Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy was already known to be the best selling set of all time, but new statements from Hasbro in their financial reporting reveal the staggering degree of which this is the case.
During the earning call Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks opened up saying that Magic: The Gathering was up 23% year over year, and up 32% year to date, foreshadowing the crazy numbers yet to come. When answering a question, Cocks revealed that Final Fantasy (and its hoard of legendary creatures) had sold as much in one day, as previous best selling set Lord of the Rings – Tales of Middle-Earth did in 6 months.
“In terms of Final Fantasy, and how it met expectations, I’ll give you a comparison between two of our biggest Universes Beyond sets. Lord of the Rings took 6 months to deliver $200 million of revenue, Final Fantasy took 1 day, and we left demand on the table. So we couldn’t produce enough. I think we increased production runs on it 4x pre release. It was substantially by many, many very high double-digit percentages ahead of any other production run we’ve ever done, and we left the market wanting more.” (Transcript from Seeking Alpha)
Despite that huge sales, and increasing production of Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy 4 separate times, they still were unable to meet the demand that brought over $200m in sales on day 1. That $200m in revenue was a large part of the Wizards and Digital gaming revenue segment which was $522m.
Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy Isn’t the Only Set Doing Big Numbers
Of course, if the only strong numbers were related to Final Fantasy it would be somewhat concerning. That isn’t the case, as in his prepared comments Cocks revealed that Tarkir – Dragonstorm is on pace to become the best selling in-universe premiere set (aka standard legal, and not a Modern Horizons type set) of all time.
Player count in organized play was also up substantially, with a 40% increase in unique players taking part in events as Universes Beyond manages to attract both new and old players to the game. This was also buoyed by Final Fantasy as it “set a record for new player growth, delivering more new players in its first 2 weeks than any prior set posted over an entire season,” according to Cocks.
Older cards are selling too. Despite half the year left to go, Magic‘s backlist of sets has already set an all-time annual record of sales as of the end of June. This is partially powered by sets like Lord of the Rings – Tales of Middle-Earth, but also by sets like Modern Horizons 3, and other in-universe sets that continue to sell even more to more players. As for Secret Lair, the controversial decision to go back to limited print runs has not harmed sales at all as it has just delivered its strongest sales quarter in its history, possibly powered by the Final Fantasy Secret Lairs.
All in all, Magic: The Gathering‘s finances are booming right now, and it’s good to be Hasbro, who is able to lean on Wizards of the Coast while various toys experience more difficulties with tariffs due to components coming from regions that are heavily tariffed often.
