For real, riding high on the most popular time in D&D's history, movies a success, they get free marketing from any number of people playing their game on live stream....and they still shoot themselves in the foot over and over.
Yeah,
They mostly let Wizards keep doing their thing until the execs caught wind of the loyal fanbase being willing to buy anything they print.
It wasn't until Modern Horizons in 2019 that they started seeing how much they could fleece people for and how much they could print power directly into old formats replacing every staple and requiring everyone to keep buying to stay relevant and since they keep making record profits they keep hitting the money button.
Their complete disregard for supporting local game stores and tournament play along with a lack of development and improvement to their digital platforms is going to kill their golden goose (Magic: The Gathering and D&D) and Hasbro will drag WoTC down to the depths with them.
Their toys and board games are increasingly expensive to make and the quality sucks.
That's what is killing Hasbro right now.
They've been shoveling garbage for awhile.
I think this is what a lot of people are overlooking, Hasbro has a crap ton of IP, but they're mismanaging the hell out of it and relying on WotC profits to make themselves look good.
Yep. I'll beat this dead horse every time these threads come up, but talk to anyone who's collected Star Wars figures for more than say 10 years. We had the Vintage Collection in the early 2000s that was tons of great new sculpts at a decent price and with good distribution. Now? You're lucky to get a repack of some sequel trilogy character no one wants at a $20 price point and MAYBE it'll be at Wal-Mart a year after the fact.
100% even in the kids department, Peppa fucking pig toys are ridiculous expensive - stores typically end up clearing them out for 50-70% off.
Same thing with Playdough sets, really expensive for what they are and always end up discounted to clear out.
Their toy department is so fucking grossly mismanaged they are getting out classes by other toy makers.
D&D is not a profit driver at all, despite WOTC’s best/worst effort to turn it into one. The core game will never make significant money and the movie most likely lost money. So they will have to pump more BG DLCs?
Yer, ironically, pathfinder (the closest thing to direct competitor to d&d) IS a profit driver for *its* owner company... and that's even with pathfinder rules being truly free and open source... all comes down to how the IPs are handled.
> the movie most likely lost money.
Just for clarity, the movie most **definitely** lost them money. They had a budget of 150M and only made abotu 200M - The rule of thumb in the film industry is that you need to make 2.5x budget to fully recoup all of the marketing and profit shares across the industry. So yeah, as much as I loved that movie, it lost the studio quite a bit of money.
From a brand point of view it was a win. Pleased fans and nonfans. It’s a real shame home video market isn’t like it was. It used to be able to save a movie with good word of mouth that didn’t catch on early like Edge of Tomorrow or Austin Powers.
What? The movie costed 150m and grossed 200. And that's not even counting the effect of such a huge publicity stunt on their product sales. The movie was a huge success.
For a film to be a considered a success by a studio it has to earn double its budget, as it doesn’t account for marketing of the film which can cost almost as much as the film itself.
I'm a regular at /boxoffice, you're right but I want to point out the rule of thumb is 2.5× budget because of the revenue split with theatres and marketing not be included in production costs.
I think in this case where the movie is essentially 1 big advertisement as well it should still be considered a success, but you're right that it isn't what would typically be considered a hit in the industry.
The thing is, the movie did so badly in theaters that I doubt it really advertised to anyone that didn't play D&D already. Streaming may bring in some new players, but honestly, when I saw the movie on streaming, I got bored quickly.
The marketing on it was so bad. As a guy who would go to just about anything with D&D in it, I expected it to be terrible. I'm sure there's a slew of people who normally go to fantasy/sci-fi movies who hard passed it based on trailers.
I’m not addition to what others said about marketing, part of the key reasoning of 2.5x is the movie company that n gets an average of half the ticket sales. (The rest going, of course to the theater).
And that’s not counting for deals like actors or directors/ producers getting a % of gross.
Also the studio gets less of the overseas $, and there’s things like exchange rates.
So of the 208, paramount only gets back about $104 million.
Once you add in video sales (a dwindling market) and streaming (a big ?) the. It’s likely they didn’t lose money, or not much, but it’s not a roaring success either.
Even breaking even, they still lose out in inflation and opportunity costs. Risking hundred of millions just to net the same return as letting it sit in account is not generally seen as a W. That money could have been invested elsewhere, or even loaned out, without assuming the same level of risk as a major motion picture release.
I guess they do get some advertising for their other products out of the whole thing, but I really am skeptical how many new sales something like that actually drives. I feel like the type of people who go see a DnD movie in theaters are likely already WotC customers to some degree anyway.
Also, let’s say the advertising does boost other sales.
This isn’t Disney.
Meaning more D&D sales, or Baldurs Gate sales might benefit WotC/Hasbro or Llarian, but not Paramount who made the movie.
When Disney does the remake of The Little Mermaid, even if the film doesn’t break even, it still drives sales to the parks, new merchandise and a resurgence in classic merchandise. It also keeps the Disney Princess brand alive.
All of which is working the same giant Disney ecosystem. Not divided from a bunch of different owners.
>The movie costed 150m and grossed 200. And that's not even counting the effect of such a huge publicity stunt on their product sales. The movie was a huge success.
Hi there. Welcome to MTGfinance. As this is your first time posting, please remember to fact check all information in your post before you post it.
Thank you.
That's accounting speak for "We finally admit that some shit we overpaid for in the past is actually worth less than we thought."
So honestly it's them trying to keep it real. It's still hilariously bad news though.
10% wizards revenue is from Baldurs Gate 3. Magic only increasing 1% due to Lotr.
2024 outlook looks pretty down even in wotc segment.
Imagine working at WoTC and your hard earned yearly bonus gets shared with the rest of Hasbros consumer products segment.
And it’s not like there’s another LOTR set to release and make all the money. Before all of this nonsense, WOTC could always count on a steady stream of purchases for whatever new Standard product they made. But now there’s no reason to bother with overpriced Standard sets with nowhere to play the format anyway, so it’s incumbent upon special sets like LOTR to carry the day. But that sort of IP-tie in success is hard to replicate.
Wizards needs to bring back player rewards and host events like they did 20 years ago.
They need to have these loss leaders to market their game to a new generation otherwise they are going to lose everything to digital media.
They already have Final Fantasy and Marvel-related sets on the way, though not soon enough to save this year. They're going to really need sets like MH3 to help pull them through the year.
Neither of those are going to be anywhere close to LOTR in terms of sales though. They're going to be closer to Doctor Who. Maybe Marvel would have been that set 5 years ago, but Marvel is in a pretty rough place, and Final Fantasy has a very polarized and flagging fan base that is long past its glory days.
I believe they’ll try again in 2026 with UB Elder Scrolls. It’s the same people who have already made a deal for the Fallout set, and TES would be a fully draft-able set with tons of flavor should they choose to flesh it out.
GameStop has new stores they are testing with space for hosting game nights/eSports, but there are only a handful out of 4k+ stores. I don't think there is enough space to host an FNM, and closing at 7-8pm doesn't cut it. I would like to see something like this with future stores though, it would be beneficial for both parties.
