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Move Over Monopoly: Hasbro’s Next Big Growth Engine Is Magic
The classic ’90s card game moves online, and it promises to bring in a lot of cash.
A Magic: The Gathering tournament at The Uncommons board game cafe in New York, on June 27.
Photographer: Mark Abramson/Bloomberg
In the battle for gaming dominance, Hasbro Inc. has what it hopes is an ace up its sleeve—in a deck of playing cards that hit the market 26 years ago.
Not a standard deck, to be sure, but packs costing just $4 each that millions of devotees use to play Magic: The Gathering. Hasbro recently digitized it and has been testing an open beta version since September. The online incarnation is a hit, according to the company, and the payoff could be big after the official launch later this year.