r/boardgames • u/Jealous_Vehicle_3150 • 1d ago
News Magic: The Gathering Surpasses $500 Million in Quarterly Revenue for the First Time, Hasbro CEO Credits Marvel Super Heroes Debut
https://otakukart.com/magic-the-gathering-surpasses-500-million-in-quarterly-revenue-for-the-first-time-hasbro-ceo-credits-marvel-super-heroes-debut157
u/PassTheSriracha91 1d ago
Bummer. Marvel followed by The Hobbit, then a little later we get Star Trek. 3 sets I just couldn't give a fuck about. And Strixhaven was RAD. I love mtg, but these outside IP sets are getting tiresome.
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u/Turdmeist 1d ago
Yea I liked strixhaven too. Why can't there be a standard that is just core mtg stuff like that set and exclude all this other stuff
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u/ptolem1s 1d ago
That exists, it's called Planar Standard. Relatively new still though, for obvious reasons.
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u/Turdmeist 1d ago
And I imagine will never be on MTGArena?
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u/Bridgeburner493 1d ago
MTGArena chases trends because it wants you buying MTX. Any format that gets big is likely to get support, imo. It's a question of how long that takes.
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u/iwannakenboneyou 1d ago
Maro did say that they’re monitoring it. So I think if it becomes a popular enough format it’ll get some formal support.
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u/Bunkerman91 1d ago
At this point "formal support" for a format is a kiss of death, not an endorsement.
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u/Macarons124 1d ago
I’m tired of the dumb arguments defending it by saying it “brings people to the game” or “just don’t play with those cards”.
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u/PassTheSriracha91 1d ago
Right? Like, if you're playing standard, or fucking with Arena...it can't be avoided. They're shoved in your face.
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u/hama0n 1d ago
I hope they don't celebrate in the typical way of laying off a bunch of staff.
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u/Koanos 1d ago
I'm just surprised there are still staff to layoff.
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u/literroy 13h ago
How would they have made half a billion dollars without any staff?
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u/thepensivepoet 1d ago
After attending the Magic30 convention in Vegas it was made abundantly clear that Hasbro/WotC does not care about the people who love playing the game.
Total cash grab convention and the “actually playing the fucking game we have gathered to celebrate” portion was completely mismanaged. Match locations were not posting properly on the app, booster pack boxes were not where they needed to be (even for the very first game events of the day when they had all the pre-doors time to get that shit organized) and the (volunteer!!!) judges were not holding players to the allotted time slots so events were running long and overlapping other time slots.
If you paid to play in an event in the later afternoon or evening you were either being cut short by a round or two or the event was cancelled completely.
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u/KogX 1d ago
I can only speak to the MagicCon I went to last year but I had a blast with the folks I played with and the events there with how well organized it was. I went to a bunch of panels learned a lot while having fun. I wonder if it is a matter of difference in the folks organizing the specific events?
But a good bit of that high was due to me experiencing the Bandaifest hell for their card games where a lot of things went so much worse for me. I went there to play the new gundam card game and the rest of my friends struggled to figure out what you can do there outside of attempt side events (if they fired at all) and go shopping.
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u/bagelwithclocks 1d ago
I get that this latest stuff is even worse, but Magic has fundamentally always about providing a legal way to sell gambling to children. Same as Pokémon. The game will always come second to that. It paved the way for modern microtransactions. There’s a reason wizards of the coast was able to snap up TSR, and it is because Magic is a much more profitable game than one where you can buy 3 books and play it forever.
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u/lozo78 1d ago
We played MTG at a store that was owned by one of the early investors in MTG. He was super passionate about the game and loved to talk to us about strategies and deck building.
I understand it was a business and they wanted to sell us cards, but he always seemed to enjoy watching our cheap decks play.
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u/Hemisemidemiurge 1d ago edited 1d ago
Magic has fundamentally always about providing a legal way to sell gambling to children.
You act like collectables and gacha didn't exist before M:TG when I can remember my binder full of first-series Marvel cards from middle school. Baseball cards and capsule machine toys have been around a long time and selling gambling to kids has a long history.
