Magic: The Gathering’s parent company praised investors during a recent quarterly earnings call, once again praising the collectible card game’s strong performance as Hasbro attempts to break out of its year-long tailspin. CEO Chris Cocks assured investors that MTG’s future remains strong, but the same can’t be said for the Magic Arena digital app.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction has only been in stores for about a week, but the company is already seeing what Cocks called “healthy growth” compared to the first two sets of the year, Ravnica Remastered and Murders at Karlov Manor. Fallout’s preconstructed Commander decks, part of the Universes Beyond imprint, are apparently the best-performing Commander set ever (though we don’t have hard numbers on Cocks’ claim). That would mean Bethesda’s irradiated wasteland attracted more interest than Warhammer 40K’s cardboard invasion did in 2022. This year isn’t without its estimated wins: Modern Horizons 3 is expected to be the strongest-performing amid a period of fan engagement that has reportedly reached pre-pandemic levels.
Speaking of Universes Beyond, Hasbro investors are just as eager as gamers for upcoming Marvel and Final Fantasy crossovers. Cocks used that anticipation to temper concerns about a relatively stable pipeline for the TCG in 2024: “While we expect Magic to be down for the year after a record-breaking 2023, we remain optimistic about the brand long-term based on continued strong fan engagement and an excellent lineup of new Universes Beyond collaborations.”
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Both crossovers will apparently be in the same league as The Lord of the Rings Tales of Middle-earth set, which broke multiple internal WotC records and brought new players into the hobby. Cocks claimed that Hasbro and WotC are “going to do multiple sets with the Walt Disney Company,” confirming an earlier claim that Marvel Universes Beyond would span two years. The Final Fantasy set itself, which will feature characters and locations from across the video game series, is expected to “dwarf what we did with The Lord of the Rings” in the Japanese MTG market. Japan makes up the second-largest player base after North America.
The outlook isn’t as rosy for MTG’s digital client, MTG Arena. Revenue was “down a bit” in the first quarter of 2024, largely due to the lack of a remastered set to match Shadows over Innistrad Remastered from last March. Cocks barely mentions the video game version during these quarterly meetings, but one investor inquired about its status as if it were a plant slowly dying in the corner of a room. The CEO said Hasbro would “continue to invest in Arena,” but that major changes would be a “long-term digital project” that would take roughly two years, not a matter of months.
“We’re seeing things like Commander on the tabletop, and a lot of that growth has been in social play and collectibility,” Cocks said. “So we’ll certainly be investing in those areas on the digital platform long-term.” This is frustrating news if you primarily play Standard, Modern, or any other 60-card format, which has withered under the shadow of Commander’s paper dominance. Updates and new products are few and far between (beyond the usual digital versions of premiere sets), and quality-of-life features arrive fitfully from a beleaguered team that seems to exist only to keep digital sales flowing into Hasbro’s coffers.