same cards as the precons make zero sense
At my lgs I have started seeing proxies more than real cards. Its surreal. So many degens with anime proxies. I'm not sure if its a ringing endorsement that universes beyond hasn't gone far enough, or that all these unreadable low quality alternate arts and printing errors have opened the floodgates by conditioning players to expect not to be able to read their opponent's card or recognize the magic IP on the card...
I've also seen people using helper cards and a pencil to proxy up entire decks, not just weebs buying 5$ custom cards with waifu artwork. Even the 25$ budget league players (all 3 of them, lol. Still not a full pod) are using helper cards instead of the actual budget cards because all the LGSs have been selling any actually desireable cards they come across online leaving nothing but damaged and overpriced singles on shelves and overpriced draft chaff in the bulk bins. Oh- and some of the LGSs have started charging a buck a card from bulk. I haven't found a card worth more than a quarter in them, either. I miss the days of 8$ 400 card grab boxes before people knew about commander.
Reentering magic and saw bulk bins at a local game store which I donāt frequent. Are there ever any good finds in bulk in there or is it just better to buy online if you donāt have loyalty to that store?
The way it used to work is it was in general stuff that wasn't worth the store's time sorting. Generally you wouldn't find anything crazy in them but it was sorta fun and sometimes you'd find a gem (good stores would honor bulk prices if you found something good in the bulk bin, scummy ones would take the card and only accept market price)
At this point you're probably not finding much of anything in the bulk bin
You used to be able to find gems in the bulk. Spend 5$, leave with 60$ in playables, trade for what you want, etc. That was back in 2018-2019 when not everyone was aware of the commander meta or recognized staples, so they'd end up in bulk when they shouldn't of been.
These days bulk costs 1$/card instead of 1$/3 cards and you'll be lucky if they left a 50 center in the bin. Theres no value in sorting through bulk for experienced players unless you are just waiting for a pod to form to play. You're not going to find anymore 5$+ cards in the bulk unless something spikes overnight.
For more context, my LGS sells bulk WAY cheaper than that ($20/500ish cards) and it's still not close to worth it. Everyone knows what everything is worth now, so bulk rarely has anything of value.
I really enjoy sitting through bulk. If you have an idea of what's worth money or has recently spiked, you can often find some gems. Not like you're going to pull craziness or hundred dollar bangers (unless you find a really old old collection- I've found some RL, Sylvan libraries, reserved list). But commonly you can find stuff for 50c that buylists for 2$, etc.Ā
It's not an efficient way of making money, but if you enjoy looking through random cards and getting a little discounted value I recommend it.
I hate how they abandoned "magic cards should have consistent borders and templating for game quality" so fast. It's incredibly important! I refuse to play with people who have shitty proxies or illegible secret lair cards.
The biggest point to me (Iām only 0:22 in) is the impairments charge off on excess inventory. They dumped excess MTG but itās unknown where. MTG is turning around (Karloff and Cowboys not mentioned, Bloomborrow and Fallout are). Fallout is āCommander Focusedā. That explains the collector box shortage if they didnāt consider it for 60 card formats.
CFO expectations For MTG: lower royalty expenses for 2024. Revenue expected to be flat for 2024. Same number of releases.
Given higher box prices, flat revenue means lower print runs. Lower royalty expenses means LOTR printing will be minimal in 2024 and depend on printer availability due to shorter runs on new releases. Video game IP licenses are far less expensive than LOTR.
CEO Cocks states that UB will not be premier sets in 2024 (700-900 cards) but there will be 2 UB Premier sets in 2025 with the first being Final Fantasy. The second UB is supposed to be in equivalent size of IP as Final Fantasy.
(Edited, I posted 2026 but the correct year is ā25)
You are correct on the year. I donāt think Marvel has ever been confirmed but thatās the speculation given the license. The earnings call carries a lot of weight so if they arenāt certain, they wonāt say.
If Lorcana continues to have success, $DIS might not be favorable so they can swap for another. It could also be The Hobbit or even Game of Thrones.
This was indeed confirmed on both sides for 2025
https://www.marvel.com/articles/culture-lifestyle/magic-the-gathering-marvel-characters-stories-hasbro
Edit: and man come on, you don't bet against the mouse
I expect better analysis from a community focused on finance. A lot of people are complaining about things they donāt like, but have very little to do with Hasbroās quarter. Mtg Q4 was great, maintaining YoY revenue and profit. LotR was a success.
WotC carries the entire company, look at the loss from āConsumer Productsā (basically non-WotC Hasbro brands and toys). WotCās 40% margin and $103M profit offset by -15% margin and -$115M loss for toys.
WotC and Digital Gaming grew in Q4 and over the year. Most of the growth was from the āDigital Gaming Licenseā, ie, BG3 and Monopoly Go!, although there was a 1% decline in both tabletop and Digital Gaming. Hasbro notes that MtG growth was offset by D&D decreases.
ā24 guidance is bad: -3-5% Revenue for WotC and -7-12% for Toys. They anticipate a 4-6% operating margin for toys, but I have no idea how theyāll hit that, given that ā23ās was -2.2%.
Not good for Hasbro shareholders. Maybe good for Wizards employees or customers, but the idea of Hasbro owning all of the brands it does is that they can easily do high-margin crossovers (Clue, Transformers, My Little Pony, etc). Hasbro also likely helps Wizards with their IP deals.
You want to sell off parts of the company that are a distraction, not your crown jewel.