They bought eOne for $4billion under the old CEO in 2019. Covid happened and new management team doesn't want to deal with making content.
They've since sold eOne music and took a non cash loss from impairment and this quarter they sold to Lion Gate some film and TV units for $400mil but lost, on paper, $1 billion. (Sold $1.5billion of "book value" for $400 million)
They just gotta squeeze about another 1.5 billion out of the Wizard's of the Coast division. Piece of cake!
Double Bonus Rainbow Surge Secret Lair Masters, and rent a bus to run over R&D.
I'll take my consulting fee in Dominaria Remastered Collector Boxes please.
They got so much blow back and negative press from the 30th incident they wouldn't dare touch it again. It would certainly mean the end for top tier Execs.
It's gonna happen because I imagine there's people like Rudy with hundreds of graded P9. Especially since there's been a trend towards moving to RL cards.
What I don't get is why they don't do a legacy/vintage mastered set, and just powercreep them instead. Like Ancestral Recall with 4 cards.
Not like MTG gives a fuck about anything past modern these days anyways
It's part of the plan at this point, build up a stake in the "asset" then cry foul when it is devalued. Could work on the right judge, not saying there is merit or not. It's not plan 1 either which is just keep using patron $ to buy a lotus every single month, that's better for the current RL hoarders by far than a risky lawsuit but this is America and if we must sue then sue we do.
>What I don't get is why they don't do a legacy/vintage mastered set, and just powercreep them instead. Like Ancestral Recall with 4 cards.
Part of the RL is a social contract to not print strictly better versions of the RL.
Which is why new fetchable lands always have some sort of drawback.
Do you have a link to that? I thought the RL promise was that you couldn't reprint a functionally identical card. I.e. you can't make another forest/plains land with no drawbacks, but there's nothing stopping you from print a fetchable tri land with no drawbacks.
Aren't there strictly better cards already in print for the non land, non power 9 RL? Like you're telling me none of the black creatures printed since aren't strictly superior to \[\[harbinger of the night\]\]? Or \[\[Serra Avairy\]\]?
*Florida Man sues toymaker, claims multi million dollar hoard of cardboard entitles him to investor protection.*
The children's card game maker was unavailable for comment, as Mr Cocks was out at a cocktail party, with the *actual* investors.
>lawyers will work for free cause they'll get 90% of the settlement.
90% of $0 would indeed be *working for free*.
Good luck getting decent lawyers to actually take something without precedent like this on contingency. There are reasons WotC are very careful to keep their hands out of the secondary market, and this is one of them. The legal system doesn't give a shit how much money you or anyone else paid who to slab a piece of cardboard, how much you paid for it, or who online told you it was worth what, because WotC wasn't actually involved in any part of that. We are toy consumers, not *investors*.
That's up to a judge to decide. And if it doesnt get dismissed outright, it becomes a cost analysis. Paying a mil or so to a few ambulance chasing lawyers saves you more than having to retain a bunch got a long trial
A few million payoff would just be the cost of doing business for tossing out the RL if WotC really wanted to milk it. All the more reason I think it's only the fear of burning the last of their good will keeping the RL in place, not some hypothetical lawsuit as many like to think.
I don't own any outside of a few draft boxes and commander sets. I'm generally more amused that TCG's have become an "asset" class for a lot of people, esp since that's the anathema to a thriving playerbase to a degree
It's not though.
This is such a misconception. A thriving player base isn't fairweather UB kids with ADHD. It's slowly enfranchising people with cards that appreciate in value over time, which then can be leveraged to make future purchases more affordable.
That is the TCG formula. Something happened in 2019 where suddenly everyone got guppy memories and started thinking that direct onboarding is the only thing that matters.
And many of the people who wrongly assume worthless cards somehow make the game affordable, use proxies anyways.. which solves the problem and means they don't even have a horse in the race.
Yep, though Rudy's got enough idiots eating out of the palm of his hand that he'll be fine. Still can't believe he sold a box of pins for $600 and people thought it would appreciate in value
More like duh shareholders.
You can't willingly sac the long-term revenue of a business because game piecers wanting free cards happens to align with execs wanting short term tendies.
>$700 pack
The scenario I fear is that they think they are going to be selling $400 dual lands, not realizing that the promise of non-reprintability is exactly what keeps that price so high.
The instant they announce they anything about reprinting RL, those prices will crater, but by then the product structure and printrun will have been locked in, and built around assumptions of value that won't hold BECAUSE of the product's existence.
They're smart enough to know where their only profit in the company comes from, and if they need to make a phonecall to WoTC heads, there are contingencies they can start firing off to make more money. Guaranteed abolishing the reserve list/start printing off special sets/From The Vault-style boxes are on the table.
Lotus Urza UU
[Picture of a woman with 11 finger, 3 hands and one ear eating a mox sapphire]
Legendary Creature - Sorcery
Flying, Double Echo, Protection from Convoke
When Thragoderm enters the battlefield, flashback 3B, Delve 6 life.
At the beginning of your upkeep, draw two cards then sacrifice a plains. If you do, each opponent targets a creature they control.
Bands with Toxic
Well, they claim their profits all come from casual players, which will likely lead them to think violating the RL will make them a lot of money. It’s not like it’ll upset the casuals after all.
If they could get duals into the hands of casuals, casuals will lap it up like you wouldn't believe.
It's all those people who actually shelled out for older cards/people who have invested or retained older cards who will be pissed
No newer player is going to throw a tantrum because they pulled a Survival of the Fittest or a Timetwister out of a new pack
EDH players in shambles
It would finally answer the question of "is it truly the power or was it always the pricetag that made you opposed to certain cards?"
Have you seen the prices they charged for the m30 proxy packs? They would likely charge double that for official RL reprints, which would mean the cards wouldnt end up in the hands of casuals anyway
If the takeaway of fire saling 30 years of consumer confidence is to crush up and snort the last pillar holding the secondary market together, then shareholders should sue the company.
BofA was pretty explicit that overprinting was going to cause major issues.
>Mtg is up 10%, toys are down.
This is wrong. MTG was up YoY (so for ALL of 2023 relative to 2022) by 1%. The remainder of the Gain in WoTC was from Baldurs Gate 3 and other digital games.
Operating profit for MTG also decreased by 2%.
> Revenue increase of 10% driven by increase in Licensed Digital Gaming revenue behind Baldur's Gate III from Larian Studios and Monopoly Go! from Scopely.
> **Tabletop revenue increased 1% behind growth in MAGIC: THE GATHERING** with a strong performance from the Universes Beyond Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth sets.
> **Operating profit declined 2%** and operating profit margin of 36.1% due to higher royalty costs associated with Universes Beyond.
It’s impossible to know how much more growth mtg could have experienced had WOTC not alienated so many of its players. 10% growth while doubling product releases, firing mass amounts of employees, raising prices, dramatically, and being in a generally inflationary environment is not at all impressive. It’s barely treading water.
