Hasbro has unveiled a new blueprint for success and is putting Wizards of the Coast at the heart of its strategic planning and focusing on core franchise brands. The goal? To increase profits by 50% and save more than US$250 million in costs by 2025.

At the forefront of the toyco’s gameplan is Wizards’ iconic trading card game Magic: The Gathering. The 30-year-old tabletop game is on track to become Hasbro’s first billion-dollar brand in yearly revenue, driven by annual releases of new booster pack expansions, digital game sales and next year’s brand collaborations with Ubisoft’s action-game franchise Assassin’s Creed and Square Enix’s role-playing game series Final Fantasy.

In addition, franchises including Dungeons & Dragons, Transformers, Peppa Pig and NERF will each execute brand plans designed to generate more than US$500 million in annual revenue by 2027. These IPs alone are expected to account for more than 50% of the toyco’s revenue each year.

In an effort to add 20 million additional users to its Hasbro Pulse DTC collectibles platform by 2027, the toyco will expand the service to run in Japan, China and South Korea within the next two years. Pulse’s range of crowd-funded projects and exclusive products target Hasbro’s audience of collectors, who purchase products more than 12 times a year and spend an annual average of more than US$1,000, according to the company.

Between Hasbro’s own portfolio and partner brands Marvel and Star Wars, the toyco has doubled its 2023 entertainment slate versus this year. It has 27 projects lined up, ranging from live-action series such as Power Rangers: Cosmic Fury; to feature films Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts; to CG-animated series Transformers: EarthSpark.

While Hasbro estimates that it will have three billion-dollar franchise brands by 2027, the toyco is already tempering 2022 forecasts. Its Q3 financial report comes out in two weeks, and the expectation is that revenue will have declined by 15%, caused by slowing toy sales and a weaker entertainment lineup, says chief financial officer Deb Thomas.