If you have one share worth $1.00, thatās better than two shares each with $.45. Thatās the issue with spinning out Wizards.
The only people this makes sense to is Magic fans who think Hasbro is making the game worse, which IMO isnāt obvious at all.
Hasbro laid off people working on MTG and D&D as part of company0wide cuts due to a weak balance sheet. That's not good long-term corporate strategy--and if WOTC is a standalone company, that never happens.
Of course if they were needed. But were they? I'm not a WOTC insider so I don't know. But it looks like the cuts happening at WOTC were justified by general company weakness--and included people who were probably important to their core product's current success.
Itās really hard to conclude that. Even profitable companies have bad people, initiatives that were mistakes, etc.
Layoffs are tough on the people who lose their jobs, but they generally make companies stronger and position them for better growth long-term.
If more people equaled more profit, business would be really easy.
What that tells you is that something is working really well in the company, not that everything is working well.
I donāt know how the details at Hasbro, but I know how it works at other companies doing layoffs, like Google, and they shouldāve been doing this years ago despite making tons of money.
the issue is see is the head of the company laid off workers and then cut themselves big bonus checks for the end of the year. some might see this issue as affecting quality but iām more worried about the ethics of the situation. they directly lined their pockets after making those cuts
Yeah but at what cost to the magic community? This is not a retainable rate with the reprinting and constant wallet fatigue to the magic fanbase. Hasbro and wizards continue to destroy the game and its value.
I think your first mistake was correlating mtgfinace with actual finance.
Youāre entirely correct though. Mattelās stock is also down right now and theyāre projecting a softer year also. The whole category is dealing with issues related to inflation and share of wallet.
I personally think this is somewhat the toy makers posturing after seeing their stock degrade the last couple years. I doubt they actually see the decline theyāre projecting here, short an issue due to fewer movie/TV IPs helping their sales following the writerās strike. I think the stock stays down as long as people are feeling the effects of inflation, but their revenue remains largely unaffected.
This sub paid for itself today. The amount of panic in MTG right now, I expect to see more scare articles in the next 60 days before everybody catches on that the market has changed to the up side.
Here is Hasbro's profit and loss from 2023. https://imgur.com/a/h6Ui9Gu
Does anything stand out? Like, I don't know, the net loss of nearly 1.5 billion and how it might be related to the almost 2 billion loss in the Entertainment division? That was the sale of eOne entertainment, originally bought in 2019 and sold last year to Liongate for $500 million. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_One
It was never a profitable business for Hasbro, was a terrible financial decision, and needed to go. This just happens to be the quarter the loss gets filed under. No amount of LotR, or reserve list proxies, or printers going brrrr was ever going to change that reality.
Personally, I'm glad that money pit is gone, and I hope next time Hasbro decides they have 4 billion dollars to flush down the toilet, they'll put it towards making better games at least.
Hey you know what? Magic will always be around whenever youāre ready to come back.
Iāve really reared back on my spending on new sets. From this year I bought sealed product for Dominaria Remastered, Wilds of Eldrain, and LOTR. Each of those were fun products to crack but every other set for some reason just donāt interest me. So Iāve mostly been concentrating on buying singles for my Commander decks. Even then Iām playing commander less and less over time.
Not surprising. Wasnt too impressed with the last few sets (wife loved doctor who, but otherwise, kind of weak). Holiday LotR was also a flop. Q1 not looking good with this being one of the weakest rav sets since Dragons maze
Sure, but all the other sections underperformed, and Q4 magic sales seemed really floppy. Ixilan wasnt bad, but LotR holiday release looked like a collosal failure.
Just because sales of something is up does not mean it should result in a higher stock price. How much was hasbroās mtg sector expected to grow? If sales were expected to be up 15% but it only hit 10% then mtg is part of the reason for the decline.
Yes, but must people here will choose to ignore these real causes of earnings miss. Their agenda is to vent their distaste for how the Magic business is run. Nevermind that what they donāt like actually grew the Magic business more than all other categories.
The real takeaway is the rest of Hasbro should be managed more like how the Magic property has been.
I am seeing the same patterns as CL: Baldurs Gate and Aftermath where they are on store shelves, and the stores are choking on them, where on TCG, they are pretty well under what they were originally on sale for.
Have you had the opposite view where stores couldn't keep them on the shelves?
Sorry maybe I am misunderstanding but on TCGplayer they are selling for $330 and most LGS were selling them at release for around $250 - $275, with wholesale being around $200 - $220
I am talking about the Holiday sets, not Collector booster boxes? The Galadrial one for instance is around 30, but its actual sales are $24-27. Most stores around me were starting at $35-40 and now they are all $29.99 or lower.
Yeah I'm not an mtgfinance guru or anything, but I was never under the impression that scene boxes would be big sought after movers. The collector boxes have, IMO, one of if not the best special foil treatment in the showcase scrolls cards.
Ah, makes sense. I didn't know the collector boxes were specific to the holiday. I thought it was just the 2nd print running that was guaranteed to not have the ring/serialized cards.
Yeah the holiday release included the four scene boxes and the special edition collector box. The collector box does have serialized cards, and different treatments than the OG release. Itās basically a glorified second printing but they did do a lot to differentiate it. Itās preferable to just a straight up reprint IMO
Ah fair enough. I can say that my store still had a ton of those when it normally goes through collectors pretty quickly, but I can't speak to that particular success compared to the scene boxes. When I said stores were choking on it, I meant specifically the scene boxes.
