Kiwi company is making millions just by playing their cards right
Legend Story Studios’ card game ‘Flesh and Blood’ is taking the world by storm as thousands of players eagerly await its rare card releases that can fetch price tags in the thousands. Madison Reidy was the first outsider allowed to film the Auckland business’ highly secretive operation inside a new, purpose-built office in Auckland.
Profits are no fantasy for the business behind the card game “Flesh and Blood” that’s fast approaching the global popularity of Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Hasbro’s US$1 billion brand Magic: The Gathering.
Five years since its launch, the game centred on fantasy and hero characters has sold five million kilograms of cards globally and is netting annual revenue of between $50 million to $75m — a significant, but undisclosed, portion of which is paid to private shareholders and kept in profits.
“We give away US$1.5 million in our pro-circuit, so that’s sort of an example of the kind of marketing spend that we’re able to deploy through having a high margin business,” co-founder and chief executive James White said.
He was targeting total annual turnover of $1 billion — or “unicorn” status — financed completely from retained earnings and no debt.
“This is very much a David versus Goliath story. We’re taking it to the big guys, and winning!”
White can barely believe its success himself.
Before he and co-founder Robbie Wen launched the game in 2019, after seven years of development, they struggled to raise capital from investors, instead having to go to friends and family for funding instead. “People thought that I was crazy.” Some may still think he is — Flesh and Blood is one of few table top games that does not allow fans to play digitally.
“To me, the true beauty of trading card games is actually that in-person interaction.”
But, his mission is working — the paper card sets were sold and played in more than 4000 local game stores in 50 countries, after being distributed from warehouses in auckland, Taipei, Tokyo, amsterdam and Chicago.
The number of professional players increased 30 per cent last calendar year, not including the majority who played leisurely.
Our cameras were allowed to film its brand-new, purpose-built office in auckland ahead of its grand opening to fans over the weekend — although not before its design team turned their computer screens black to conceal any yet-to-be-released card artwork they were creating.
The most top-secret team of game developers (mostly former Flesh and Blood pro-players) were in a room most staff couldn’t access.
White said those employees were working on products due to be released in 2025.
“We have a lot of surprises left to reveal to our fans across the world in the coming years,” he said.
But not before rigorous game design testing by in-house players, a process that White called “absolutely critical” to product launch success.
“The element of surprise is huge in our industry.”
What was on show were many empty desks.
The business is rapidly recruiting artists and other roles to fulfil its global growth plans.
We have a lot of surprises left to reveal to our fans across the world in the coming years.
James White co-founder and chief executive