Dungeons & Dragons is the most famous role-playing brand in the world, but lately it has been in serious trouble. Important people are leaving, and the competition is steadily increasing. The company behind D&D, Hasbro, has been having a tough time. MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus takes a closer look at what is really going on – and what the future holds for Hasbro.
Hasbro has gathered many well-known brands from your childhood and youth, including Monopoly, Play-Doh, Beyblade, or NERF. However, the best-known part of Hasbro among gamers is likely to be Wizards of the Coast and its brands Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, the most complex game in the world.
Especially with D&D there have been quite a few negative news lately, most recently the departure of two major figures who are now working for the competition. Critical Role, the most famous group for Dungeons & Dragons, has now published its own role-playing game. And Larian, which made D&D even more famous worldwide with Baldur’s Gate 3, are temporarily turning their backs on the franchise.
Although I am more at home with the German competitor DSA, I am still interested: What do such difficult times mean for the probably largest role-playing game in the world?
I have analyzed the financial reports of various companies since 2020 and looked at what plans the current leaders are pursuing. The result may be surprising: Hasbro is doing better than one might think. But the situation is precarious.
Movies and entertainment have cost Hasbro a lot of money.
After the Corona pandemic, starting in 2019, Hasbro, like almost all companies, saw a decline in sales. However, the company had one of its strongest years ever in 2021, at least on paper.
With a net revenue of 6.42 million US dollars and a profit of 995 million dollars, 2021 was by far the strongest year in recent history (figures from the 2021 Hasbro Annual Report).
The profit has mainly been attributed to the acquisition of Entertainment One, or eOne, a company for films and series, with which Hasbro wanted to explore new areas. However, that did not work out:
- At the end of 2019, Hasbro acquired eOne according to Hasbro itself for around 4 billion US dollars.
- In 2021, the company was finally fully integrated, meaning: profits in the subsidiary counted towards Hasbro’s total profits.
- One of the major prestige projects was the D&D movie Honor Among Thieves, which flopped financially.
- In 2023, Hasbro finally sold parts of eOne to the Canadian company Lionsgate – but only for 500 million dollars (source: Hasbro). The music segment of eOne had already been sold two years prior for 385 million dollars.
In addition to the large loss from the film sector, Hasbro has also reported losses in the retail sector in recent years and particularly in 2022 and 2023, meaning: fewer toys were sold physically (from the 2022 Financial Report and the 2023 Financial Report).
The reasons included large stockpiles at retail stores. After Corona and the Ukraine war starting in 2022, customer buying behavior was not very focused on toys. The demand was lower.
Wizards of the Coast is helping Hasbro through the crisis, yet people are being fired
The only sector that has continuously performed positively during this time and accounted for more than half of Hasbro’s total profits was Wizards of the Coast: the creators of Dungeons & Dragons and Magic.
Especially in 2022 and 2023, this division generated enormous revenue, even more than Hasbro as a whole (WotC: 538 million dollars, Hasbro: 407 million dollars). It should be noted that in the financial report, Wizards of the Coast and digital products are summarized. Reasons for the significant success are accordingly:
- the enormous success of Monopoly GO!, from which Hasbro receives licensing fees
- Baldur’s Gate 3, which was celebrated in 2023 as an absolute highlight in gaming history
Nevertheless, Hasbro has laid off thousands of employees over the years, even at Wizards of the Coast. The goal: The company should become leaner and more efficient. With the two strategies “Blueprint 2.0” and “Playing to Win“, Hasbro aims to realign itself with smaller teams and a focus on fewer, but stronger brands and a digital market. In other words: Fewer people should work more efficiently on new products such as video games.
The biggest rival is doing significantly better
Mattel is considered Hasbro’s biggest competitor. During the same period, Mattel faced similar issues as the makers of Monopoly, such as financial crises, epidemics, and wars. Nevertheless, Mattel is currently doing significantly better.
One of the reasons is the great success of various brands like Barbie and Hot Wheels. In particular, Barbie was able to perform where Hasbro has not succeeded: The Barbie movie was an absolute success.
Since 2021, Mattel has had stronger profit growth than Hasbro. Interesting fact: The stock of Mattel still costs only about one-third of that of Hasbro (as of June 27). Investors seem to still favor Hasbro’s brands.
Mattel faces the same difficulties as Hasbro, but has weathered them better in the past.
In contrast, some companies from Europe are doing much better – such as Games Workshop, which have long had expertise in the areas that Hasbro is targeting.
The new competition is coming from Europe
Since 2020, Games Workshop has been experiencing steady growth, even though this does not match Hasbro in absolute numbers. For comparison: In 2023, Games Workshop had total revenue of approximately 541.42 million euros (from the Financial Report of Games Workshop) – while Hasbro generated around 4.62 billion euros (from the Financial Report of Hasbro).
Nevertheless, the valuation of Games Workshop is currently significantly better: The stock is priced at 189.60 euros, more than three times higher than Hasbro’s at 61.77 euros (source: Google Finance G7W and HAS as of June 27, 2025).
Games Workshop has expertise in precisely the areas in which Hasbro now wants to grow. Warhammer, Games Workshop’s product, is already established as a gaming brand, while Magic and Dungeons & Dragons are not yet to this extent. After years of trial and error there are now really good Warhammer games, especially in the last five years.
The biggest success is the 2024 release of Space Marine 2, which is so large that even the head of Warhammer says: Such success isn’t likely to happen again soon. The plan, however, remains to focus on digital goods.
There are currently rising stars in smaller areas as well: The French publisher Asmodée Editions has freed itself from Embracer at the beginning of 2025 and made Zombicide its first acquisition. Asmodée produces games like Frosthaven, which has also surprisingly received a PC adaptation on Steam.
Hasbro has a good plan, but the competition is already ahead
With its new strategies, Hasbro aims to save a billion dollars by 2027 and completely realign itself – focusing on digital goods and licenses. The company is restructuring its internal structures accordingly.
This comes with certain risks, as the financial website AInvest explains. It states that Hasbro could scare away its customers and investors with this move. At the same time, personnel changes are a necessary step to steer Hasbro in a new direction.
By divesting eOne, Hasbro has dismissed any plans for new movies and series – where Mattel had greater successes anyway. The new direction aimed at strengthening “Digital Gaming” is promising, but here, there is already experienced competition.
These two worlds, Magic and Dungeons & Dragons, already come with millions of fans worldwide. They just need to be activated somehow. With existing worlds of this size, it should not be difficult to expand the franchises with successful video games.
The existing universes like Warhammer and Warcraft show that a solid foundation can provide for video games for years, with Warcraft particularly benefiting from its individual expansions. For both, the large world is why the games appear credible and are successful.
Currently, Hasbro lacks the knack to develop the right games. Failures like Dark Alliance or Magic: Legends dampen the desire for more games from the franchises, despite D&D having the potential to work in many genres. The world alone has had two MMORPGs, both of which are still running today.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was a significant step recently, but it felt a bit like a lucky hit. If Hasbro builds on this and does not get too greedy, there are good chances of becoming a leading publisher – despite experienced and growing competition. Moreover, Baldur’s Gate is not the only interesting canonical world in D&D: 7 settings from Dungeons & Dragons that are at least as exciting as the Sword Coast
