Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy Universes Past enlargement was actually, actually, actually fashionable. It was the fastest-selling enlargement in Magic: The Gathering historical past, per Hasbro. Its Secret Lair collaboration drops offered out in report time, and whereas shares of the boosters, starter kits, and decks have improved, there was a interval there the place it was troublesome to get your fingers on something Magic x Final Fantasy-related. The set’s recognition even pushed a bunch of non-Final Fantasy playing cards to greater costs, simply due to their wonderful synergy with the set.
And on prime of all that, it apparently earned $200 million in a single day – the identical quantity that Magic’s Lord of the Rings set earned in six months.
That is according to Hasbro in its Q2 earnings call, which revealed the determine alongside a report that Magic: The Gathering income grew 23% year-over-year in giant half due to the Final Fantasy launch. Per CEO Chris Cox, it introduced in extra new gamers in shops over two weeks than some other set has in 12 weeks. And in the investor Q&A in the course of the earnings name, Cox answered a query about how Final Fantasy’s demand correlated to the corporate’s expectations with the next quote (courtesy of Investing.com’s transcript):
By way of Final Fantasy and the way it met expectations, I’ll offer you a comparability between two of our largest universe on the onsets. Lord of the Rings took six months to ship $200,000,000 of income.
Final Fantasy took sooner or later. And we left demand on the desk. So we couldn’t produce sufficient. I feel we elevated manufacturing runs on it 4 instances pre launch. It was considerably, by many, many very excessive double digit percentages, forward of some other manufacturing run we’ve ever achieved.
And we left the market wanting extra. And our expectation is there’s going to be a pleasant lengthy tail of backlist for the product. Likewise, we’re nonetheless promoting Lord of the Rings product in the present day. So, although we hit $200,000,000 in December ’2 for Lord of the Rings, We offered a considerable share of that in the a number of years following. We anticipate Final Fantasy to be no completely different.
It’s partially what’s powering our backlist, which already in 5 and a half months in the yr did greater than we’ve ever achieved in any yr prior. So, I feel that’s a bit bit on what our bullishness is on Final Fantasy. What drove success for it? I feel it’s a few issues. I feel in the beginning, it’s discovering the fitting IPs which are nice adjacencies to what Magic followers may enchantment to or what Magic may enchantment to a different fan base.
Lord of the Rings was incredible as a result of it’s type of the granddaddy of fantasy. It invented the style, main books, main films, main animation and video games. Final Fantasy, I feel, is sort of as sturdy as Lord of the Rings in phrases of IP energy, if not stronger in some areas. I feel it has stronger cross regional enchantment, and it has in all probability extra of a candy spot in gaming than Lord of the Rings has, as a result of it was type of born from gaming. So, I feel probably the overlap of fan bases was stronger than you may need even seen for one thing like Lord of the Rings.
In a follow-up query, Cox additionally famous that he feels “fairly good” about future collaborations and first-party units coming subsequent yr “in phrases of being Final Fantasy like in phrases of the varieties of gamers, the dimensions of group, and the adjacencies we’ve.”
That final comment bodes nicely for followers of the Final Fantasy set. We simply noticed a Sonic: The Hedgehog Secret Lair crossover debut, and already find out about Spider-Man and Avatar: The Final Airbender themed units in September and November, respectively, so with success like this, extra crossovers are more likely to make sense to the oldsters at Hasbro. Within the meantime, no less than this implies Hasbro will maintain the Final Fantasy playing cards stocked for whereas, for many who have not been capable of get their fingers on them but.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You will discover her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Received a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.