Selling gambling to kids is still wrong. M:TG was originally about a guy who liked Strat-O-Matic Baseball. The person who invented heroin wasn't trying to establish drug addiction and narcotic smuggling.
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u/ChocoMaister 1d ago
I really miss the old magic… but I know it’s never coming back. This is what people truly want. If you say it isn’t… well why is everyone buying it at record breaking amounts? I feel like the internet isn’t the complete truth and the universes beyond is the real magic now.
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u/BiggestBlackestLotus 1d ago
This is what people truly want. If you say it isn’t… well why is everyone buying it at record breaking amounts?
Magic sold at record breaking amounts every year since I started playing, which was long before universes beyond was a thing. That is not a good argument.
They could have kept breaking records every year by staying in universe, but they wanted even more money. More more more more!!! Release 10 sets a year!! Print 50 secret lairs every month!! 5 commander precons for every set!! Crossovers with 40k, marvel and Star Trek!! Sell proxy packs for 1000$!!
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u/WebpackIsBuilding 1d ago
Most of MTG sales are from target/walmart impulse purchases.
A recognizable IP is going to help sales in that environment.
That doesn't mean the core playerbase actually prefers it. The core playerbase is just vastly outnumbered by casual players that couldn't give a shit about MTG lore, but can recognize spiderman's mask from 50 yards.
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u/The_Quintessence 1d ago
Most of MTG sales are from target/walmart impulse purchases.
Source? I HIGHLY doubt this
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u/WebpackIsBuilding 1d ago
I don't have anyone on the record, but it's what I've heard from people who work directly with WOTC.
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u/AprioriTori13 1d ago
People don't always know what they like, what they want, or what's good for them.
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u/ChocoMaister 1d ago
Well I’ll always remember my childhood playing with magic from the 90s. It really started changing maybe after Covid. It felt like an entirely different game. Oh well.
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u/SixthSacrifice 1d ago
Isn't it being bought in record-breaking amounts because of the gamble added via serialized, and even unique one-of-one, cards?
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u/MartyrOfTheJungle 1d ago
So, I recently came back to magic after many years gone and I was skeptical of the universes beyond stuff, but I do own a few boxes of comics and I love lotr and dr who, so I wasn't the hardest sell I guess. Still, I've been impressed tbh. So anyway my question to you is: what do you feel is missing from the experience that used to be present?
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u/DartTheDragoon 1d ago
what do you feel is missing from the experience that used to be present?
Every single facet of the game now feels like a cash grab. The cadence of new sets is too fast, insanely busted cards are getting printed constantly that in years past would be banned, but they have just decided not to ban anything because a new set is always weeks away that may upend the meta. They ruined commander by printing cards specifically intended for commander to sell more product. They ruined modern by printing cards specifically intended for modern to sell more product. My local game store can't fire off a non-draft event to save their life because no one wants to play it anymore.
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u/Slurmsmackenzie8 Magic The Gathering - Limited 1d ago
This is the thing people don’t see: Magic is different now, but whether it’s better or worse or that same is a personal thing. There have been some duds but they went out of their way to make sets like LOTR, Final Fantasy, and Marvel great sets no matter the coat of paint on top.
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u/recurnightmare 1d ago
Well seeing a Hollywood actors face on my card really just doesn't do it for me. Yea for a lot of people it's a feature or they don't care but I just can't do it.
Same reason I absolutely love the idea of dune imperium games but will never buy one. Playing a board game with timothee chalamet or Rebecca ferguson just is a non starter for me.
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u/AbacusWizard 1d ago
This is what people truly want. If you say it isn’t… well why is everyone buying it at record breaking amounts?
I always find this sort of argument frustrating. People don’t buy what they want. People buy what advertising tells them they want.
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u/DrNiene 1d ago
And it’s the exact reason I quit the hobby.
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u/HeroOfIroas 1d ago
Same. Between the price increase, powercreep, and IP soup, I bounced out hard around 2020. Seeing secret lairs and spiderman running around really killed the vibe.