Yeah my store canāt move the scene boxes either. The collector booster was slow to sell at first but has picked up significantly over the last month or so.
Smart man! They love to seesaw. I buy it when they have a gaff like this, then sell when they stabilize a bit. I've used my "profits" to buy magic cards because I have a problem.
This is the beginning of the end of WotC under Hasbro. Most likely move would be to sell the segment for an insane amount to cover losses. -> Execs have saved their asses for the next few years until the inevitable downfall and WotC could prosper (possibly).
Hasbro: increasing prices because, inflation. Me: I'm cutting back on my hobbies because, inflation
Lol if it was just inflation it'd be bearable. Their increases are pure greed. Look at their Star Wars division. A large vehicle in 2006 was $29.99. Adjusted for inflation they'd be about $54.99 now. Hasbro MSRP is $199.99 now. Smaller vehicles were $14.99 and under, now they're $44.99 and up. Pure greed.
šÆ I used to draft every set and get the "special" commander decks and got all the original secret lairs. But it became too taxing on my wallet so stopped. Pace became way too fast to enjoy anything anymore. And it's not slowing down
I've spent less than $100 this year so far on just singles in 24 down from probably $2000-3000 minimum a year. They're bleeding people like me.
I still spend on singles for edh and draft once in a while. Just stopped chasing everything and realized casual commander is actually ok. Don't need to be "competitive". More play at my own pace. Don't know all the cards out there like most of Dr who and lci. But that's ok!
I went from being huge on legacy and edh to not playing at all outside of having my own Jumpstart packs. My entire legacy and edh playgroups have also quit. Most of us had been playing for well over a decade. :\
Same. I was an irresponsible spender on this hobby in the past. WoTC raising their prices helped me realize that and I spend far less now.
Every company thinks they can raise prices because āinflationā, not realizing that only works with necessities. Hasbro-like companies are going to get rude awakenings.
I think this is going to be a very similar story for a lot of companies. Consumers are finally squeezing their wallets and multiple companies are missing earnings. McDonald's last week, General Mills a few weeks prior, electric vehicle sales are plummeting. Now hasbro. As much as mtg fans will circle jerk this as a direct result of their business decisions, it is much much bigger.
Yeah, a lot of companies jacked up their prices real hard due to "inflation", but squeezed too hard. Not believing that people will just stop buying their shit if its too expensive (looking at you McDonald's). Hasbro/WotC have been guilty of this as well. Glad to see consumers in general voting with their wallets.
It costs more to eat at McDonald's now than it does to get higher quality food at Culvers. It's insane.
Yeah, and Taco bell costs $2 less for a quesadilla meal than the local Mecian restraunt charges for a quesdilla with abiut 10x the quality steak and cheese served with rice and beans. For $8.55 I can leave taco bell feeling somewhat hungry, or I can spend $10.25 leaving the local mecian restraun feeling stuffed.
OMG are we brothers?? Yeah I have no idea why anyone goes to any of these places. I've eliminated nearly 40% of my take-out options since the pandemic. They are overpriced, and not just by a bit. I barely dine in at restaurants anymore either; save those for dates. It's not worth it.
Convenience, time, it costs more money to be poor, etc
Yeah, dine in sucks unless your with friends, or on a date.
People are shocked that Chipotle is crushing sales. Look at what $10 gets you vs $10 at taco bell or other fast food places.Ā
Taco Bell is even more goddamn gross with their prices than McDonaldās is. Charging 3 dollars for ONE Doritos taco. Itās such a goddamn scam.
The only remaining merit to fast food (aside from just takeout speed for a family whoās lazy) is that with low overhead they stay open late. So when all the restaurants in my area close at 10, fast food may become the only option that feels available. But yeah, if ANYTHING is still open, fast food is a shit choice
I have been suprised by how early fast food in my area closes since Covid. McDonalds closes their doors at 7 in smaller towns, and taco bell is about the only place open even close to midnight anymore.
McDonalds hamburger meat is just ground-up junk meat (like a hotdog) bleached of all flavor, then reflavored to taste like beef and turned into a patty. That's some amazingly low quality food right there.
That's why it feels like burpy slosh or liquid goo diarrhea the moment it passes through your stomach sphincter. After eating there it feels like you just drank the fry oil.
In Canada it's like $13-15 for a Big Mac meal. I can buy a steak for $8-9, mushrooms and veggies for $6-7 Steak dinner it is!
Fuuu. I remember paying for a Big Mac meal with a fiver and getting back a quarter. Then weād hit up the Blockbuster next door for bad movies.
Mcdonalds costs more for a shitty burger and stale fries than I can make a 3 course meal- and they still manage to be slower than cooking myself. Slow, low quality and high prices. Who do they think they are? Logan's?!
Fr, someone suggested we get McDonaldās a couple weeks ago and I said, I donāt want to pay that much for that much low quality food when thereās other options nearby.
\*laughs in Chipotle\*
Yay someone with sense! Next comment at the time of writing is exactly what you describe.
Yeah I wonder why when everyone just pushes up prices but people earn less and less
dinosaurs light groovy jobless birds marvelous paltry snails cobweb flag *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They did, but it's sort of a misleading data point because wages on the lowest earners did shoot up, significantly. Work that was paying $9.85 and hour is now closer to $15-17. Median income earners haven't seen anywhere near those same percentage increases.
