Hasbro CEO Confirms ‘Final Fantasy’ Is Best Selling Set In ‘Magic: The Gathering’ History: “‘Lord Of The Rings’ Took Six Months To Deliver $200 Million Of Revenue, ‘Final Fantasy’ Took One Day”
While no one but the most stubborn of anti-Universes Beyond critics could possibly be surprised to learn that a crossover between the world’s most popular RPG and TCG has proven insanely successful, it’s unlikely that anyone could have come close to predicting the sheer speed and explosivity with which the Magic: The Gathering x Final Fantasy set has proven itself to best-selling of the game’s entire history.
The gangbuster success of MTG‘s materia-laden efforts was confirmed by Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks during the company’s Q2 2025 Earnings Call, as held on July 23rd just five weeks after the Final Fantasy set released to the public.
Turning to offer the TCG’s quarterly performance report near the top of the call, Cocks beamed to investors, “Wizards of the Coast had a standout quarter,” particularly as Magic: The Gathering continues to deliver growing 23% year-over-year in the second quarter and up 32% year-to-date.”
‘This isn’t just a one-off moment, it’s a clear indication of the power of Magic‘s community, our release cadence and the resonance of our Universe’s Beyond strategy,” he declared. “Magic‘s engine growth is durable. It’s diversified and it’s accelerating. We’re seeing strength across every KPI [key performance indicator] of the brand. Tarkir: Dragonstorm is on pace to become the top-selling Magic premier set of all time.”
Continuing in his praise for the brand’s current performance levels, Cocks continued, “Final Fantasy, the latest release in our Universes Beyond portfolio is already the highest grossing Magic set ever. And Secret Lair, our direct-to-consumer collectible business just delivered the strongest sales quarter in its history.”
“It’s not just about our new releases either,” the CEO asserted. “Our backlist magic sets have already set an all-time annual sales record, and we’re only 6 months into the year. That’s a testament to the depth and durability of Magic‘s value to players, collectors and fans alike, a play system of over 22,000 cards that retain full compatibility.”
Further, Cocks beamed, “Organized Play is on fire. We saw a nearly 40% year-over-year increase in unique players during the first half of 2025. A clear signal that our play programs are bringing new energy and deeper connection to local communities. Final Fantasy 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.”
In fact, so strong were Final Fantasy-related Magic sales that per Hasbro CFO/COO Gina Goetter, that the TCG was single-handedly keeping the company afloat.
“Net revenue came in at $981 million, essentially flat year-over-year on the strength of Magic. Adjusted operating profit delivered $247 million with an adjusted operating margin of 25.2%, which was up 20 basis points versus last year despite a material step-up in royalties expense. Adjusted earnings per diluted share rose to $1.30, up 7% year-over-year, driven by favorable mix and margin discipline.
Our Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming segment continues to be the growth engine. Revenue grew 16% to $522 million, led by Magic: The Gathering, which delivered 23% growth. Final Fantasy became the biggest Magic set in our history, exceeding expectations, and attracting both long-time players and new fans.”
Later, when asked during the Q&A portion of the call if he could just speak to how the set performed against company expectations, as well as to why he thought it was so overwhelmingly successful, to which he began by offering “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.
“And our expectation is there’s going to be a nice long tail of backlist for the product. Likewise, there’s — we’re still selling Lord of the Rings product today. So even though we hit $200 million in December of ’22 for Lord of the Rings, we sold a substantial percentage of that in the several years following we expect Final Fantasy to be no different. It’s partially what’s powering our backlist, which already in like 5.5 months in the year did more than we’ve ever done in any year prior.
“So I think that’s a little bit on kind of what our bullishness is on Final Fantasy. What drove success for it? I think it’s a couple of things. I think first and foremost, it’s finding the right IPs that are great adjacencies to what Magic fans might appeal to or what Magic might appeal to another fan base. Lord of the Rings was fantastic because it’s kind of the granddaddy of fantasy. It’s invented the genre, major books, major movies, major animation and games. Final Fantasy, I think, is almost as strong as Lord of the Rings in terms of IP strength, if not stronger in some regions.
I think it has stronger cross-regional appeal, and it has probably more of a sweet spot in gaming than Lord of the Rings has because it was kind of born from gaming. So I think potentially, the overlap of fan bases was stronger than you might have even seen for something like Lord of the Rings.
And I think when you couple that with some savviness that the Wizards team has learned over the last couple of years in terms of managing the SKU mix, managing what the ASP [average selling price] expectation should be and shifting people up in terms of what they want to collect, and what they want to buy. It just breeds very, very strong success.”
Finally, Cocks closed out his MTG-related thoughts by pointing to next year’s Universes Beyond plans, which he teased as having the potential to deliver a similar ‘player boom’ when they finally drop.
“Over the next couple of months, usually in August and September, the Magic team reveals what the new sets are going to be for the following year,” he said. “And we feel pretty good about the brand collaborations and the first-party sets we have next year in terms of being Final Fantasy like in terms of the types of players, the size of community and the adjacencies we have.”
