Arpine Kocharyan: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our final question is from the line of Andrew Uerkwitz with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
Andrew Uerkwitz: Hey, thanks for taking my question. Chris, I guess this question is probably for you because I think you were here when the game started. Licensing games from toys and movies isn’t really anything new, but it feels like we’re seeing bigger and better successes today. Just curious why you think that is? And like what is Hasbro doing to enabling that? Thank you.
Chris Cocks: Yes. Hey, no worries Andrew. Yes, Baldur’s Gate 3 was my first deal at Wizards of the Coast. I think I went out to get had dinner with spent at Larian [ph] like in the fall of 2016, and we inked a deal in 2017. So I’m pretty proud about how everything kind of turned out. That’s nice to see when you make a long-term bet. I think what you saw this year with video games and mobile games and movies whether on the video game side, it’s a MONOPOLY GO!, which is the number one mobile game release of 2023, Baldur’s Gate 3, which I think is sitting at a 96 Metacritic [ph] score on PC and console or in movies, whether it’s the ongoing success of Transformers, the Barbie movie, Mario, is that there’s a high demand for play-based brands and play-based brands are really becoming the dominant brands about how people engage and what people love.
I was a shocking stack that I should have known better because it just mimics my lifestyle. Sakana came up with a report that showed the biggest demographic of video gamers today isn’t sub 22-year-old. It’s people 45 years and older. And it’s also the fastest-growing demographic of gamers in the world. So I’m pretty bullish on the industry of play on the strength of brand portfolios that are based on play. And I think Hasbro has a deck of cards in terms of our brands and our capabilities that I wouldn’t trade with anyone. I think that’s a long-term bull case for the company and for the industry as a whole.
Andrew Uerkwitz: And then just as a follow-up, and I appreciate that answer. How do you — how will you balance or try to balance the — your well versing games, these things aren’t necessarily like the toy cycle where it takes a lot longer and time and money. How do you kind of balance that with the traditional nature of Hasbro, which is trying to get everything ready for a particular holiday season?
Chris Cocks: Well, I mean, we have two separate business units that have 2 very different go-to-markets. But when combined together under one roof creates a very well-diversified portfolio. That can help us weather ups and downs in any given category or any given set of market conditions. So I think especially with something like this holiday, where the market remains rather unpredictable. It’s great to have diversification, and it’s a real strength of the company. We’re fortunate in that Wizards of the Coast is a very margin-rich business that’s highly cash generative effectively based on Wizards of the Coast and our digital licensing revenue, we can self-fund a fairly significant set of long-term capital investments and we’ve diversified that risk pretty effectively between licensing, Games as a Services, our tabletop business and our own internal publishing build-out.
And that business gives us a nice cushion to help us with restructuring and turning around of the toy business, which we remain long-term bolt-on. We think that IP portfolio is fantastic and we really like the team that we’ve set up there. So our Q4 numbers weren’t what we wanted, but we’re taking — we’re looking at the market, we’re being realistic about it. we’re investing so that we can create a runway for that team to be successful in 2024 and beyond.
Andrew Uerkwitz: Got it. I appreciate that. And congrats on that Baldur’s Gate 3 game. That’s great.
Chris Cocks: Thanks.
Operator: Thank you. At this time, we’ve reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call over to Debbie Hancock for closing remarks.
Debbie Hancock: Thank you, Rob, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. The replay will be available on our website in approximately two hours, and management’s prepared remarks will also be posted on the Investor Relations portion of our website following this call. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. This will conclude today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
