Disclaimer: I am not a financial expert and this is not intended as any kind of financial analysis. I’m also not concerned with Hasbro as a whole and will only be listing interesting notes about Magic specifically from either the presentation or the earnings call, which I have listened to in full to ensure I have as much context as possible.
Q2 2025 Presentation
WOTC posted a total revenue growth of 16% over Q2 last year, broken down as follows:
21% from Tabletop (Magic and D&D Physical product)
-4% from Digital (Arena and D&D Beyond)
-3% from Digital Licensing
1% from FX (This has to do with foreign currency exchange)
While Final Fantasy was the highest-grossing set of all time, the Q2 margin was impacted by higher royalties from Final Fantasy’s release and timing of operating expenses. They expect royalties to remain elevated, as both Spider-Man and Avatar are coming later this year.
The Wizards Play Network has grown from around 7,500 stores in the last quarter earnings call to around 9,000 stores now.
There has been an increase in in-store event attendance of around 20% vs this time in 2024.
Earnings Call
(These are the notes I took while listening to the earnings call, and I’ve tried to use as much of the same language used in the call for each of them, even for things that are not a direct quote. As such this may read a bit choppy, but I believe it keeps the accuracy to a higher standard.)
“WOTC had a standout quarter. Magic: The Gathering continues to deliver, growing 23% Year over Year in the Second quarter, and up 32% Year to Date.” -Chris Cocks
Cocks calls this a clear indication of the power of Magic’s community, and attributes it to the release cadence and resonence of their Universes Beyond strategy.
He calls the growth “…durable…diversified…and accelerating.”
Cocks goes on to say that Tarkir: Dragonstorm is on pace to be the top-selling Magic Premier set of all time, and that Final Fantasy is already the highest-grossing Magic set ever.
Secret Lair just delivered the strongest sales quarter in its history.
He says that it’s not just new sets, and that their backlist Magic sets have already set an all-time annual sales record, “…and we’re only six months into the year.”
Cocks says that community engagement is also at an all-time high, citing over 19,000 badges sold for MagicCon Vegas, which beat their previous high from Chicago earlier this year.
Final Fantasy set a record for new player growth, delivering more new players in its first two weeks than any previous set over an entire season.
“Lord of the Rings took 6 months to deliver 200M of revenue, Final Fantasy took one day.” Cocks talks about how they increased production runs 4 times prior to release, by many, many very high double-digit percentages ahead of any other production run they’ve ever done, and they still couldn’t produce enough.
When asked why he thinks Final Fantasy was so popular, Cocks says he thinks it’s multiple factors, including finding IPs that appeal to the Magic fanbase, as well as IPs that have a fanbase that Magic appeals to.
Cocks talks about how much they’re looking forward to the UB sets they have lined up for 2026 and 2027, but doesn’t want to take any of the thunder away from the Magic team who typically announce the following year’s lineup in August or September. (I assume this will happen at PT: EOE in September). But he says they expect them to be “Final Fantasy like” in terms of overlap and size of community, and mentions how strong they believe the in-universe sets are going to perform.
Cocks says that they built the Universes Beyond strategy with the idea of new and total player expansion. Every metric they’re able to measure shows this strategy has been very successful. He calls this very good for licencers, equating the scale of releases they’re able to achieve to licencers getting a new blockbuster movie or AAA game for a year, but that these releases also come with a “…nice long tail” that extends past the first year of sales.
Asked about how well Final Fantasy is doing in the Japanese market, Cocks says that to date it’s the second biggest selling set in Japan, behind only Modern Horizons 2, but they anticipate it will beat MH2 “…within days or weeks”. He talks about the relationship Hasbro has with Square Enix, and how Hasbro sees Japan as a “… potential gold mine of potential licence partners for Magic.” Japan tends to be the “…learning lab…” for TCGs, and the most innovative market with the greatest variety.
Final Fantasy, and future sets like Spider-Man, have helped crack the door open on wider mass distribution in locations like drug stores, convenience stores, and other nontraditional distribution locations in both the Japanese market and around the world.
A question is asked about the play demographic data, saying the average player is around 35 years old, and how they’re thinking about the demographic shift, maybe getting younger for Magic. The question implied that Spider-Man is aimed at younger players, and that Avatar is more of a “tween” IP. Cocks responds that the new player demographic is always in the 11 – 14 year-old range, but Magic players never stop playing, so the median age goes up over time. People keep playing into their 50’s and 60’s, and the game becomes multi-generational.
He goes on to say that it’s not just age; Magic does better than most “hardcore…or enthusiast games with people who identify as female.” 30% of the player base today are women, and they’d like to increase that over time. They’re looking at IP that could have resonance there, and says not to be surprised to see them looking into Romantasy or K-Pop bands for future Secret Lairs.
Someone asks about the health of the player base, how they’re measuring new unique players, and how retention is with the players brought in due to Universes Beyond sets. Cocks says the 40% increase in unique players is specifically people who participate in organized play. That’s a subset of the total player base, but is the most measurable piece of the active player base they have on a week-to-week basis. Final Fantasy specifically has been very successful in bringing in new players, attracting more new players in two weeks than they would typically do over 12 weeks for any other set they’ve ever done.
When talking about the total player base, Cocks says they don’t have a formal metric they can share yet, but they’re working on a “…very robust model for us to be able to track that.” He says the biggest problem with that is most of the play is done offline, with only about 15% of the playerbase playing on Arena or in a store. He cites a number of different metrics (social listening, search queries, POS reports, MagicCon, backlist sales, etc…) that indicate the player base is growing “…quite robustly…”. Universes Beyond tends to see a long tale and repeat purchases for future sets.
Someone asks about the split between new, lapsed, and existing customers for Magic. Cocks says that to get to the detailed player demographics, they’re probably going to have to go off-line, but in general they’re seeing a stronger mix of new players than they’ve seen in prior years. But every metric they’re seeing points to more people playing Magic, and more people who have never played Magic, than ever before. “And it’s quite meaningful.”