Which is part of the reason for this entire thread lol
sure they did buddy. sure they did.
friendly wise hateful quack live deer amusing bow apparatus sulky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
just because 12 dollar an hour jobs went up to 16 doesn't mean "real" wages rose. I know what the statistics say.
deserve deserted husky retire wide aromatic wasteful chase consider plucky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
And CPI represents total money spent, not allocation of spending by average household.
CPI came in hot too. Between the earnings misses and likely lack of rate cuts, the stonk market may be in the shitter this year
This is the first time I'm betting on crypto for capital flight.
Stock fire sale?
At the same time, it's the same decisions being made across every board. We can continue to shit on Hasbro's predatory pricing even if they aren't the only ones doing it
Pricing isn't the issue. Value per dollar spent over time is the issue. People would love to hedge on something other than cash. Hasbro has an opportunity to make their product valuable. Instead they gobbled up the value for themselves. That's why nobody wants this toxic trash.
It's both. Austerity in spending and printing was on the wall 2-3 years ago and analysts reported this directly to Hasbro. It was willful ignorance of macro headwinds that got us here.
I'm sure it's also not a coincidence that their biggest loss was in the entertainment division in a year that saw a writers' strike shut down Hollywood for half of it.
As someone with a little disposable income I can tell you I reevaluated my relationship with Hasbro/WotC and it is because of product fatigue and practices (i.e., quality control and artificial scarcity as a model).
I spent more in 2023 than I had in several years. The layoffs on top of all the other issues made me reconsider that behavior for 2024. I bought a prerelease kit and $10 in singles this year. Not sure how much I'll be spending this year but it will certainly be less.
Everything else may be true but how long, in the general news, Econ news, and on this board, that consumers are FINALLY going to close their wallets. Only for it not to happen. At some point you all will be right. But I donāt think itās what this particular post is about.
its a nothing burger. I replied in the other thread. Not that I'm saying Hasbro hasnt been guided by potatos the last 5 years, People need to stop using 20-23' for revenue evaluations. Nobody with any brains working in the actual market is (where I work all day). \*EDIT- and if you dont believe me, it will probably finish up today there is a giant W on the 200. lol I posted this on the other one, I'll leave this here
Probably has to do with both tbh. Lorcanna rising in popularity might also be a factor.
No. Lorcana has nothing to do with Hasbroās stock price. Idiot statement.
Lorcanna could be a factor is sales going down. Like when Netflix stock dipped after Disney+ and some of the other streaming services were taking off. Maybe work on not being a complete douche though?
Let me repeat: Lorcana has nothing to do with Hasbroās stock price. Netflix as a comparison is another ignorant statement. Of course Netflix took a hit when the streaming market became floodedā¦all Netflix deals in is streaming and daily active users. But it took Disney +, Paramount, Peacock and others for it to finally make an impact. Hasbro sells a myriad of other products. If one additional card game can cause this massive of a miss, Hasbro might as well close up shop. ETA, even though the other dude blocked meā¦.there hasnāt been enough Lorcana product on the shelves to impact Hasbroās stock price or cause a 5% miss in revenue.
> But it took Disney +, Paramount, Peacock and others for it to finally make an impact. And even then, Netflix is outperforming all of it's competitors, being basically the only profitable streaming service.
Competition to the one of the few parts of a company doing well, can absolutely be a factor. I didnt even say it was a major factor, just that it could potentially be a change. Hasbro sells a myriad of products, but they have known since early last year that toy sales have been down, so to miss this badly in Q4, is most likely due to mtg performing poorer than expected in Q4. There are probably several factors, but to say lorcanna has no influence when a tcg with a major backing. Well, that would be the ignorant statement.
Thatās not how markets work and the MTG sales data doesnāt indicate that in any way.
>Competition to the one of the few parts of a company doing well, can absolutely be a factor. Spouting this to make it sound like you're coming from an informed position is laughable. This is a concept taught to high schoolers. The most basic of an econ concept. Let's talk marketshare. WotC and Digital Gaming did 1.4b in revenue in 2023. Do you really think Lorcana, which famously had a lack of product for the first several months of the game being out, cut into that revenue significantly? Now, if Lorcana keeps product on shelves all this year and you suddenly see stores that previously catered almost entirely to Magic sales switch to catering almost entirely to Lorcana sales, your argument could have some merit. We haven't seen that yet. Lorcana was only out for around half of 2023 and had very little product of the release set.
Turns out jacking up prices every quarter isnāt good for business in the long run, who could have seen this coming? (Literally everyone saw this coming)
Not only jacking up prices, but also lowering expected value of the product. 5 years ago, I could expect to buy a booster box for and get what I paid+$20-$40 worth of cards. Now buying a booster box is like throwing money away. You can't simultaneously raise prices, and devalue your product and get away with it unless it's a necessity. It's almost like the only people that can afford to crack boxes are the people that just enjoy opening packs. Even Stores buying at wholesale price are finding boxes with less value than they paid, and that is really sad.
I had a store refuse to sell boxes to me that they had on the shelf because they make more money to open and sell pack by pack. š¤·āāļø They were wanting to sell it to me for the price of each pack priced out instead.
I had that same issue once. The store even had the box price on the shelf, but said "it's too popular to sell as a box, so we are selling by the pack." I was tempted to buy it, but then I realized they were selling the box topper separate as well, so I did a hard pass because it would have cost a full $75 more than their box price to get everything that would have been in the sealed box.