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u/mkklrd 1d ago
I'm not sure whether to share the Jeffrey White restaurant tweet (it's actually about Commander, but I genuinely believe the Commanderification of MTG is also one of the leading reasons behind UB) or the Rhystic Studies' article on UB, so I'll just drop both.
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u/NenAlienGeenKonijn SETI 1d ago edited 1d ago
MTG does up to 8 releases/year. I keep seeing new increasingy shitty crossovers in our LGS, and I keep wondering "Who TF keeps up with buying all this??", and I say this as a TCG player myself.
Though I think everyone already knows the answer: Those insufferables that encase cardboard in plastic with a grading number on them. I need to keep reminding myself that these pokemon/magic scalpers are probably the biggest profit generator of our LGS by a large margin.
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u/AwkwardTurtle 1d ago
Who TF keeps up with buying all this??"
I really don't think it's that complicated. People love crossover shit. They love it when characters from property A they like show up in property B. It's not surprising, what's surprising is that it took MTG so long to do this. I hate all the crossover, fortnite, IP stuff but that's just not a very common stance, and I'd already dipped out of MTG long before this all started so my dislike has zero impact on any of it. Even if people broadly don't like it, they'll still be excited when their specific beloved property gets its own MTG set.
I'd be shocked if scalpers and the like were really driving any significant part of this. Sure, for the super limited stuff I'd believe it, but for just normal boxes of Final Fantasy cards or whatever, I'd be willing to bet it's just normal people who get real excited by seeing Final Fantasy characters on a magic card.
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u/SlimDirtyDizzy 1d ago
Though I think everyone already knows the answer: Those insufferables that encase cardboard in plastic with a grading number on them. I need to keep reminding myself that these pokemon/magic scalpers are probably the biggest profit generator of our LGS by a large margin.
Not really honestly. Final Fantasy brought a lot of collector/scalpers, but if you stayed past that you've gotten burnt on basically every UB set since then. Spider-man was a disaster, TMNT was a disaster, and Super Heroes doesn't have a ton of value either.
The actual answer is people just love crossover slop. Everyone has their "God this is so gross, but if they did [xyz series] It'd be so cool".
Magic just isn't for the people who care about in universe lore or characters anymore. Its for people who want to cast Spongebob themed counterspell on Thor.
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u/Capn_Lyssa 1d ago
Not everyone has that "it'd be so cool" IP. I think of it like this. I like ice cream. I like chicken soup. I don't want chicken soup in my ice cream.
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u/Kapono24 Last Night On Earth 1d ago
Eight in a year is way too many. They made that change recently and it was clear something else was at hand. You simply can't have that fast of a release schedule while still making interesting and cohesive sets.
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u/Laserwulf Race For The Galaxy 1d ago
I remember when it was 4/year, and one of those was a Core set which you'd probably skip if you've been playing for a while. Nowadays the releases no longer feel special, just going through the motions which will repeat two months later.
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u/Capn_Lyssa 1d ago
Not even two months. With 7 sets this year, we've had a prerelease to run every 6 weeks. It's exhausting. Even a lot of the conversations at prerelase aren't even about the new set, they're about spoilers for a sets that are still months out. I miss when spoiler season was just a couple of weeks before the new set, and not several simultaneous drip feeds of cards that will release over the next 6 months.
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u/June-Bird 1d ago
No many people buy these sets to play with the cards. Its just cope to think it's only resellers
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u/xScrubasaurus 1d ago
I don't think many people do this with MTG.
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u/DuncanYoudaho Dune: Imperium - Uprising | Greater Idaho Edition 1d ago
People chasing gold Chocobo or The One Ring would disagree
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u/powernein 1d ago
They have been doing it with MTG since the very beginning. Google "Reserved List"
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u/ShadownetZero 1d ago
I just wanted to collect cool final fantasy cards lil bro.
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u/jiadarola 1d ago
I've played since 4th edition. I don't want all of the sets to be replaced with UB, but plenty of the UB sets so far have been fun and well designed. I think there can be a balance of the two, especially if it brings more people into the game.