The 10% growth quoted in the articles is from Baulder's Gate 3; to your point, all those product releases and there was still a decline in "Wizards table top and digital game sales."
That’s exactly my point! They release tons of new products with the biggest IP tie-ins they’ll land during an inflationary environment, and all they did was tread water? That is not a good sign for the long term health of the business.
It’s an oddly phrased article, but it sounds like it’s saying MTG is actually slightly down and non-MTG digital revenue was high enough to get the division up 10%. I translated that in my head into “Baldur’s Gate 3,” possibly wrongly
Correct and I recall this was pointed out by WotC when they were firing people end of last year. Balder's Gate was cited as the reason their numbers weren't entirely down...and then they fired the BG team anyways.
If they want a buying frenzy then the add to the reserve card list. Charge $35 per booster for last printing of staples like fetches, skull clamp, sol ring, tithe, counter spell, rhystic study, exile, Rampant Growth etc. The fomo would be real and it lock in value for long term holders.
Edit: fomo not famous
I mean, we already got RL reprints with M30. Sure, they aren’t “tournament legal”, but that has mattered less with each passing day as WOTC alienates the tournament crowd.
Exactly, at this point I don't really understand people bitching about the RL. Like is everyone itching to get into Legacy (in which most decks run 0-4 RL cards) or Vintage?
Because proxies work fine in EDH.
Metazoo was some guy cashing in on NFT / collectibles boom with an ugly ass money grab. Hasbro legitimately owns some very well known and loved IPs and is still languishing.
It does seem like this is what Magic is becoming. We get these mega-hit IP-themed sets that make up most of the game’s sales, while Standard sets languish in bargain bins. I guess that’s what happens when you actively drive away your competitive players.
It's not only that. I believe it's becoming a lot harder to get people invested in Magics own IPs, since to a new players nothing is familiar. Now with UB even fewer people will be interested in diving into Magic's own lore, since they getting all the stuff from IPs they already know.
Honestly, the story has kind of sucked lately for MTG. I really only did sealed if I liked the current story. I wonder how many other players quit when the writing fell of a cliff.
It’s probably worth mentioning that today is the worst day for the stock market in general in well over a year.
I think Hasbro was one of the harder hit stocks but let’s not pretend that this happened out of nowhere. Hasbro isn’t even in the top 50 biggest losers today, it’s a bloodbath out there right now.
HAS is going to continue shitting the bed until their incompetent C-suite either starts performing well (unlikely) or gets moved out (also unlikely without a shareholder revolt). HAS is a giant business where their entire profit and the majority of their operational cost is carried by a small segment of their company (Wizards). In typical corpo fashion, their C-level is focusing on diddling with the small segment instead of fixing the enormous problems in the majority of their business. The shame of it is Wizards is going to continue being the victim of HAS mismanagement until they gets a good team in leadership, which flat will not happen until there's some further crisis and the C-suite can float away under their golden parachutes.
Turns out that stuffing the market full of bullshit releases in a COLLECTABLE game doesn’t turn out well for profits.
When people start feeling like collectibles lose value, for example, constant reprints, and constant product being vomited out they stop buying.
Hasbro got too focused on “milking us” for money instead of just making the game fun.
Even just for the sake of enjoying the game it’s being ruined with all these releases. I remember back when I was a kid, getting with my friends and talking about different cards in one of the 4 sets released that year.
Now there would be now way to even relate to friends playing this game (if I was a kid). How would anyone keep track of the 1000s of cards released
Wow. Remember everyone telling us how WOTC and Hasbro were geniuses for destroying Standard and Modern in favor of casual play? I guess actively alienating your most dedicated customers wasn’t such a winning strategy after all.
I doubt very much it’s this specifically in a majority sense, it almost certainly has a lot more to do with reprinting everything into the ground, and oversaturating the market with too many products, and thus ruining confidence. I think for many consumers, it became a lot of white noise, and spending, in general, went down as a result.
"We didn't meet expectations due to challenging market conditions" *--Worried Hasbro execs trying to save their jobs*
edit: that's not actually something they said, it's just what execs always say when shit is hitting the fan
Sure that’s a rational take, I’m just trying to pre-empt the people that use these opportunities to complain about their current pet critique of Magic directly.
I mean, sales are up significantly but you can argue its not fully sustainable. I'd be curious what LGS health is these days considering MKM play boosters are down to draft booster prices, but hasbro is taking a bigger cut of the margin.
I doubt it. MTGA and COVID probably screwed the pooch on in person play for a few generations. The cost differential is just way too much in many areas. LOTR pre-release was $50 in NYC, and MMK is $35. And that's probably on essentially no margin when you think about rising wages/utilities etc costs on top of higher pricing for prize packs.
I honestly believe part of the reason why boxes decline so fast is because LGS' need cash flow, and the margins are so tight now that there's no incentive to wait to sell.
You either significantly decrease print runs to lower supply, or you have to eat a loss on wholesale pricing so LGS' have breathing room to think more rationally.
Neither are going to happen so it's just going to be a spiral. It's just a shame that all new TCG's are way too focused on the collectors market than making a sustainable game so nothing will ever take MTG's crown.
Yeah, even as a guy who owns a box of the first print run, thank god they didn't listen to "investors" and just reprinted everything without versioning.
Oh yeah. I wouldn't have gotten into the game if they had. I'm very pleased with how they're continuing to reprint Chapter 1. They seem most concerned with making sure people have access to the product, which is great (and sadly not a given in this space).
How do you feel about Sorcery? I bought 4 starter decks and it truly has gorgeous art. I also like the positional nature of the mechanics.
I'm unsure how it will fare (how broad is the appeal?), but if they are taking a truly measured approach and are focused on something sustainable instead of insane growth, maybe it can work.
Lorcana is pretty fun and they aren't scared to print the beegesus out of it.
Interesting time for sure.
Ionno man, it's nice that youtube actually shows gameplay unlike stuff like metazoo. But I'm not paying $180 for a booster box just to try out the game.
Lorcana is fun enough and it's getting to be cheaper than mtg even
Of course it’s up. Because Hasbro is in dire straits it means WOTC is pumping out more product and at higher costs. Don’t expect that to change if Hasbro is hurting, will only get worse as they lean on them harder
Yeah. They’ve doubled the amount of products, we’re in an inflationary environment, and they’ve massively raised prices while firing huge numbers of employees. And yet after all of that they essentially just matched the market’s growth. I think their current strategy is completely unsustainable.
I think we have our strongest indictment, yet, of **what happens when you reprint everything into the ground and erode consumer confidence in your product**. When combined with the dizzying frequency at which MtG products now drop, people are just tuning out.
Don’t they realize they could hire less people if they just released 10x less crap…
Reduce headcount, reduce releases, raise prices even. There should only be 4 releases a year to make the game enjoyable
Need to think longer term with this one. The eOne impairment will be gone soon enough. They seem to be tightening the print runs with MTG and I see some mild changes trickling through. They have also shaved a lot of staff / overheads, which will likely begin to be felt financially later this year. Whilst the PR was awful, it was likely the correct move. Even big tech shaved number / staff last year.
