My Little Pony Movie Games

With My Little Pony: The Movie in theaters, it’s time for the licensed games in stores.

There are, of course, Hasbro’s My Little Pony: The Movie Monopoly Junior ($17), My Little Pony: The Movie Guess Who ($17), My Little Pony: The Movie Pie Face ($20), and My Little Pony: The Movie Candyland ($20), all available now, the first three exclusively at Toys “R” Us.

Releasing to retail November 24th is Seaquestria & Beyond, the ninth set for the My Little Pony CCG from EnterPlay. It adds new keywords, Traveler and Transform, new Mane characters, and elements from the movie, such as the Friendship Festival and The Storm King’s reign of terror. Single packs with 12 cards will be $3.49.

And then there’s The Official Movie Sourcebook ($20) due later this year for Tails of Equestria, the My Little Pony roleplaying game from River Horse. With this, players get new playable races (cats, parrots, hippogriffs, and lizardfolk), NPC stats from the movie, a new adventure, details for areas outside of Equestria, and rule options for factions, reputation, and vehicles.

 

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Action games were the highlight of Hasbro’s Toy Fair showroom this year. Though we’ve already covered Toilet Trouble, Fantastic Gymnastics, and Speak Out Kids vs Parents, I still feel the need to include this picture of fellow pawn, Thomas, being sprayed in the face by a life-sized toilet prop (just for journalistic accuracy, of course).

Following up on Pie Face and Pie Face Showdown, Hasbro plans for this fall Pie Face Sky High ($25). It still delivers whip cream to the face but this time does it with a device similar to those carnival sledgehammer strength-testers.

Egged On ($20) looks like a carton of eggs. The eggs themselves are flexible rubber and split in two with a pretty good seal. Fill some with water or other suitable substance and then play by smashing them against your head. Egged On will be available in Target stores in March and everywhere else in May.

Simon Optix is a wearable version of the pattern-matching Simon game. The person wearing it is supposed to wave their hands in front of the visor following the flash of colors.

Bop It! Maker (fall, $20) is another pattern-matching challenge. Unlike previous entries in the series, though, this one is user-programmable. That is, the user creates their own waves, shakes, and other moves—as well as records a name for each—which the device randomizes.

Surprising the market, who’s lower expectations for the company were based at least partially on weaker performance by Mattel, Hasbro on Monday reported a 13 percent net revenue growth in 2016. That put the company’s total year revenue over $5 billion for the first time. Following the news, Hasbro’s stock hit a new high and closed up 14 percent.

The company’s performance in the games category was strong. Led by sales of Pie Face and Magic: The Gathering, revenue grew 9 percent year-on-year.

Hasbro’s strongest growth was in its partner brands category, which was up 28 percent on the success of Disney Princess, Disney Frozen, Dreamworks’ Trolls, and Yo-Kai Watch.

On the subject of the company’s largest individual game brand, CEO Brian Goldner reported that 2016 was the 8th straight year of growth for Magic: The Gathering. He also suggested that consumers would start seeing some results from the Magic Digital Next initiative before the end of the year.

Magic Digital Next, which has been an investment for a number of years, and will continue to be a bit of an investment this year because of course late this year you’ll start to see some of the evidence of what the team has been working on as they begin to put that platform out to the market.

Hasbro also revealed an interesting change in its approach to financial reporting:

Beginning with the first quarter, we will no longer report revenue along the boys, games, girls, and preschool categories. Instead, we will provide a revenue breakdown of franchise brands, partner brands, Hasbro Gaming, and emerging brands. We believe this is a more relevant and appropriate view of our business.

Later Monday afternoon, Hasbro announced the appointment of John Frascotti as President of the company—he was previously President of Hasbro Brands. Brian Goldner remains with the company and will serve as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

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Hasbro logoMagic: The Gathering has been supplanted by Nerf as Hasbro’s largest brand. That news was revealed Monday by CEO Brian Goldner in the company’s 2015 earnings conference call. Nevertheless, Goldner also stated that Battle for Zendikar was the game’s most successful set launch yet.

