Magic: The Gathering's Final Fantasy Set Earns $200M in a Day

Magic: The Gathering's Final Fantasy Universes Beyond expansion proved exceptionally popular, shattering records as the brand's fastest-selling set ever according to Hasbro. Its Secret Lair drops sold out almost instantly, and for a significant period, booster packs, starter kits, and decks were notoriously hard to find. The set's immense popularity even drove up the prices of numerous non-Final Fantasy cards due to their powerful synergy with the new release.

Most impressively, the set reportedly generated $200 million in revenue in just one day—a milestone that the Lord of the Rings set took six months to reach.

This figure was confirmed by Hasbro during its Q2 earnings call, which also reported a 23% year-over-year revenue growth for Magic: The Gathering, largely fueled by the Final Fantasy launch. CEO Chris Cox revealed that the set attracted more new players to local game stores in two weeks than any other set typically does in twelve weeks. When asked about how Final Fantasy's performance aligned with expectations during the investor Q&A, Cox provided the following comparison (from an Investing.com transcript):

Regarding Final Fantasy and how it met our projections, let me compare it to two of our biggest Universes Beyond launches. The Lord of the Rings set needed six months to achieve $200 million in revenue.

Final Fantasy reached that in a single day. And we still couldn't meet the full demand. We increased our production runs four times before the official release. Ultimately, the production volume significantly exceeded, by very high double-digit percentages, any previous set we've manufactured.

We left the market eager for more, and we anticipate a strong, sustained long-tail demand for this product. Similarly, we are still selling Lord of the Rings products today. So even though that set hit $200 million back in December 2022, a substantial portion of those sales occurred in the following years. We expect Final Fantasy to follow a similar pattern.

This sustained demand is partly driving our backlist sales, which in just the first five and a half months of this year have already surpassed the total for any previous full year. That’s a key reason for our optimism regarding Final Fantasy. What made it so successful? A few factors. First and foremost, it's about selecting the right intellectual properties that align well with what Magic fans enjoy or that can introduce new audiences to Magic.

Lord of the Rings was a fantastic choice because it's the foundational work of the fantasy genre, with major books, films, animations, and games. I'd argue Final Fantasy has an IP strength almost on par with, if not exceeding, Lord of the Rings in certain markets. It has broader international appeal and a stronger inherent connection to video gaming, since it originated there. This likely created an even stronger overlap between fan bases than we saw with something like Lord of the Rings.

In a follow-up question, Cox expressed confidence in future collaborations and first-party sets planned for next year, noting they aim to capture a "Final Fantasy-like" profile in terms of player types, community size, and thematic fit.

This is excellent news for fans of the Final Fantasy release. With the recent Sonic the Hedgehog Secret Lair and upcoming Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender sets scheduled for September and November, Hasbro is likely to pursue more high-profile crossovers following this success. At the very least, it ensures that Final Fantasy cards will remain well-stocked for the foreseeable future, good news for anyone who hasn't secured their collection yet.