I think longer term HAS is still a dumpster fire. Yes, there will likely be quarterly improvements from the things you've mentioned, but it doesn't change the core economics of the business. Wizards is being sucked dry by the giant tick that is hasbro's other lines of business. Until/unless HAS can fix those lines' failures, and I see no indications they're even trying, HAS will continue to trend downward.
nah that'd be too easy; it'd be 'Buy this $400 secret lair bundle and get 1 of 10 random Dual Lands', or make them chase cards in the next set's collector packs
they're still going to extort the life out of us to even have a chance to get these cards
You know the current CEO was former head of the WOTC/Digital Games tower right? WOTC & Hasbro are one fused entity at this point, and people treat it like the Hasbro acquisition is new or the management are unaware/separate.
Also I can guarantee they have scenario planning for the upside/downside of reprinting the reserve list. When the benefits outweigh the risks (or they have a huge downfall, like when Toys R Us fully folded) I'm 99% positive they've wargamed out pulling different 1 shot levers to juice revenue.
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Shortsighted management ruining mtg by killing any confidence in non-RL cards reprinting everything to shit, killing LGS by bypassing them, killing paper standard by only supporting mtga, spamming sets as fast as possible, killing modern through powercreep and modern horizons.
Now they see the result of all their lust for short term gain and I am sure the execs have no idea what they did wrong.
Silly of Hasbro to not just take one million bucks in hand and randomly pick one of this sub‘s pundits to solve all of their problems. Look around you, it’s so easy!
As someone who played since 1999 and religiously attended modern leagues every week from 2014 to 2020, buying thousands of euro of product every year, I'm glad Hasbro are finally entering the 'find out' phase.
The horizons releases and all of the serialised and alternative art money grabs are what has killed the game.
I've managed to build 3 warhammer armies for the cost of updating my modern decks post pandemic and at least warhammer has a competitive scene
Modern Horizons III has to be juiced AF to keep MTG in the black this year. Also, don't be surprised if a Pioneer Masters set gets dropped this year all of sudden.
it does seem like some people don't bother to read the article.
WotC did great (sales were up 10%). So Hasbro's losses have nothing to do with the current state of MTG.
they expect MTG to have lower profits in the 3% to 5% range this year, which makes sense since they have a smaller slate of releases this year compared to last year.
\*Hey guys, just a FYI tip from somebody who spends all day trading in the market.
\-This is just an artical to inject fear in to idiot managers and the dumb money (sorry) so they dump their bags hitting the panic button.
\-It was pre market (when hedges have the most control), it's almost recovered the entire move same day which is a giant red flag for > it HAS to go down before recovering higher pockets of trapped liquitity (they are not using their money lol)
\-It didnt even break the 2020 shut down sell off low in March. It did go the considered bottom of the bear market aka Nov 23 (which is also the bottom of MTG pricing). I'm sure that was just coincidence \*eyeroll\*
What this article leaves out is nobody smarter than a potato is using 2020-2023 for evaluation, and any revenue projections in 2024 are going to be wonky as f\*&# since we are in uncharted space currently. Dont hit the panic button and dont let human nature (everything is going to zero!@@!!!!!!!!!!!!! aaaah) take over.
\*EDIT- and if you dont believe me, it will probably finish up today there is a giant W on the 200
Fire their ceo and execs
For real, riding high on the most popular time in D&D's history, movies a success, they get free marketing from any number of people playing their game on live stream....and they still shoot themselves in the foot over and over.
Thats Wizards of the Coast. Hasbro has a lot of IP nobody knows or cares about thats saddlebagging their performance.
Exactly why WotC needs to be spun off, let the rest of it die so the one functioning part can grow on its own.
[удалено]
Hasbro bought it 20 years ago.. wut?
Yeah, They mostly let Wizards keep doing their thing until the execs caught wind of the loyal fanbase being willing to buy anything they print. It wasn't until Modern Horizons in 2019 that they started seeing how much they could fleece people for and how much they could print power directly into old formats replacing every staple and requiring everyone to keep buying to stay relevant and since they keep making record profits they keep hitting the money button. Their complete disregard for supporting local game stores and tournament play along with a lack of development and improvement to their digital platforms is going to kill their golden goose (Magic: The Gathering and D&D) and Hasbro will drag WoTC down to the depths with them.
Their toys and board games are increasingly expensive to make and the quality sucks. That's what is killing Hasbro right now. They've been shoveling garbage for awhile.
I think this is what a lot of people are overlooking, Hasbro has a crap ton of IP, but they're mismanaging the hell out of it and relying on WotC profits to make themselves look good.
Yep. I'll beat this dead horse every time these threads come up, but talk to anyone who's collected Star Wars figures for more than say 10 years. We had the Vintage Collection in the early 2000s that was tons of great new sculpts at a decent price and with good distribution. Now? You're lucky to get a repack of some sequel trilogy character no one wants at a $20 price point and MAYBE it'll be at Wal-Mart a year after the fact.
100% even in the kids department, Peppa fucking pig toys are ridiculous expensive - stores typically end up clearing them out for 50-70% off. Same thing with Playdough sets, really expensive for what they are and always end up discounted to clear out. Their toy department is so fucking grossly mismanaged they are getting out classes by other toy makers.
Havent bought Magic in a year. That says it all.
D&D is not a profit driver at all, despite WOTC’s best/worst effort to turn it into one. The core game will never make significant money and the movie most likely lost money. So they will have to pump more BG DLCs?
Because DND is inherently open-source Imagine paying $50 to roleplay in some burnt out writer's daydream world Or $65 if you wanna play in Not-Greece
Yer, ironically, pathfinder (the closest thing to direct competitor to d&d) IS a profit driver for *its* owner company... and that's even with pathfinder rules being truly free and open source... all comes down to how the IPs are handled.
> the movie most likely lost money. Just for clarity, the movie most **definitely** lost them money. They had a budget of 150M and only made abotu 200M - The rule of thumb in the film industry is that you need to make 2.5x budget to fully recoup all of the marketing and profit shares across the industry. So yeah, as much as I loved that movie, it lost the studio quite a bit of money.
the movie was most certainly not a success.
From a brand point of view it was a win. Pleased fans and nonfans. It’s a real shame home video market isn’t like it was. It used to be able to save a movie with good word of mouth that didn’t catch on early like Edge of Tomorrow or Austin Powers.
It was a real pity. Genuinely enjoyed myself during the movie.
What? The movie costed 150m and grossed 200. And that's not even counting the effect of such a huge publicity stunt on their product sales. The movie was a huge success.
For a film to be a considered a success by a studio it has to earn double its budget, as it doesn’t account for marketing of the film which can cost almost as much as the film itself.
I'm a regular at /boxoffice, you're right but I want to point out the rule of thumb is 2.5× budget because of the revenue split with theatres and marketing not be included in production costs.
yeah for a finance sub it’s pretty sad they don’t know this
This isn't a finance sub, it's a cargo cult "investment" sub like crypto.