Growth in Monopoly and Magic: The Gathering contributed to the 8 percent increase in the games category, absent FX. Magic had a very good fourth quarter with the release of Battle for Zendikar, which had the strongest start to a set in the brand’s history. In addition to higher revenues in our franchise brands and several other Hasbro gaming brands, Pie Face was a clear winner this holiday season and continues to be in high demand at retail. It was recently named Toy of the Year in the U.K. You’ll learn more about the next innovation for Pie Face later this week at Toy Fair.

The Magic Digital Next platform, which we first got a hint of in November, was said to be launching in 2017, and additional Magic initiatives to be announced at Toy Fair later this week.

With the potential of a Mattel merger recently in the news, Goldner offered this assessment:

We’re focused on executing our brand blueprint strategy… [though we] continue to remain open to ideas that enhance our strategic brand blueprint and the strategy that we’re executing. But we’re very focused on executing our own strategy.

Overall, Hasbro finished 2015 with a very strong performance. Year-to-year fourth quarter revenues grew 13 percent, or 23 percent before the impact of foreign exchange. Full-year revenues for 2015 were $4.4 billion and net earnings $451.8 million. That’s revenues 4 percent higher than 2014, or 13 percent higher without the foreign exchange impact.

Hasbro’s fourth quarter revenues in the games category were 18 percent higher than the previous year. For the full year, games grew 8 percent. (Both of these again representing numbers absent foreign exchange.) In comparison, the boys category grew 30 percent and the preschool category 28 percent, while the girls category shrunk 13 percent.

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Hasbro logoUnder pressure by foreign exchange rates, Hasbro’s second quarter net revenues were down 4 percent compared to last year (to $797.7 million). The results, however, were better than expected by analysts, moving the company’s stock price to close up 6 percent on Monday.

Before the impact of foreign exchange, Hasbro’s revenues were up 5 percent. The girls category dropped 22 percent compared to the same quarter of last year, games 6 percent. However, when comparing the first 6 months of 2015 to that of 2014, the games category was flat. This difference was driven mostly by the change in Magic: The Gathering’s release schedule. In 2014 the major release was in the second quarter. In 2015 it was in the first. A “restaging” of Duel Masters in Japan was also a contributing factor.

Results in the second quarter were mixed among Hasbro’s franchise brands as well. Magic: The Gathering, Transformers, and Furby were down. Littlest Pet Shop, Monopoly, My Little Pony, Nerf, and Play-Doh were up. So were Marvel and Jurassic World.

CEO Brian Goldner said traditional board games in particular were up “a bit” in the second quarter. In addition to Monopoly, Clue, Trouble, and Twister performed well.

Looking forward, Goldner spoke optimistically about Monopoly Here and Now, Pie Face, games for the Minions and Star Wars movies, and the…

Magic: The Gathering Arena of the Planeswalkers game, which gives us a new footprint in the strategy board gaming category.

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Hasbro Pie FaceHasbro was apparently inspired as much as the thousands of people who saw the video below and flooded stores in the U.K. to purchase Pie Face. Today the company announced a license from Rocket Games to manufacture and distributed Pie Face in multiple markets, including the U.S. and U.K.

It’s a simple game: fill the device with whipped cream, spin the spinner, twist the trigger knob the number of times indicated, and pray you don’t get a pie in the face.

Pie Face, which Hasbro also sold back in the 1960s, will retail for $20 in U.S. and should be available as early as this October.

Pie Face

Pie Face actionRocket Games is bringing Pie Face to the UK market. Its debut is set for London Toy Fair later this month, where the game will be on-display in the booth of distributor, Esdevium Games.

Pie Face has players load a throwing arm with cream, slide their heads through a mask, and then turn the handles a number of clicks set by a spinner. Eventually, someone gets a pie in the face. And when isn’t that fun?

Pie Face is already sold in Holland and Belgium, and, in fact, was sold by Hasbro in the United States during the 1960s.