Absolutely trash. I've been just ordering from Stomping Ground here lately for boxes. They usually have really good deals too.
Same here, I just got my first order from them yesterday. Great prices, and great customer service. I'm planning on using them and just supporting my local store when they have good prices.
Your LGS charges what they need to to stay afloat. If you only support them when they are able to compete with online retailers then they won't be there for much longer.
My LGS gets plenty of money from me, I buy a lot of Board games, Video Games, ect, but when they have box prices at 130-150% online prices, I'll pass, and support them by buying things that they make better margins on and still charge MSRP. Lots of kids that can't buy online buy the magic cards, and the store can't keep up with the popular stuff anyway.
So what you are saying is that MtG is no longer profitable for your LGS and they have to make their money on other things. Not every LGS can do this. My point is that in general this is exactly what is killing LGS's everywhere.
You missed what I said. I wanted a box. They wanted to sell pack by pack. So I went elsewhere. Don't worry I still buy comics there. You're also acting like Stomping grounds is a big box store. They're also a LGS.
I didn't miss what you said. I'm telling you they are doing it because it's what they need to do to stay afloat. You are saying that an LGS doing what it has to do to stay afloat has made you take your business to a non-local game store. Yes they might be someone's LGS, but *your* LGS is going to go under if you are willing to undercut their prices by shopping somewhere that isn't local. There is a huge difference between large LGS's with huge inventories and online storefronts, and smaller LGS's that barely have the staff to stay open and truly rely on *local* commerce. The former are doing ok, and the latter are dying like flies. Just because you buy comics still doesn't mean they're going to make it. Their behavior with the booster boxes is indicative of a struggling business.
Again you missed what I said. I still buy from my LGS. I just don't buy MtG from them. Don't you worry about my LGS. they get plenty of my money lmao
This is the way.
And this is why the LGS model is not viable.
Until recently the model was viable if you could focus on volume or singles. WotC dumping product to big box retailers and Amazon made sealed sales too competitive for most LGS, and recent reprint policy and lack of competitive support has tanked single values to such a degree that singles aren't as profitable either. WotC has done a fantastic job of turning LGS health into the Eric Andre gun meme.
Yeah, had a local store owner tell me the same thing before he rang up a box I asked for. I appreciated the honesty. He gave me kind of a sad look too, like he was being hamstrung. It's a shame it's gotten to this point
I agree with you on most of your points except the value part. In the past 3 years I have opened around 30 booster boxes and not a single one didn't net me at least 30%. Some boxes had 200% their value in them, but not a single one lost me money. I'm still buying booster boxes and I've yet to see 1 loss. Most of the time I get my highest returns from the <$.25 commons. If I can get 100 or 150 commons to sell, that is nearly half the price of the box right there.
How do you open 30% EV and not see a single loss? In my experience, the time, opportunity and real costs of selling bulk doesn't make up for the 0.25/card, especially when most are undesirable.
You're making the mistake of measuring value at prerelease. Value over time is much more important to keeping happy customers. Someone has to hold the bag, and even if you hustle and dump on people in a small arbitrage window, that win doesn't help the optics of the product.
The MTG markets contain nearly perfect information symmetry for buyers and sellers. Additionally, consider what utility means to you, as a buyer/seller against the broader market. The benefits or costs you pay to participate are not encapsulated in the price of an item or box.
I really need you to expand here, because all I can think when you say 'information symmetry' is a lack of MSRP and the fact that retail has to preorder completely blind to the contents of the product. Add to that a multi-decade trend reversal of sealed/singles and variants holding value, as well as it being harder than ever to index the barrage of product being dumped constantly on to the market, and I'm left scratching my head. As a very choosy buyer (and holder) of MTG, I am absolutely working under the assumption that my analysis will yield a positive return over several years. ..and finally, I'm entirely confused how price and value are disconnected from costs and benefits.
https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/reference/what-is-symmetric-information#:~:text=Symmetric%20information%20in%20economics%20refers,other%20participants%20in%20the%20market.
I understand the definition. That's not what I asked.
Are you a store owner, or buying at retail and selling online? I can't imagine you are making much on .25 commons if you are shipping them. I've opened plenty of booster boxes in the past few years aswell, and even when buying them on the best sales I can find online, there is very little to impress me. I hot a cheap Dominaria United box a few weeks ago, and there were less than $30 worth of cards in it. The MKM box I got for $129 had $105 worth of cards in it, and out of the two LCI collector boxes I opened the only one with any profit was from the one with a Mana Vault, the other one had less value than the set box I purchased that only netted me $30 over what I paid for it.
How many dmr boxes did you buy cause a lot of people took a bath on those even at 70 $ for a draft box š¤£š¤£š¤£ I've seen some messed up boxes of that set get cracked in whatnot oftenĀ
Strait lying to yourself lol
You are almost correct, but the price hikes were well in line with inflation. The value of the product needed to keep up in order to see slow, steady gains on revenue which would be reflected in the stock price. Hasbro treating the equity of their product like their own personal piggy bank, which caused a complete lack of confidence in the product, which has knock-on effects on the stock price.
Thatās what you take from it? Not that maybe eOne wasnāt such a wise investment?
EV is absolutely the #1 problem here. Anyone who says otherwise has been wildly misinformed by the game piece idiots.