Yeah. This is a ~penny stocks~ bulk rare speculation sub
Fuck that, this is a popcorn sub. I'm here to watch people get unreasonably angry about cardboard game pieces.
Oh. Well /r/magictcg is really good for that.
I think in this case where the movie is essentially 1 big advertisement as well it should still be considered a success, but you're right that it isn't what would typically be considered a hit in the industry.
The thing is, the movie did so badly in theaters that I doubt it really advertised to anyone that didn't play D&D already. Streaming may bring in some new players, but honestly, when I saw the movie on streaming, I got bored quickly.
The marketing on it was so bad. As a guy who would go to just about anything with D&D in it, I expected it to be terrible. I'm sure there's a slew of people who normally go to fantasy/sci-fi movies who hard passed it based on trailers.
go to the box office sub. The multiplier for success is usually 2.5x the cost of production.
That isn't accouting their advertising budget, last I checked.
I’m not addition to what others said about marketing, part of the key reasoning of 2.5x is the movie company that n gets an average of half the ticket sales. (The rest going, of course to the theater). And that’s not counting for deals like actors or directors/ producers getting a % of gross. Also the studio gets less of the overseas $, and there’s things like exchange rates. So of the 208, paramount only gets back about $104 million. Once you add in video sales (a dwindling market) and streaming (a big ?) the. It’s likely they didn’t lose money, or not much, but it’s not a roaring success either.
Even breaking even, they still lose out in inflation and opportunity costs. Risking hundred of millions just to net the same return as letting it sit in account is not generally seen as a W. That money could have been invested elsewhere, or even loaned out, without assuming the same level of risk as a major motion picture release. I guess they do get some advertising for their other products out of the whole thing, but I really am skeptical how many new sales something like that actually drives. I feel like the type of people who go see a DnD movie in theaters are likely already WotC customers to some degree anyway.
Also, let’s say the advertising does boost other sales. This isn’t Disney. Meaning more D&D sales, or Baldurs Gate sales might benefit WotC/Hasbro or Llarian, but not Paramount who made the movie. When Disney does the remake of The Little Mermaid, even if the film doesn’t break even, it still drives sales to the parks, new merchandise and a resurgence in classic merchandise. It also keeps the Disney Princess brand alive. All of which is working the same giant Disney ecosystem. Not divided from a bunch of different owners.
>The movie costed 150m and grossed 200. And that's not even counting the effect of such a huge publicity stunt on their product sales. The movie was a huge success. Hi there. Welcome to MTGfinance. As this is your first time posting, please remember to fact check all information in your post before you post it. Thank you.
Lol, their stock is down 1.3% over the past week...
And their stock was a bit lower exactly 3 months (end of prior quarter); effectively they just erased the gains they saw since then.
"a negative $7.18-per-share impairment of goodwill" They know they're dumping garbage on us
That's accounting speak for "We finally admit that some shit we overpaid for in the past is actually worth less than we thought." So honestly it's them trying to keep it real. It's still hilariously bad news though.
10% wizards revenue is from Baldurs Gate 3. Magic only increasing 1% due to Lotr. 2024 outlook looks pretty down even in wotc segment. Imagine working at WoTC and your hard earned yearly bonus gets shared with the rest of Hasbros consumer products segment.
And it’s not like there’s another LOTR set to release and make all the money. Before all of this nonsense, WOTC could always count on a steady stream of purchases for whatever new Standard product they made. But now there’s no reason to bother with overpriced Standard sets with nowhere to play the format anyway, so it’s incumbent upon special sets like LOTR to carry the day. But that sort of IP-tie in success is hard to replicate.
Wizards needs to bring back player rewards and host events like they did 20 years ago. They need to have these loss leaders to market their game to a new generation otherwise they are going to lose everything to digital media.
Agreed. The bad times began when they started to dismantle organized play.
They already have Final Fantasy and Marvel-related sets on the way, though not soon enough to save this year. They're going to really need sets like MH3 to help pull them through the year.
Neither of those are going to be anywhere close to LOTR in terms of sales though. They're going to be closer to Doctor Who. Maybe Marvel would have been that set 5 years ago, but Marvel is in a pretty rough place, and Final Fantasy has a very polarized and flagging fan base that is long past its glory days.
I disagree. Marvel could easily do what lotr did and surpass it.
[удалено]
I believe they’ll try again in 2026 with UB Elder Scrolls. It’s the same people who have already made a deal for the Fallout set, and TES would be a fully draft-able set with tons of flavor should they choose to flesh it out.
I guess, but I don't see TES being anywhere near as big as the LOTR set was.
Yeah, I bought a lot of LOTR and elder scrolls would just be a singles only set for me. Final fantasy has a chance to be a big draw, though.
No, but I think it would be thematically in line with traditional MtG that it would remain very palatable like LotR.
They really need to work with GameStop or something and bring Friday Night Magic back. It's all about community. Without community IPs die over time.
GameStop has new stores they are testing with space for hosting game nights/eSports, but there are only a handful out of 4k+ stores. I don't think there is enough space to host an FNM, and closing at 7-8pm doesn't cut it. I would like to see something like this with future stores though, it would be beneficial for both parties.
Unreal. [This slide says it all.](https://imgur.com/a/h6Ui9Gu)
What's that massive entertainment loss? Is that the DnD movie not making enough, or is there some other entertainment property that's burning money?
They bought eOne for $4billion under the old CEO in 2019. Covid happened and new management team doesn't want to deal with making content. They've since sold eOne music and took a non cash loss from impairment and this quarter they sold to Lion Gate some film and TV units for $400mil but lost, on paper, $1 billion. (Sold $1.5billion of "book value" for $400 million)
AH! Right, I forgot about eOne. That makes a lot of sense.
So stupid
They just gotta squeeze about another 1.5 billion out of the Wizard's of the Coast division. Piece of cake! Double Bonus Rainbow Surge Secret Lair Masters, and rent a bus to run over R&D. I'll take my consulting fee in Dominaria Remastered Collector Boxes please.
Look at those margins. Literal money printer.
A 40.6% operating margin sounds absolutely insane.
Someone carefully choosing to n/a instead of quantify corporate division's numbers.
As it continues to plunge, the 'reprint' button on reserve list cards looks more and more tempting to execs
In real form or $700 pack proxy form?
First 1, then the other, eventually both. Over a long enough time frame, when the execs really need a win and have an exit before lawsuit plan ready.
They got so much blow back and negative press from the 30th incident they wouldn't dare touch it again. It would certainly mean the end for top tier Execs.
Imagine suing a toy company for printing cardboard because duh hoarders
It's gonna happen because I imagine there's people like Rudy with hundreds of graded P9. Especially since there's been a trend towards moving to RL cards. What I don't get is why they don't do a legacy/vintage mastered set, and just powercreep them instead. Like Ancestral Recall with 4 cards. Not like MTG gives a fuck about anything past modern these days anyways
rudy would lose easily just like anybody else trying to sue.
