Hasbro Eyeing NFTs for Magic: The Gathering

Toy and game giant Hasbro is seeing serious opportunities with NFTs for some of its biggest franchises, including the trading card game Magic: The Gathering. CEO Brian Goldner said in an earnings call that NFTs could accelerate the business for the Magic franchise.

Goldner in particular talked about Magic Arena, the latest game in the series that just launched full mobile on March 25th. Since the game launched one year ago, 3,5 billion games have been played. They've launched card packs that are physical, but also come with an in-game version. New expansion packs are coming as well in the coming months.

Despite the clear financial success of the recent Magic games, Goldner sees NFTs as a real opportunity. However, not only for Magic. He's also looking at Transformers and Dungeons & Dragons, brands that attract multiple demographic levels. "We are actively developing our opportunity here, and we do see it as substantial", Goldner concluded.

Magic The Gathering is notorious for its expensive and rare trading cards, so from a collector's perspective seeing NFTs in this franchise would make sense. It would also allow Hasbro to create a new revenue stream, which is always appealing to a major company like that.

No lack of trading card games

Obviously Magic The Gathering is a huge name. In 2020 alone the franchise made $581 million, which was an increase of 27% compared with the year before. Their efforts in the digital space are also paying of. 2020 has been the best year in the history of the franchise. To be fair, it only makes sense for them to move into the NFT space.

However, there are already plenty of trading card games out there. Think about Gods Unchained, and Dark Country, or what about Splinterlands, Doctor Who: Worlds Apart and of course Synergy of Serra. All those games do things a little bit different. Some have idle gameplay, others offer a different way of deck building. Some include land gameplay, others are more esports focused. It's safe to say that there's no lack of trading card games, but none of these games has the audience Magic The Gathering has.

What are NFTs?

An NFT is basically a digital thing that you actually own. Something that you can trade, sell, use, or in case of the Lindsay Lohan NFT… burn. NFT is the abbreviation for non-fungible tokens, which are tokens that signify ownership over unique digital assets. These assets can for example be items in a game, crypto art, or digital collectibles. In addition it could also be a ticket for a cinema or perhaps a subscription for public transit. The usability of NFTs doesn’t end with gaming, it only starts there.

A non-fungible token can’t be swapped one-on-one with another non-fungible token. It represents something unique. That’s why non-fungible tokens can be based compared with rare art, an owned house or a signed mint edition of a certain comic book. These products are unique and in the same way a non-fungible token is unique as well. This gives non-fungible tokens also an unique value that only represents that one specific token. A deeper explanation about NFTs is something you can find here.