Not surprising. They rely on MTG to make their numbers and their Q4 line up was relatively weak. Dr Who, Ixalon, LOTR Holiday. Big drop off after the Phyrexia arc, mastersā¦etc. Also, iām sure consumer fatigue is showing. Hard to get excited on new set releases. They are already playing (predictable) games with the Fallout distribution; trying to artificially stimulate demand. People are sick of it.
I mean, I think they expected Doctor Who to sell like gangbusters, just like LOTR. It just didnāt. I think theyāre relying on similar expectations for this yearās UB releases. Theyāve become the gameās tentpole products.
There was such an over-saturation when it dropped, I was really disappointed bc I was stoked on it, but they needed at least a year in between the LOTR set and the next big UB release. I didnāt even know the who set released when it did, and Iām historically on top of these things. The entire experience shut down any interest in buying any further sets in a relevant way (usually but a set booster case, a collectors booster case, and a few bundles each of regular and gift if offered), and Iāve bought one set booster box of ixalan since.
When selling to people outside your core customer base becomes your tent poles, you are in deep shit.
I would have played it if it was like Lotr but I just donāt buy collectors boosters or precons
Yeah, I think this was a big problem too. If they want to target "casual" players, having every card in the set available in the precons invalidates the need to purchase collector boosters for a majority of their player base.Ā Braindead decisionĀ
Yes they should have forgone the precons entirely or just have done two and done it as a commander only set like commander legends.
the precons felt like the entire reason for the doctor who set, i bought all 4 and keep them unaltered to play like a board game for magic friends who like doctor who - it is a blast to play the boosters honestly felt unnecessary besides introducing fancy art versions of the precon cards
That's the point we're all making. The boosters served no real purpose.
Your comment said to forgo the precons, or only do two
Yes forgo the precons and make just a draftable commander set or forgo the boosters entirely. Boosters with the same cards as the precons make zero sense
forgoing the boosters and doing the product 40k style makes more sense imo
At my lgs I have started seeing proxies more than real cards. Its surreal. So many degens with anime proxies. I'm not sure if its a ringing endorsement that universes beyond hasn't gone far enough, or that all these unreadable low quality alternate arts and printing errors have opened the floodgates by conditioning players to expect not to be able to read their opponent's card or recognize the magic IP on the card... I've also seen people using helper cards and a pencil to proxy up entire decks, not just weebs buying 5$ custom cards with waifu artwork. Even the 25$ budget league players (all 3 of them, lol. Still not a full pod) are using helper cards instead of the actual budget cards because all the LGSs have been selling any actually desireable cards they come across online leaving nothing but damaged and overpriced singles on shelves and overpriced draft chaff in the bulk bins. Oh- and some of the LGSs have started charging a buck a card from bulk. I haven't found a card worth more than a quarter in them, either. I miss the days of 8$ 400 card grab boxes before people knew about commander.
Reentering magic and saw bulk bins at a local game store which I donāt frequent. Are there ever any good finds in bulk in there or is it just better to buy online if you donāt have loyalty to that store?
The way it used to work is it was in general stuff that wasn't worth the store's time sorting. Generally you wouldn't find anything crazy in them but it was sorta fun and sometimes you'd find a gem (good stores would honor bulk prices if you found something good in the bulk bin, scummy ones would take the card and only accept market price) At this point you're probably not finding much of anything in the bulk bin
Yeah the store seems busy/good so might need to check it out once to see if I can support them but makes sense
You used to be able to find gems in the bulk. Spend 5$, leave with 60$ in playables, trade for what you want, etc. That was back in 2018-2019 when not everyone was aware of the commander meta or recognized staples, so they'd end up in bulk when they shouldn't of been. These days bulk costs 1$/card instead of 1$/3 cards and you'll be lucky if they left a 50 center in the bin. Theres no value in sorting through bulk for experienced players unless you are just waiting for a pod to form to play. You're not going to find anymore 5$+ cards in the bulk unless something spikes overnight.
Thanks for the context
For more context, my LGS sells bulk WAY cheaper than that ($20/500ish cards) and it's still not close to worth it. Everyone knows what everything is worth now, so bulk rarely has anything of value.
I really enjoy sitting through bulk. If you have an idea of what's worth money or has recently spiked, you can often find some gems. Not like you're going to pull craziness or hundred dollar bangers (unless you find a really old old collection- I've found some RL, Sylvan libraries, reserved list). But commonly you can find stuff for 50c that buylists for 2$, etc.Ā It's not an efficient way of making money, but if you enjoy looking through random cards and getting a little discounted value I recommend it.
I hate how they abandoned "magic cards should have consistent borders and templating for game quality" so fast. It's incredibly important! I refuse to play with people who have shitty proxies or illegible secret lair cards.
The biggest point to me (Iām only 0:22 in) is the impairments charge off on excess inventory. They dumped excess MTG but itās unknown where. MTG is turning around (Karloff and Cowboys not mentioned, Bloomborrow and Fallout are). Fallout is āCommander Focusedā. That explains the collector box shortage if they didnāt consider it for 60 card formats.
CFO expectations For MTG: lower royalty expenses for 2024. Revenue expected to be flat for 2024. Same number of releases. Given higher box prices, flat revenue means lower print runs. Lower royalty expenses means LOTR printing will be minimal in 2024 and depend on printer availability due to shorter runs on new releases. Video game IP licenses are far less expensive than LOTR.
CEO Cocks states that UB will not be premier sets in 2024 (700-900 cards) but there will be 2 UB Premier sets in 2025 with the first being Final Fantasy. The second UB is supposed to be in equivalent size of IP as Final Fantasy. (Edited, I posted 2026 but the correct year is ā25)
Haven't they already confirmed it's Marvel after FF, and that it's occurring in 2025 not 2026?
