Hasrbo’s total gaming category revenues grew 40 percent in the first quarter and Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner confirmed growth in Magic on tabletop and Magic Arena (Arena) on Wednesday’s earnings conference call.
Goldner said Magic tabletop was up in the quarter in a substantial way because of the release of Theros Beyond Death in January and the shift toward digital play has helped growth despite the recent blow to in person play at the local store level from COVID-19 concerns.
“On Arena, we have now seen 2.1 billion games played and on average, players are spending more time on Arena than ever before,” Goldner said. “We’re up an hour per week to nine hours from eight hours. We’re seeing over player engagement and satisfactions is very high, with the highest engagement and satisfaction from players who are playing both tabletop and Arena.”
Goldner also confirmed that Arena is coming to mobile this year, on both iOS and Android, and on Mac. He said that all of this is leading toward more users and growth, as evidenced by Arena’s latest strong period.
“This period over the past month has been the strongest period since launch and we’re seeing acceleration,” Goldner said. “Ikoria preorders are the strongest versus all previous Arena sets.”
Read the full Hasbro first quarter 2020 financial results and listen to the earnings conference call for all the details.