Magic: The Gathering Arena continues to drive growth of revenue for Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast, but according to the company, the tabletop version of Magic declined in the fourth quarter of 2019.

The report comes from Hasbro's Tuesday conference call for investors about its fourth-quarter earnings and overall 2019 performance.

During the call, Goldner said that although the tabletop version of Magic: The Gathering grew substantially last year, the revenue for tabletop version declined in the fourth quarter —a dip the Hasbro CEO said was due to the “release cadence” of the game. However, Goldner referenced Wizards of the Coast, the publisher that oversees Magic's tabletop and digital versions, multiple times as a driving force behind both fourth-quarter and overall earnings for 2019, and said that revenue for MTG as a franchise grew 30% last year.

“For MTG Arena we saw great growth for the brand throughout the year,” Goldner said during the call “Players have played 1.8 billion games thus far. We have 72% growth in new players for the year. On average, Arena players spend eight hours a week on the game.”

“Our gaming revenue is up 6% for the year fueled by growth in Magic: The Gathering ,” Goldner revealed during the call, also noting that the company is on track to “double Wizards of the Coast revenue over five years from 2018 to 2023.”

During the call, Hasbro also reportedly confirmed that Magic Arena is coming to mobile devices this year.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Check out our latest MTG Arena video below:

Related: MTG Hall of Famer Frank Karsten is No Longer Allowed to Publish All GP Decklists or GP Win Rate Analysis