Trading card games are 'extremely strong' and here to last, Asmodee CEO says (Aug. 4)

(In a story published on August 4, corrects paragraph 5 to say all board games made up 31% of full-year sales, not only Asmodee-published ones; in paragraph 9, corrects acquisition timeline of ATM Gaming.)

By Vera Dvorakova

Aug 4 (Reuters) - Board gaming company Asmodee's chief executive said on Tuesday that trading card games, an "extremely strong" category in its catalogue, were here to stay.

Trading cards are typically sold in sealed booster packs, a format which encourages repeated purchases by collectors and players alike.

"On a game-by-game basis, maybe some will see ups and downs, but what's very strong with Asmodee is that we are not depending or relying just on one," Thomas Koegler told Reuters, referring to the range of trading card titles the company distributes.

Koegler said that many of these games were dedicated to specific communities that may overlap slightly, but appear quite separated from one another.

Trading card games have been an important revenue driver for Asmodee. In the fiscal year that ended in March, they generated 61% of Asmodee's revenue, while board games made up 31%. Trading card game sales also rose 23.1% in the first quarter of the new financial year.

Asmodee is not the only company benefiting from the strength of trading card games. Hasbro, whose "Magic: The Gathering" cards Asmodee distributes, in July reported a 27% revenue boost from the card game in its Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming unit.

Both Asmodee and Hasbro noted an increase in player engagement with trading cards in their respective quarterly reports.

Stockholm-listed Asmodee also distributes Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh and One Piece trading cards.

Since its spin-off from games group Embracer in February 2025, Asmodee has been steadily acquiring studios and rights to games. It signed a deal to distribute Bandai's new Naruto trading card game in July, and completed the acquisition of board game publisher ATM Gaming in April, after announcing it a month before.

(Reporting by Vera Dvorakova in Gdansk; editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)