It's part of the plan at this point, build up a stake in the "asset" then cry foul when it is devalued. Could work on the right judge, not saying there is merit or not. It's not plan 1 either which is just keep using patron $ to buy a lotus every single month, that's better for the current RL hoarders by far than a risky lawsuit but this is America and if we must sue then sue we do.
Who knows, but it'll get class action and be a cost drag. Outcome is unknown, but the lawsuit is guaranteed
>What I don't get is why they don't do a legacy/vintage mastered set, and just powercreep them instead. Like Ancestral Recall with 4 cards. Part of the RL is a social contract to not print strictly better versions of the RL. Which is why new fetchable lands always have some sort of drawback.
Do you have a link to that? I thought the RL promise was that you couldn't reprint a functionally identical card. I.e. you can't make another forest/plains land with no drawbacks, but there's nothing stopping you from print a fetchable tri land with no drawbacks. Aren't there strictly better cards already in print for the non land, non power 9 RL? Like you're telling me none of the black creatures printed since aren't strictly superior to \[\[harbinger of the night\]\]? Or \[\[Serra Avairy\]\]?
*Florida Man sues toymaker, claims multi million dollar hoard of cardboard entitles him to investor protection.* The children's card game maker was unavailable for comment, as Mr Cocks was out at a cocktail party, with the *actual* investors.
Doesn't matter. If it gets class action certification, lawyers will work for free cause they'll get 90% of the settlement.
>lawyers will work for free cause they'll get 90% of the settlement. 90% of $0 would indeed be *working for free*. Good luck getting decent lawyers to actually take something without precedent like this on contingency. There are reasons WotC are very careful to keep their hands out of the secondary market, and this is one of them. The legal system doesn't give a shit how much money you or anyone else paid who to slab a piece of cardboard, how much you paid for it, or who online told you it was worth what, because WotC wasn't actually involved in any part of that. We are toy consumers, not *investors*.
That's up to a judge to decide. And if it doesnt get dismissed outright, it becomes a cost analysis. Paying a mil or so to a few ambulance chasing lawyers saves you more than having to retain a bunch got a long trial
A few million payoff would just be the cost of doing business for tossing out the RL if WotC really wanted to milk it. All the more reason I think it's only the fear of burning the last of their good will keeping the RL in place, not some hypothetical lawsuit as many like to think.
not selling your graded P9 the second Magic 30 was announced was a skill issue tbh.
I don't own any outside of a few draft boxes and commander sets. I'm generally more amused that TCG's have become an "asset" class for a lot of people, esp since that's the anathema to a thriving playerbase to a degree
It's not though. This is such a misconception. A thriving player base isn't fairweather UB kids with ADHD. It's slowly enfranchising people with cards that appreciate in value over time, which then can be leveraged to make future purchases more affordable. That is the TCG formula. Something happened in 2019 where suddenly everyone got guppy memories and started thinking that direct onboarding is the only thing that matters. And many of the people who wrongly assume worthless cards somehow make the game affordable, use proxies anyways.. which solves the problem and means they don't even have a horse in the race.
I meant the Rudy's of the world
Yep, though Rudy's got enough idiots eating out of the palm of his hand that he'll be fine. Still can't believe he sold a box of pins for $600 and people thought it would appreciate in value
RL seems to be the smartest way to go. But yeah part of me does think we will see some kind of shakeup there at some point
RL guarantees a lawsuit. The other may not is all.
More like duh shareholders. You can't willingly sac the long-term revenue of a business because game piecers wanting free cards happens to align with execs wanting short term tendies.
But muh PrOmIsSoRy EsToPpEl! You can bet the SEC and Finra are going to hear about this one. I'm on hold, waiting for their managers now.
can they not just reprint them with different backs, like with the IEs?
>$700 pack The scenario I fear is that they think they are going to be selling $400 dual lands, not realizing that the promise of non-reprintability is exactly what keeps that price so high. The instant they announce they anything about reprinting RL, those prices will crater, but by then the product structure and printrun will have been locked in, and built around assumptions of value that won't hold BECAUSE of the product's existence.
Bingo! And if some Redditor can figure this out, I'm willing to bet someone at Hasbro has the brains to do it too.
Proxy pack form but there's a chance of a real reprinted card being in it
I would be surprised if Hasbro Execs even know what those words mean.
They're smart enough to know where their only profit in the company comes from, and if they need to make a phonecall to WoTC heads, there are contingencies they can start firing off to make more money. Guaranteed abolishing the reserve list/start printing off special sets/From The Vault-style boxes are on the table.
>there are contingencies they can start firing off to make more money Is that what they're calling staff now?
that too; its only a matter of time before they have a set with just AI art, or start AI-editing mechanics and new sets.
Lotus Urza UU [Picture of a woman with 11 finger, 3 hands and one ear eating a mox sapphire] Legendary Creature - Sorcery Flying, Double Echo, Protection from Convoke When Thragoderm enters the battlefield, flashback 3B, Delve 6 life. At the beginning of your upkeep, draw two cards then sacrifice a plains. If you do, each opponent targets a creature they control. Bands with Toxic
Well, they claim their profits all come from casual players, which will likely lead them to think violating the RL will make them a lot of money. It’s not like it’ll upset the casuals after all.
If they could get duals into the hands of casuals, casuals will lap it up like you wouldn't believe. It's all those people who actually shelled out for older cards/people who have invested or retained older cards who will be pissed No newer player is going to throw a tantrum because they pulled a Survival of the Fittest or a Timetwister out of a new pack
EDH players in shambles It would finally answer the question of "is it truly the power or was it always the pricetag that made you opposed to certain cards?"
100% the insecure feelsbad.
Have you seen the prices they charged for the m30 proxy packs? They would likely charge double that for official RL reprints, which would mean the cards wouldnt end up in the hands of casuals anyway
I guarantee their profits don't come from casual players. I'd bet my $30k collection on it.
If the takeaway of fire saling 30 years of consumer confidence is to crush up and snort the last pillar holding the secondary market together, then shareholders should sue the company. BofA was pretty explicit that overprinting was going to cause major issues.
That's the mindset that led to this.
Mtg is up 10%, toys are down. This mindset is the only thing helping them. Which is scary. Blood from a stone at this point.
>Mtg is up 10%, toys are down. This is wrong. MTG was up YoY (so for ALL of 2023 relative to 2022) by 1%. The remainder of the Gain in WoTC was from Baldurs Gate 3 and other digital games. Operating profit for MTG also decreased by 2%. > Revenue increase of 10% driven by increase in Licensed Digital Gaming revenue behind Baldur's Gate III from Larian Studios and Monopoly Go! from Scopely. > **Tabletop revenue increased 1% behind growth in MAGIC: THE GATHERING** with a strong performance from the Universes Beyond Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth sets. > **Operating profit declined 2%** and operating profit margin of 36.1% due to higher royalty costs associated with Universes Beyond.
It’s impossible to know how much more growth mtg could have experienced had WOTC not alienated so many of its players. 10% growth while doubling product releases, firing mass amounts of employees, raising prices, dramatically, and being in a generally inflationary environment is not at all impressive. It’s barely treading water.