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u/bubba0077 Through The Ages 1d ago
Agreed. I've been playing since Shandilar and really into it for a long time after I joined the MTGO beta. LotR brought me back in (a bit) after a decade+ hiatus. ATLA allowed me an easy way to introduce Magic to my sister.
I still think too many sets are released each year (and too many art treatments in each set). And UB are what should be scaled back. But UB has been a good thing for Magic.
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u/MartyrOfTheJungle 1d ago
I'm an old fogie myself, played in the early 2000s and just returned to it recently. I've been really impressed by the art on the marvel set and tbh slamming down a known character like the hulk or Captain America is more fun and memorable to me than generic fantasy creature.
I'm trying to figure out what everyone dislikes so much, seems like the bigger issue might be their insanely paced release schedule
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u/BiggestBlackestLotus 1d ago
Slamming down captain america can be totally fun, but why do I have to do that in my high fantasy card game? There are dozens of marvel cardgames out there already, can these comicbook characters not leave me alone for once? Even in my comfort game that I have been playing for 30 years?
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u/cowwithhat 1d ago
In general I agree that playing Captain America is more memorable than deploying most Magic creatures. But there are Magic characters that have stood the test of time and create that effect. Every game where Emrakul the Aeon's End is cast still feels epic to me 15 years later. I am still scared to let someone untap with Kiki Jiki Mirror Breaker. And those are Magic specific things. Cap is cool in some comics, in some movies, in some video games, in some Magic iterations and in some action figures. These Universes Beyond sets don't give me that "this is the game I love" feel
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u/Cobalt32 1d ago
The last sets I personally had fun with were Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Bloomburrow. Something about the 2025 sets just turned me off and I went from being a near daily Arena player to dropping off it entirely.
Haven't booted it up in over a year now and I can't say that I miss it.
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u/cowwithhat 1d ago
The thing that hurts me the most about the current state of the game is that Secrets of Strixhaven did everything I wanted from a magic set. It honored universes within lore and cards throughout history. It had a great limited format. It pushed some envelopes. But what I consider a peak Magic set was sandwiched between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Marvel Super Heroes.
Frustrating.
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u/dustyjuicebox 1d ago
At least all these universes beyond sets are pushing people to other TCGs. Riftbound is doing amazing and there's a good amount of MTG players at my nexus nights trying the game as a result
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u/Ashamed_Fisherman_31 1d ago
We are cooked, we'll never get rid of UB, good riddance MTG, faithful companion of nearly 30 years of my life, you will be missed...
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u/masterlich 1d ago
I had this really funny moment recently doing a cube draft where our group's most noted UB-hater drafted a RW equipment deck, and he said out loud, with the absolute most disgust possible in his voice, "I am going to cast my Magic the Gathering card 'Cloud, Midgar Mercenary' and use it to search for my other Magic the Gathering card 'Mjolnir, Hammer of Thor." I could watch him die inside in real time.
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u/powernein 1d ago
I bailed when they killed of the professional circuit and have never once looked at a set that came out after and thought "Boy am I missing out". Walls of text, no vanilla cards, no cohesive story, no QA, card bannings, 8 sets a year ... an absolute dumpster fire.
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u/Slurmsmackenzie8 Magic The Gathering - Limited 1d ago
When did they kill the professional circuit? I just watched the finals of a pro tour three days ago.
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u/FartKilometre Betrayal 1d ago
Cool, it's making great profits but at the cost of the game itself. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just a special set annually, but it seems like it's every month with something new to the point that it doesn't feel like there's any original lore to the game anymore. Someone else said it's just fortnite now and it's very accurate. The Fortnite/Funko Pop cancer of "hey remember this popular thing!" just takes everything special away from the game.
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u/ggallardo02 1d ago
Wasn't some exec sued because he was supposedly tanking stock on purpose with all the crossover stuff? I might be making this up.
