[citizenpaul]

You have what is a common misconception. That the actual IP/Content is ever what has made money. It is not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media...

Look at the totals broken out by area of revenue. Pokemon is a big offender, the games and movies might as well not exist from a revenue standpoint.

Pokémon $88 billion Licensed merchandise – $80.8 billion[b] Pokémon mobile games – $6.13 billion[c] Box office – $1.156 billion[26]

Now you know why everthing has to have some sort of T-shirt, hat, pen, keychain blah blah.

[throw7]

That is nuts. Queue up Space Balls: "MERCHANDISING!"

Well now though, I see a video game I never heard of "Dungeon Fighter Online". Here's one of the recent reviews from the Steam Store:

"I spent $45,000 on a relentless journey into the heart of darkness with Dungeon Fighter Online (DFO), a 2D beat-em-up game that has garnered both fervent enthusiasts and critical skeptics,..."

Holy Cow. I can't even.

[fyrn_]

Dungeon fighter is one of the most valuable media IPs ever, beat a ton of video games player count and revenue records. It's one of the things that put tencent on the map.

Something north of $20 billion in revenue. Just not known in the US.

[dcolkitt]

This is a fair point, but as of their most recent financials merchandise (excluding merchandise sold inside the parks) only made up $5bn of the $28bn in the "Parks, Experiences and Product" category. By contrast park admissions was $8bn, resorts was $6bn and food/merchandise sold in the parks was $6bn.

So IMO this is a departure from the classic merchandise based strategy. It seems pretty clear that the theme parks more so than the products are the major profit centers today.