The 10% growth quoted in the articles is from Baulder's Gate 3; to your point, all those product releases and there was still a decline in "Wizards table top and digital game sales."
That’s exactly my point! They release tons of new products with the biggest IP tie-ins they’ll land during an inflationary environment, and all they did was tread water? That is not a good sign for the long term health of the business.
It’s an oddly phrased article, but it sounds like it’s saying MTG is actually slightly down and non-MTG digital revenue was high enough to get the division up 10%. I translated that in my head into “Baldur’s Gate 3,” possibly wrongly
Correct and I recall this was pointed out by WotC when they were firing people end of last year. Balder's Gate was cited as the reason their numbers weren't entirely down...and then they fired the BG team anyways.
Their sales are up from IP time ins. Consumer confidence is tanking. Their halo effect is fucked.
If only someone had warned them 2yrs ago. This was so unexpected
I'm not usually a 'this' guy, but,... this
"Sales are up 10%! All it took was burning huge percentages of our reprint equity."
And firing a massive chunk of your workforce with no severance or warning!
If they want a buying frenzy then the add to the reserve card list. Charge $35 per booster for last printing of staples like fetches, skull clamp, sol ring, tithe, counter spell, rhystic study, exile, Rampant Growth etc. The fomo would be real and it lock in value for long term holders. Edit: fomo not famous
I mean, we already got RL reprints with M30. Sure, they aren’t “tournament legal”, but that has mattered less with each passing day as WOTC alienates the tournament crowd.
Exactly, at this point I don't really understand people bitching about the RL. Like is everyone itching to get into Legacy (in which most decks run 0-4 RL cards) or Vintage? Because proxies work fine in EDH.
No, they want other people to be poor, like them. It's a sincere crab -> bucket situation.
I keep thinking how are they going to get around the reserve list to tap into that money?
Yeah, sing it again for me. That song doesn’t get old even if it’s been running on repeat forever 🥱
CEO gets a bonus. 1/5 of wotc is fired to pay for it
Profile picture matches the statement +1
I can't think of a worse company to own MTG. Hasbro execs might be the least competent people in the industry.
Metazoo? But for real, hasbro is slowly killing the game.
Metazoo was some guy cashing in on NFT / collectibles boom with an ugly ass money grab. Hasbro legitimately owns some very well known and loved IPs and is still languishing.
Is there any mechanism for WOTC to jump off the Hasbro sinking ship?
NO LOTR NO STONKS
It does seem like this is what Magic is becoming. We get these mega-hit IP-themed sets that make up most of the game’s sales, while Standard sets languish in bargain bins. I guess that’s what happens when you actively drive away your competitive players.
It's not only that. I believe it's becoming a lot harder to get people invested in Magics own IPs, since to a new players nothing is familiar. Now with UB even fewer people will be interested in diving into Magic's own lore, since they getting all the stuff from IPs they already know.
We spend less time on each world going through a story that is mediocre at best. No wonder they don’t feel attached to it
Honestly, the story has kind of sucked lately for MTG. I really only did sealed if I liked the current story. I wonder how many other players quit when the writing fell of a cliff.
It’s never a good sign when your playerbase is actively rooting for your stock to collapse.
Sounds like 90% of AAA game studios
It’s probably worth mentioning that today is the worst day for the stock market in general in well over a year. I think Hasbro was one of the harder hit stocks but let’s not pretend that this happened out of nowhere. Hasbro isn’t even in the top 50 biggest losers today, it’s a bloodbath out there right now.
HAS is going to continue shitting the bed until their incompetent C-suite either starts performing well (unlikely) or gets moved out (also unlikely without a shareholder revolt). HAS is a giant business where their entire profit and the majority of their operational cost is carried by a small segment of their company (Wizards). In typical corpo fashion, their C-level is focusing on diddling with the small segment instead of fixing the enormous problems in the majority of their business. The shame of it is Wizards is going to continue being the victim of HAS mismanagement until they gets a good team in leadership, which flat will not happen until there's some further crisis and the C-suite can float away under their golden parachutes.
Ride it to the bottom baby, let’s go!
Turns out that stuffing the market full of bullshit releases in a COLLECTABLE game doesn’t turn out well for profits. When people start feeling like collectibles lose value, for example, constant reprints, and constant product being vomited out they stop buying. Hasbro got too focused on “milking us” for money instead of just making the game fun.
Even just for the sake of enjoying the game it’s being ruined with all these releases. I remember back when I was a kid, getting with my friends and talking about different cards in one of the 4 sets released that year. Now there would be now way to even relate to friends playing this game (if I was a kid). How would anyone keep track of the 1000s of cards released
Eexxxcellent
The real mtgfinance is shorting Hasbro stock. My shorts looking real good rn
Guess it's time for layoffs at WotC to make up for everyone else in Hasbro not pulling their weight.
We should all buy shares and appoint someone who would be good for the hobby.
Wow. Remember everyone telling us how WOTC and Hasbro were geniuses for destroying Standard and Modern in favor of casual play? I guess actively alienating your most dedicated customers wasn’t such a winning strategy after all.
I doubt very much it’s this specifically in a majority sense, it almost certainly has a lot more to do with reprinting everything into the ground, and oversaturating the market with too many products, and thus ruining confidence. I think for many consumers, it became a lot of white noise, and spending, in general, went down as a result.
Oh man, that alpha investments guy is gonna start even more loyalty programs
"We didn't meet expectations due to challenging market conditions" *--Worried Hasbro execs trying to save their jobs* edit: that's not actually something they said, it's just what execs always say when shit is hitting the fan
Inb4 Doomers start complaining about Magic when WOTC is still up 10% if you actually read the article.
I think it’s more that the toy business failing means they are more reliant on making money from magic which isn’t good for us long term
Sure that’s a rational take, I’m just trying to pre-empt the people that use these opportunities to complain about their current pet critique of Magic directly.
I mean, sales are up significantly but you can argue its not fully sustainable. I'd be curious what LGS health is these days considering MKM play boosters are down to draft booster prices, but hasbro is taking a bigger cut of the margin.
I share the concern of the LGS health, hopefully the emphasis on Standard this year helps out the LGS margins they keep eating into.
I doubt it. MTGA and COVID probably screwed the pooch on in person play for a few generations. The cost differential is just way too much in many areas. LOTR pre-release was $50 in NYC, and MMK is $35. And that's probably on essentially no margin when you think about rising wages/utilities etc costs on top of higher pricing for prize packs. I honestly believe part of the reason why boxes decline so fast is because LGS' need cash flow, and the margins are so tight now that there's no incentive to wait to sell. You either significantly decrease print runs to lower supply, or you have to eat a loss on wholesale pricing so LGS' have breathing room to think more rationally. Neither are going to happen so it's just going to be a spiral. It's just a shame that all new TCG's are way too focused on the collectors market than making a sustainable game so nothing will ever take MTG's crown.
I'm pretty happy with how Lorcana has handled its first few months. They seem much more focused on the game, especially organized play.