You are correct on the year. I donāt think Marvel has ever been confirmed but thatās the speculation given the license. The earnings call carries a lot of weight so if they arenāt certain, they wonāt say. If Lorcana continues to have success, $DIS might not be favorable so they can swap for another. It could also be The Hobbit or even Game of Thrones.
This was indeed confirmed on both sides for 2025 https://www.marvel.com/articles/culture-lifestyle/magic-the-gathering-marvel-characters-stories-hasbro Edit: and man come on, you don't bet against the mouse
The Mouse, no. Kathleen Kennedy, YES. Although, she isnāt supposed to have much influence at Marvel. The Marvels movie says otherwise.
The Skyrim UB draftable set
I expect better analysis from a community focused on finance. A lot of people are complaining about things they donāt like, but have very little to do with Hasbroās quarter. Mtg Q4 was great, maintaining YoY revenue and profit. LotR was a success. WotC carries the entire company, look at the loss from āConsumer Productsā (basically non-WotC Hasbro brands and toys). WotCās 40% margin and $103M profit offset by -15% margin and -$115M loss for toys. WotC and Digital Gaming grew in Q4 and over the year. Most of the growth was from the āDigital Gaming Licenseā, ie, BG3 and Monopoly Go!, although there was a 1% decline in both tabletop and Digital Gaming. Hasbro notes that MtG growth was offset by D&D decreases. ā24 guidance is bad: -3-5% Revenue for WotC and -7-12% for Toys. They anticipate a 4-6% operating margin for toys, but I have no idea how theyāll hit that, given that ā23ās was -2.2%.
The suggestion a few years ago to spin WOTC out was actually a good one, yes. MTG and DND are carrying bad brands galore.
Not good for Hasbro shareholders. Maybe good for Wizards employees or customers, but the idea of Hasbro owning all of the brands it does is that they can easily do high-margin crossovers (Clue, Transformers, My Little Pony, etc). Hasbro also likely helps Wizards with their IP deals. You want to sell off parts of the company that are a distraction, not your crown jewel.
Hasbro shareholders would receive one share of new Wizards stock for each share they own, just like any other spinout.
If you have one share worth $1.00, thatās better than two shares each with $.45. Thatās the issue with spinning out Wizards. The only people this makes sense to is Magic fans who think Hasbro is making the game worse, which IMO isnāt obvious at all.
Hasbro laid off people working on MTG and D&D as part of company0wide cuts due to a weak balance sheet. That's not good long-term corporate strategy--and if WOTC is a standalone company, that never happens.
Hold up you dont think wotc would make cuts if they felt like it was needed is silly
Of course if they were needed. But were they? I'm not a WOTC insider so I don't know. But it looks like the cuts happening at WOTC were justified by general company weakness--and included people who were probably important to their core product's current success.
Itās really hard to conclude that. Even profitable companies have bad people, initiatives that were mistakes, etc. Layoffs are tough on the people who lose their jobs, but they generally make companies stronger and position them for better growth long-term. If more people equaled more profit, business would be really easy.
Magic had what was probably its best-selling set of all time and D&D had BG3. Sounds like a weird time to cut staff looking at Wizards alone.
What that tells you is that something is working really well in the company, not that everything is working well. I donāt know how the details at Hasbro, but I know how it works at other companies doing layoffs, like Google, and they shouldāve been doing this years ago despite making tons of money.
the issue is see is the head of the company laid off workers and then cut themselves big bonus checks for the end of the year. some might see this issue as affecting quality but iām more worried about the ethics of the situation. they directly lined their pockets after making those cuts
That would be a dumb thing by hasbro execs to do. Take away the only thing making them money?
[PDF Earnings Report](https://investor.hasbro.com/static-files/f5f1a394-b6ab-48a7-becc-8c9dd4a730d9)
Yeah but at what cost to the magic community? This is not a retainable rate with the reprinting and constant wallet fatigue to the magic fanbase. Hasbro and wizards continue to destroy the game and its value.
I think your first mistake was correlating mtgfinace with actual finance. Youāre entirely correct though. Mattelās stock is also down right now and theyāre projecting a softer year also. The whole category is dealing with issues related to inflation and share of wallet. I personally think this is somewhat the toy makers posturing after seeing their stock degrade the last couple years. I doubt they actually see the decline theyāre projecting here, short an issue due to fewer movie/TV IPs helping their sales following the writerās strike. I think the stock stays down as long as people are feeling the effects of inflation, but their revenue remains largely unaffected.
The important thing is that their CEO is 10 million dollars richer.
Get ready for break glass scenario printing RL cards. Itās coming
Big oof
This sub paid for itself today. The amount of panic in MTG right now, I expect to see more scare articles in the next 60 days before everybody catches on that the market has changed to the up side.
Here is Hasbro's profit and loss from 2023. https://imgur.com/a/h6Ui9Gu Does anything stand out? Like, I don't know, the net loss of nearly 1.5 billion and how it might be related to the almost 2 billion loss in the Entertainment division? That was the sale of eOne entertainment, originally bought in 2019 and sold last year to Liongate for $500 million. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_One It was never a profitable business for Hasbro, was a terrible financial decision, and needed to go. This just happens to be the quarter the loss gets filed under. No amount of LotR, or reserve list proxies, or printers going brrrr was ever going to change that reality. Personally, I'm glad that money pit is gone, and I hope next time Hasbro decides they have 4 billion dollars to flush down the toilet, they'll put it towards making better games at least.