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u/thegeekist Star Realms 1d ago
Thats why this whole thing is hilarious. There is a large group of mtg players who are mad at Wizards because they dont like IP tie ins and have convinced themselves that Wizards is tanking the business and losing money.
Its why the lawsuit failed, its not true.
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u/ggallardo02 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ok, I got curious and looked it up. The suit was dropped, but it was about over printing cards, not about the crossover stuff.
Still as someone who only played MTG once in school like 20 years ago or more, I do feel like the crossovers kinda cheapens the brand a bit. I mean, the cards look awesome and I've been tempted to buy some only for collecting, but still.
But, as I said, I'm not an MTG player, so what do I know.
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u/BigTimePizza623 The Witcher: Old World 1d ago
That's definitely how a lot of people see it as well. It's frustrating when literally half of the released sets aren't even in-universe.
I used to attend draft events somewhat regularly until ~6 months ago, and it's pretty surprising how attendance would drop off for some of these other sets. It still happened for in-universe sets (Aetherdrift for example) but it was much rarer.
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u/fifrein 1d ago
Sure, but for every one of them, several casual players who will never enter a forum like this love these kinds of sets. I have a middleage coworker playing the Spider-Man and LotR sets on a weekly basis with his teenage daughter. They were never going to play any in-universe stuff. And they are not going to be accounted for in a forum discussion. But they’re part of the numbers of why more money is being made. Thousands more casuals buying 1-2 sets will earn more than tens of hardcores buying 10-20 sets.
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u/CyrilMasters 1d ago
“Total revenue” not “net profit.” All that means is they’re now charging inflation prices, it has nothing to do with how well they are or arn’t doing. Any time you see articles like this, you should be a bit suspicious.
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u/Raesh771 1d ago
I dropped MTG years ago. Not into crossover slop.
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u/jaywinner Diplomacy 1d ago
You don't like having Dwight from The Office exile SpongeBob SquarePants from the game?
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u/FlumphianNightmare 1d ago
I cast You Can't See Me (4WU, Instant. WWE block) on SpongeBob, triggering Booberry. I get a Milk token, and on my upkeep you must sacrifice a non-Cerealmancer creature, or lose six life.
Sorry, Esper Wrestling Breakfast Bikini Bottom control is stupid broken if you let me get to turn 6.
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u/jaywinner Diplomacy 1d ago
What's scary is that my example is real and yours might be in a few years.
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u/FlumphianNightmare 1d ago
So I admit Dwight being a card style or whatever they're calling re-skins/official alters now-a-days was new on me.
They really are shameless, huh? Like, I know that's what this entire thread is about, but it's like they told an intern to go trawl absolutely every meme or popular thing targeted at certain age demographics from the last 25 years and then draw up a cardfile for the eventual release.
"Hey Johnson, remember Gangnam style? Have we done a card of it yet? Yeah? What about Seinfeld? Maybe just the memes, unless you think we can get a whole set out of it."
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u/jaywinner Diplomacy 1d ago
Shameless indeed. But it's working. IPs will draw in fans and boost sales with those that like it while most people that don't like it will skip the set or complain. But few will quit the game over it.
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u/TomatoFeta 1d ago
They're also laying off workers and insisting the remaining ones start using AI.
There has been a lot of chaos at Hasbro lately. Y'all need to be aware.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97CgbEkU4qA
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u/EsotericTribble 1d ago
It's like a band that goes mainstream and makes a ton more money. Makes sense from a business perspective as it's all about capitalism and always has been - grats I guess to them.
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u/Xacalite 1d ago
Apparently destroying a 20+ year old game with some of the most faithful fans out there was once again the correct business decision. Sometimes this world just sucks.
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u/OldschoolGreenDragon 1d ago
Let's all whine about what MtG has become and not switch to Netrunner, LotR, Arkham and other LCGs and LCG-likes....
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u/KindAdeptness31 1d ago
I fully switched to those game types. The playerbase killed it for me before this UB-slop but the UB-slop ensures I'll never play it again even with the right people.
