A Billion-Dollar Brand Built by Loyal Wizards
Richard Neal has been playing Magic: The Gathering, a fantasy card game, for nearly two decades. Two or three nights a week, he heads to Mox Boarding House, a game store in Bellevue, Washington, wielding a deck he has painstakingly built over the years.
“I go there probably more than my fiancé would like,” said Mr. Neal, a 31-year-old software engineer. His devotion, and that of millions of others, has helped Hasbro build the game into a global behemoth.
Recently, the company announced that Magic had become its first billion-dollar brand in terms of annual sales, surpassing other toy lines in its stable, like Transformers and G.I. Joe. That milestone was achieved after 30 years of nurturing the game for longtime fans while finding ways to entice new players.
Since it was introduced in the mid-1990s, more than 50 million people have played Magic around the world. The game casts players as wizards who derive their powers by picking cards from the decks they have built, drawing from an ever-expanding universe of cards that are bought, sold and traded in a thriving secondary market. Magic’s popularity has spawned video games, comic books, a Caribbean cruise and an animated series in development for Netflix.
After the initial buzz when it first appeared, Magic flew under the radar for many years, said Gerrick Johnson, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets. “Now you get to see how big it is,” he added. “I don’t think there is any toy brand that is even half that size.”
But Hasbro faces challenges making Magic even bigger, particularly player fatigue brought on by the release of 39 new card sets last year, up from 15 in 2019, according to an analysis by Bank of America. New sets can start around $50.
Themed card sets and booster packs are sold at 6,500 small game stores that are part of Hasbro’s Wizards Play Network, as well as by mass retailers like Amazon and Walmart.
Mr. Neal estimated he spent $20,000 on Magic last year. “I buy a lot of cards,” he said.
The most valuable card is the Black Lotus, which was sold at auction in 2021 for more than $500,000. But some players have become concerned that an oversupply of card sets is diluting the value of their collections. The Bank of America report said the busy release schedule lowered the value of cards and weakened the franchise.
Hasbro has defended its strategy, saying it is necessary to attract new players. That includes the series Universes Beyond, which incorporates other franchises into Magic like Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who.
Chris Cocks, chief executive of Hasbro, said the company took Bank of America’s warning seriously, but he was confident in the staying power of Magic.
He said, “When you look at the long sweep of 30 years — same-store sales, the value of the product, the size of the business — in general, everything is going in the right direction.”