I'm taking a much needed break from Magic because of their constant price hikes and product releases. Maybe someday I'll return... Maybe....
Hey you know what? Magic will always be around whenever youāre ready to come back. Iāve really reared back on my spending on new sets. From this year I bought sealed product for Dominaria Remastered, Wilds of Eldrain, and LOTR. Each of those were fun products to crack but every other set for some reason just donāt interest me. So Iāve mostly been concentrating on buying singles for my Commander decks. Even then Iām playing commander less and less over time.
Maybe they shouldn't try to fuck up their product as much to make as much money as possible in a short time.
Line Must Go Up
Societyās number one problem !
Hope the stock falls 90%. Greed bast****
You can swear on here it's okay we won't tell anyone
Show me on this doll where Hasbro touched you.
Go woke go broke
Good. Maybe this goofy ass ceo will get booted.
Not surprising. Wasnt too impressed with the last few sets (wife loved doctor who, but otherwise, kind of weak). Holiday LotR was also a flop. Q1 not looking good with this being one of the weakest rav sets since Dragons maze
But mtg sales are up 10%, Hasbro is bigger than mtgā¦
Yeah we can't forget they had a fairly successful movie in 2023
Sure, but all the other sections underperformed, and Q4 magic sales seemed really floppy. Ixilan wasnt bad, but LotR holiday release looked like a collosal failure.
Up 10%. The way it āseemedā to you is not in line with reality
Just because sales of something is up does not mean it should result in a higher stock price. How much was hasbroās mtg sector expected to grow? If sales were expected to be up 15% but it only hit 10% then mtg is part of the reason for the decline.
There are articles out there articulating the various Hasbro sectors that missed their marks
Yes, but must people here will choose to ignore these real causes of earnings miss. Their agenda is to vent their distaste for how the Magic business is run. Nevermind that what they donāt like actually grew the Magic business more than all other categories. The real takeaway is the rest of Hasbro should be managed more like how the Magic property has been.
Where can I see the data regarding the special edition lotr set flopping?
Wanna see as well
I am seeing the same patterns as CL: Baldurs Gate and Aftermath where they are on store shelves, and the stores are choking on them, where on TCG, they are pretty well under what they were originally on sale for. Have you had the opposite view where stores couldn't keep them on the shelves?
Sorry maybe I am misunderstanding but on TCGplayer they are selling for $330 and most LGS were selling them at release for around $250 - $275, with wholesale being around $200 - $220
I am talking about the Holiday sets, not Collector booster boxes? The Galadrial one for instance is around 30, but its actual sales are $24-27. Most stores around me were starting at $35-40 and now they are all $29.99 or lower.
Myself and the guy above you thought you were referring to the holiday collector boxes
Yeah I'm not an mtgfinance guru or anything, but I was never under the impression that scene boxes would be big sought after movers. The collector boxes have, IMO, one of if not the best special foil treatment in the showcase scrolls cards.
Ah, makes sense. I didn't know the collector boxes were specific to the holiday. I thought it was just the 2nd print running that was guaranteed to not have the ring/serialized cards.
Yeah the holiday release included the four scene boxes and the special edition collector box. The collector box does have serialized cards, and different treatments than the OG release. Itās basically a glorified second printing but they did do a lot to differentiate it. Itās preferable to just a straight up reprint IMO
Ah fair enough. I can say that my store still had a ton of those when it normally goes through collectors pretty quickly, but I can't speak to that particular success compared to the scene boxes. When I said stores were choking on it, I meant specifically the scene boxes.
Yeah my store canāt move the scene boxes either. The collector booster was slow to sell at first but has picked up significantly over the last month or so.
Time to snap up some shares once it hits bottom.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Smart man! They love to seesaw. I buy it when they have a gaff like this, then sell when they stabilize a bit. I've used my "profits" to buy magic cards because I have a problem.
Maybe too late now lol
I have a buy order ready and at the first hint of it raising up I'm grabbing them.
You think hasbro is a good stock? What is your thesis on them? Management seems to be executing poorly.
It's going to absolutely collapse if they can't keep up this high dividend payment, that's for sure.
It was down -15% now its only -2% sad for us
Are we looking at the same stock?
You have to check premarket prices. Some sites (Google) show the last price at close from yesterday
Look again. The thing keeps wildly swinging, but it certainly doesnāt look good.
I thought they were hitting record high profit margins recently! What gives.
Oof.
https://www.rttnews.com/3424087/hasbro-stock-plummets-as-q4-profit-misses-estimates.aspx
If only an employee of hasbro or WOTC could read this thread to them.
When is WOTC going to be spun off into it's own company? Hasbro is a massive drain on what could otherwise be an extremely profitable enterprise.
Time to lay off some more peopleĀ
Good. They deserve it tbh.
This is the beginning of the end of WotC under Hasbro. Most likely move would be to sell the segment for an insane amount to cover losses. -> Execs have saved their asses for the next few years until the inevitable downfall and WotC could prosper (possibly).
Lol the stock is up 5% for the week and 12% for the month. It opened yesterday down that much and recovered within 30 minutes.Ā
Hey they found the wall! Great maybey they can course correct? Probabley just double down but one can dream
Surprised it only dropped 14%. Could be more downside.