Hasbro X-rayed: adult gamers and digital Monoly to sustain revenues

On the one hand, develop more digital versions of iconic games. On the other hand, strengthen - together with the focus on well-known brands - distribution and licensing partnerships. All this with the expansion of the business towards a mature audience and direct sales (D2C). These are among the priorities of Hasbro - set out in the latest business plan 2025-2027 - to support the business.

Yes, the business. But what, specifically, is the business purpose of the US group? The company divides its revenues into three areas. The first - most significant by turnover (USD 522 million in the second quarter of 2025) - is Wizards & Digital Gaming. Two important brands belong to it: 'Magic: The Gathering', based on collectible cards, and 'Dungeons & Dragons', a globally popular role-playing game. Then, there are the other digitally developed products. The second area is the so-called Consumer Products (442 million in revenue). This includes historical and consumer brands such as: Transformers, Nerf, Play-Doh, My Little Pony and Monopoly. In addition: this is the division that manages physical production, overall distribution and retail channels. Finally, the third area: Entertainment (16 million turnover). This one, much reduced after the sale of eOne, focuses on licensing brands for cinema, TV and streaming, enhancing the group's various intellectual properties (e.g. Transformers to Peppa Pig) through agreements with third-party partners.

Well, a first priority - precisely - is to focus more on the online development of several of the games in Hasbro's catalogue. A few examples? Monopoly Go!, a mobile/social version of the well-known board 'disfida' between real estate investors, which has been quite successful. Although developed with external partners, this solution contributed 44 million in revenue in Q2 2025. Not only that. The central role of Wizard of the Coast precisely in the contamination of analogue with the Internet should be mentioned - though not today. Thus, as early as 2019-2019, the 'Magic: the gatering arena' platform was launched, which is the digital version of the card game, initially for PCs and later landing on smartphones. In general, the convergence of physical and digital is a key strategy. Hasbro can either develop the online version of the analogue game in-house (as in the case of the main version of 'Magic: the Gatering') or license its board games to game developers (e.g. with Monopoly go!). In the first hypothesis, the company assumes all the costs, and dangers, of developing and promoting the game but - in fact - collects all the revenues related to it. In the second, on the other hand, the company does not assume the business risk and makes the agreed royalties its own. In any case, the multinational toy company - in addition to revenues - increases the player base, creating more and more links with the player communities.

But it is not only digitisation. Another focus is on strengthening the leverage of partnerships. That is: the group - by concentrating operations on the franchises with the greatest return (from Transformers to Monopoly) - aims to give licensees or third parties in partnership the products with the least appeal. This is an approach which, on the one hand, wants to focus the company's business on specific and determined toys; and which, on the other hand, attempts to reduce the economic commitment where the return on investment is low or uncertain.

Yes, the return on investment. It is precisely the latter that is at the basis of a marked change that the company has implemented in recent years. Historically, licensing - understood as both the use of one's own brands by third parties and the use of others' IP in one's own toys - has always been at the heart of the company's strategy. So much so that, in 2019, Hasbro had taken an important step: the shopping of the film and TV production studio EntertainmentOne (eOne) in order to produce in-house films, TV series, cartoons based on its own or other brands. However, the high costs and risks associated with the media world did not allow for the correct return on investment. Consequently, in 2023, Hasbro got rid of (or rather, sold off) eOne. The purpose? Again: to concentrate on the core business (producing films is quite different from making games) and to give more weight to agreements with third parties to carry out activities such as making a TV series.