By many measures we are in troubled times with Magic’s Digital Product. Casual play is way down, community/chat is non-existent, most formats have seen a decrease in players joining events, etc. but most troubling seems to be coming straight from the mothership WOTC. In the recent article Magic Online: Survey Says! detailing their recent survey results from players, WOTC has concluded that:

• Study participants enjoyed playing and drafting in the new version. Highlights include the combat clarity provided by the red zone and the stack, quick access to adjusting stops, and the ability to build a deck while drafting. Finding a match and building a deck, especially through importing, were also well received, though there are elements that could certainly be improved.

Where does WOTC think they need focus for the future from the survey?

1. Communication Improvement.
2. Commentary: Are we really talking about communication in 2014, this is something we should have gotten right in 2001.
3. Stability and performance.
4. Commentary: We have been talking about stability and performance for the last decade, we just had a new version released, we should be talking about cool new features, superior usability and great graphics. In my book to be talking about stability and performance at this point is frustrating.
5. Trading.
6. Commentary: Sure they need to fix trading and make it better, but I do not see this this as the golden ticket to making v4 great.
7. More social platform.
8. Commentary: Fine advice, do you really need a survey to figure out chat in v4 is horrible?

By reading the articles on PureMTGO and other Magic sites, talking to players and experiencing v4 myself I can say WOTC has at best wasted a lot of money on a survey or at worse distilled the wrong messages/feelings from their customer base. But I am here to say.

The Future of Magic Online is Bright

OK so I have your attention, with the information presented and with WOTC’s track record how can I make such a claim? Because I just listened to Hasbro’s Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. For those unfamiliar to the business side of this let me help educate. Hasbro is the parent company that owns WOTC. Hasbro is a public company that lists on the NASDAQ exchange so people can purchase shares of the company for $57.53/share. As a public company, Hasbro gives quarterly earnings guidance on how they are doing financially and detail their strategic direction on many of the core products they own. When you listen to these calls you will hear a canned speech by the CEO, CFO or such followed by a Q&A session. Often how this works is you get some good info at a macro level but lower level details are not disclosed. For Hasbro, Magic is looked at as a franchise brand and part of their games category of products.

As I mentioned we do not have specific details on exactly how MTGO did for Hasbro, but I did learn a few key pieces of information.

1. Franchise Brands up 36% year-over-year. All seven Franchise Brands grew double-digits year-over-year including LITTLEST PET SHOP; MAGIC: THE GATHERING; MONOPOLY; MY LITTLE PONY; NERF; PLAY-DOH; TRANSFORMERS.
2. Commentary: 36% overall and Magic grew at least in the double-digits is significant. As a franchise brand with this type of growth Hasbro is very vested to making this brand successful.
3. Games category revenues increased 2% in the third quarter to $395.2 million. Franchise Brands MAGIC: THE GATHERING and MONOPOLY grew in the third quarter, as did SIMON SWIPE and OPERATION.
4. Commentary: In Hasbro’s games category Magic is critical, Magic is named with Monopoly as having a larger impact to Hasbro’s revenue than any other games category product.