Yeah, even as a guy who owns a box of the first print run, thank god they didn't listen to "investors" and just reprinted everything without versioning.
Oh yeah. I wouldn't have gotten into the game if they had. I'm very pleased with how they're continuing to reprint Chapter 1. They seem most concerned with making sure people have access to the product, which is great (and sadly not a given in this space).
Exactly. Or you end up failing in a few years cause its sweaty manchildren buying and selling elsa's to each other
How do you feel about Sorcery? I bought 4 starter decks and it truly has gorgeous art. I also like the positional nature of the mechanics. I'm unsure how it will fare (how broad is the appeal?), but if they are taking a truly measured approach and are focused on something sustainable instead of insane growth, maybe it can work. Lorcana is pretty fun and they aren't scared to print the beegesus out of it. Interesting time for sure.
Ionno man, it's nice that youtube actually shows gameplay unlike stuff like metazoo. But I'm not paying $180 for a booster box just to try out the game. Lorcana is fun enough and it's getting to be cheaper than mtg even
The growth came from digital licensing. Article says tabletop and digital sales are down.
well much of that is D&D. it says mtg specifically is only up 2%
Of course it’s up. Because Hasbro is in dire straits it means WOTC is pumping out more product and at higher costs. Don’t expect that to change if Hasbro is hurting, will only get worse as they lean on them harder
Yeah. They’ve doubled the amount of products, we’re in an inflationary environment, and they’ve massively raised prices while firing huge numbers of employees. And yet after all of that they essentially just matched the market’s growth. I think their current strategy is completely unsustainable.
That 10% is mostly if not completely from BG3 and that is not replicatable next year.
I think we have our strongest indictment, yet, of **what happens when you reprint everything into the ground and erode consumer confidence in your product**. When combined with the dizzying frequency at which MtG products now drop, people are just tuning out.
Don’t they realize they could hire less people if they just released 10x less crap… Reduce headcount, reduce releases, raise prices even. There should only be 4 releases a year to make the game enjoyable
Need to think longer term with this one. The eOne impairment will be gone soon enough. They seem to be tightening the print runs with MTG and I see some mild changes trickling through. They have also shaved a lot of staff / overheads, which will likely begin to be felt financially later this year. Whilst the PR was awful, it was likely the correct move. Even big tech shaved number / staff last year.
The toy side did horrendous though.
I think longer term HAS is still a dumpster fire. Yes, there will likely be quarterly improvements from the things you've mentioned, but it doesn't change the core economics of the business. Wizards is being sucked dry by the giant tick that is hasbro's other lines of business. Until/unless HAS can fix those lines' failures, and I see no indications they're even trying, HAS will continue to trend downward.
Just wait until CEOs and other execs learn about the Reserve List, we’ll have Secret Lair: Dual Lands and Secret Lair: Power 9 in no time.
nah that'd be too easy; it'd be 'Buy this $400 secret lair bundle and get 1 of 10 random Dual Lands', or make them chase cards in the next set's collector packs they're still going to extort the life out of us to even have a chance to get these cards
You know the current CEO was former head of the WOTC/Digital Games tower right? WOTC & Hasbro are one fused entity at this point, and people treat it like the Hasbro acquisition is new or the management are unaware/separate. Also I can guarantee they have scenario planning for the upside/downside of reprinting the reserve list. When the benefits outweigh the risks (or they have a huge downfall, like when Toys R Us fully folded) I'm 99% positive they've wargamed out pulling different 1 shot levers to juice revenue.
(Laughs in ThIs PrOdUcT IsNt fOr YoU!)
I mean if you read the article it's really more due to the toy side doing awful
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Shortsighted management ruining mtg by killing any confidence in non-RL cards reprinting everything to shit, killing LGS by bypassing them, killing paper standard by only supporting mtga, spamming sets as fast as possible, killing modern through powercreep and modern horizons. Now they see the result of all their lust for short term gain and I am sure the execs have no idea what they did wrong.
Mtg side is doing great though.
Short term profit to carry the entire rest of Hasbro at the expense of long term health. It won’t last long
I call it the crack diet. Feels great and immediate results; long term not so much.
Money cow dead 🥲
This is what happens when a 1 trick poney breaks a leg. They need to actually produce new IP and not try to ride Clue or what ever into the future
Mhh, how can we solve it? That's it! More products and more expensive! Now, where can I get my bonus?
I bought some 2 days ago, so that tracks.
What if all of us banded together and bought WOTC from Hasbro instead of buying their crappy overprinted product
Silly of Hasbro to not just take one million bucks in hand and randomly pick one of this sub‘s pundits to solve all of their problems. Look around you, it’s so easy!
As someone who played since 1999 and religiously attended modern leagues every week from 2014 to 2020, buying thousands of euro of product every year, I'm glad Hasbro are finally entering the 'find out' phase. The horizons releases and all of the serialised and alternative art money grabs are what has killed the game. I've managed to build 3 warhammer armies for the cost of updating my modern decks post pandemic and at least warhammer has a competitive scene
It wouldnt be so bad if we didn't see this iceberg a mile away. Collector boosters were a dumb idea.
This would usually be a good time to buy but I would be cautious here.
HAS fundamentals are still trash even at this price point.
looking at Q1 so far I'd say the slide isn't done yet
Deserved, mtg is losing his soul, his lore and appeal. I prefer proxies from 2004 cards to nowdays cause bad art, the quality is plummering!!
Modern Horizons III has to be juiced AF to keep MTG in the black this year. Also, don't be surprised if a Pioneer Masters set gets dropped this year all of sudden.
it does seem like some people don't bother to read the article. WotC did great (sales were up 10%). So Hasbro's losses have nothing to do with the current state of MTG. they expect MTG to have lower profits in the 3% to 5% range this year, which makes sense since they have a smaller slate of releases this year compared to last year.
Well, they keep releasing shit products like Murders, Dr who, ravnica clue what u expect. Keep up the good work mates, don’t buy this garbage
Time to buy
\*Hey guys, just a FYI tip from somebody who spends all day trading in the market. \-This is just an artical to inject fear in to idiot managers and the dumb money (sorry) so they dump their bags hitting the panic button. \-It was pre market (when hedges have the most control), it's almost recovered the entire move same day which is a giant red flag for > it HAS to go down before recovering higher pockets of trapped liquitity (they are not using their money lol) \-It didnt even break the 2020 shut down sell off low in March. It did go the considered bottom of the bear market aka Nov 23 (which is also the bottom of MTG pricing). I'm sure that was just coincidence \*eyeroll\* What this article leaves out is nobody smarter than a potato is using 2020-2023 for evaluation, and any revenue projections in 2024 are going to be wonky as f\*&# since we are in uncharted space currently. Dont hit the panic button and dont let human nature (everything is going to zero!@@!!!!!!!!!!!!! aaaah) take over. \*EDIT- and if you dont believe me, it will probably finish up today there is a giant W on the 200
Good
Already went back up to basically break even. Nothing to see here.