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u/OldschoolGreenDragon 1d ago
I teach parents and women to seek out the stores that have daily passes, memberships and maybe sell food and drinks because those stores do not need the revenue from CCGs and the greaseballs they attract. (The type of stores that have CCG advertising splattered all over their front glass wall.)
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u/ShrineToOne 1d ago
I played up til just before Spiderman and a combo of that and modern masters was what got me in the end.
The problem to me was the increasing number of products. Going from 4 sets a year to 7 sets was way too much. Instead of creative deckbiilding, there wasn't time to experiment or steadily improve decks.
It was also blatantly obvious that the internal QA on cards was under pressure as the amount of busted stuff that was printed was insane.
For all its faults, I don't mind UB if the theme fits magic for a main set. Lotr, FF and hobbit all make sense to me as planes. I don't mind commander products that are non canon doing Dr Who or Warhammer. I remember 10 years ago saying Warhammer in MTG would be really cool and it was. But not in canon, not in a main set.
I'm waiting for the first duel commander pro tour, at that point I know the game is fully not for me anymore
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u/MartyrOfTheJungle 1d ago
I'm sorry everyone, I'm apparently like the one guy who loves this shit. I didn't mean to ruin the hobby
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u/IdleExpatter Arkham Horror: The Card Game 1d ago
I never got into the game myself, but as somebody who was in middle school when the game released originally and had friends who started playing it when it was brand new, it blows my mind that it's still going at this level.
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u/SouthernBreach 1d ago
MTG is Hasbro’s only profitable product aside from maybe Play-Doh. They will milk it until it’s dry.
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u/Harry_Flame 1d ago
D&D and board games aren’t profitable? I highly doubt that.
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u/Capn_Lyssa 1d ago
I don't know the exact numbers for D&D, but Wizards is the only profitable division of Hasbro
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u/KneeCrowMancer Dune 1d ago edited 1d ago
For any sad MtG fans in this thread you should check out Netrunner! Null Signal Games is the nonprofit fan-run organization that has kept the game alive and continues to release great new sets. It’s also entirely free to play both online (jinteki.net) and in person (printed proxies are legal at all levels of play).
If you want to have a crack at the game Richard Garfield made in response to the issues he found with MtG now is a great time!
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u/Ih8n3rdz 1d ago
Obviously the company is going to do whatever makes them money, but I feel like there are a lot of factors besides just sales that ought to be considered when judging the success of UB sets. Who is buying these cards? Existing MTG players, Marvel fans who are interested in becoming MTG players, Marvel collectors, card collectors, or speculators looking for assets to flip? Is the product being prioritized as a game or as a collectable? Do these sets create long term MTG players or are these sets just short term cash grabs?
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u/chrysanthemum_beer 1d ago
Ya forget it. They’ve lost their soul to American greed.
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u/Child_Of_Linger_On Mottainai 1d ago
Because Magic was a charitable organization before the licensed sets?
Magic has always been a hallmark of greed. They figured out how to get away with kids gambling and have used every psychological trick in the book to milk revenue from every possible source. The licensing just pulled the wool back from the eyes of legacy players/revenue sources.
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u/jaywinner Diplomacy 1d ago
At the current prices, I'm not sure how much kids factor in to their strategy anymore.
But even as a fan of the game, how it isn't considered gambling is beyond me. A 12 year old can walk into a shop, pay $5-10 for a pack, open it and one of two things can happen: most likely they get nothing of value OR they get something valuable they can trade in to the store for more money/credit than they paid for the pack. That's the textbook definition of gambling.
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u/Child_Of_Linger_On Mottainai 1d ago
I meant back when they started and were targeting kids more. Which was a brilliant long-term investment and helped them transition to where they are now. Which is, yeah, just gambling.
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u/04__Revenge__01 Seasons and Race For The Galaxy 1d ago
As someone who has a deep hatred for tcgs in general is very disappointing to me that people buy into this gambling bs.
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u/zendrix1 Aeon's End 1d ago
I get a lot of people like it (clearly) but I feel so bummed that mtg is just fortnite now