Magic: The Gathering's Universes Beyond Blamed For Reduced Wizards Of The Coast Revenue

thegamer.com:

Although Magic: The Gathering may be pumping out new Universes Beyond crossovers all the time, Wizards of the Coast has admitted they may be a contributing factor in declining revenues at the company.

Universes Beyond has been Magic’s umbrella brand used for crossovers with everything from Street Fighter to Arcane. And with more planned with Doctor Who, Assassin’s Creed, Lord of the Rings, and Final Fantasy, the growing costs of all these collaborations may prove to be a mistake for Wizards.

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In Hasbro’s latest earnings call for investors, it was revealed that revenue for the Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming Segment is down 16 percent compared to last quarter. While this segment includes much more than just Magic, such as Dungeons & Dragons and Hasbro’s entire video game business, the “incremental royalty expense” of Universes Beyond (or how much it has to pay to the owners of the brands Magic works with) has been named as a factor of this reduction.

Thanks to this, and other causes such as as the recent acquisition of D&D Beyond and rising higher production costs, operating profit was down to just $102.2 million, while profit margin reduced by almost two and a half percent. However, Hasbro is still confident, as Magic: The Gathering was recently declared Hasbro’s first $1 billion brand, and overall growth in Wizards of the Coast is expected to be up this year compared to last.

Despite Universes Beyond, Magic is still one of the biggest brands for Hasbro, alongside Monopoly. It is anticipating 2022 to have one of “the biggest fourth quarter” for the game thanks to both The Brothers’ War and upcoming 30th Anniversary celebrations (which has been the centre of its own