Hasbro’s no stranger to giving credit where credit’s due when a video game helps save its ass financially, having already made plenty of to-do about how the blockbuster success of Baldur’s Gate 3 a few years ago provided a surge of interest in D&D. Now it’s thanking a video game of a different sort: the Final Fantasy saga, as its recent highly anticipated crossover with Magic: The Gathering has helped make the most successful set of the card game made so far.
According to Deadline, Hasbro CEO Chris Cox touted on an earnings call today that sales of the Final Fantasy set, released just over a month ago, helped account for a 23% surge in Magic sales in the last quarter, helping the toymaker offset a $1 billion write-down to account for ongoing tariff-induced uncertainty from retailers, leading to a flat adjusted operating profit for the quarter.
“There’s more people playing Magic, and there are more people who have never played Magic who are now playing Magic, than ever before,” Cox noted.
The Final Fantasy set has been a subject of controversy even with its massive success and praise for the ways Wizards of the Coast integrated references and mechanics from the legendary RPG series into the Magic format. The first of the “Universes Beyond” crossover sets to be legal for play in Magic‘s standard format, before its release, Final Fantasy came to represent concerns from players that Magic was giving too much ground over to licensed crossovers instead of focusing on its original creative storytelling.
The surge of interest in the set’s reveal also led to a rush on pre-orders, making trying to even get your hands on cards at their suggested retail prices a challenge—especially the set’s premium collector-focused booster packs, with aftermarket prices breaking over a thousand dollars at MagicCon Las Vegas for a box of cards meant to “only” sell for $455. Now, even as player interest switches focus to the upcoming release of Edge of Eternities on August 1st, Final Fantasy packs are still tough to come by.
All that controversy matters little to Hasbro’s bottom line, so “Universes Beyond” is going to be here to stay. After Edge of Eternities, the first entirely sci-fi/sci-fantasy-themed Magic set, this year will see the release of two more major crossover sets in the form of Marvel’s Spider-Man in late September, and Avatar: The Last Airbender in November. And even though Edge returns to Magic‘s own storytelling, its mechanics seem ripe for being adapted for the arrival of some pretty hefty franchises among the stars—ones Hasbro at large is already well acquainted with.
“Coming up, we have Spider-Man, Star Wars, and Avengers: Doomsday,” Cox noted on the earnings call, referring more broadly to Hasbro’s toy licenses rather than necessarily any specific plans for Magic (although we know there are indeed more Marvel sets on the way after Spider-Man). “That alone is a pretty stacked lineup and pretty meaningful top-line growth across our Marvel portfolio.”
So maybe don’t be too surprised if the toymaker finds a way to oust Final Fantasy from its current throne as Magic‘s most popular set in the not-too-distant future.
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