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Maybe we should look into changing the title of the thread to "Best Guess: Will Pathfinder ever beat D&D on the ICv2 list again?"
Probably Not.
D&D / WOTC would have to screw up ROYALLY again for that to happen and I just dont see that happening.
Both the interviews are really interesting. However don’t underestimate the value of a huge brand name when competing with an endless cycle of lesser known and growing brands. Retailers are naturally going to favor products with lasting potential, and recognized quality over a punt on brand new and stand alone product.
5e is really setting some standards in quality and production values while cashing in on a huge nostalgia bank spanning 30 years. The combination of recognizable products and a much slower and deliberate release schedule means FLGS’s can order stock knowing it will take less shelf space and be supported and marketed centrally for longer. That has to be a win. Furthermore the Online presence of the 5e campaigns with writer led live play throughs, computer game tie ins, miniatures etc, is really high quality.
By broadening the appeal of their more specialist products (Curse of Strahd for example) rather than concentrating on distinct setting product lines, they are becoming less niche. My concern with Paizo’s stratagy is that it seems to becoming more and more niche with every release - as more generally applicable supplements have already been made.
I worry for Paizo but have no fear for d&d’s resilience. I suspect it is in good hands with the current exec.
5e is really setting some standards in quality and production values...
Except for the page numbers in their books. Too damn dim. :)
In all the concern for kickstarters...has anyone considered that the biggest danger for small gaming stores and eventually the industry is the current online sales (which includes kickstarters but also Amazon and others)? As people shop more and more online, they spend more and more time browsing and buying stuff in physical stores. Which creates a feedback where non-gaming stores just don't carry a very good range of products, while gaming stores struggle to stay in business. But when a gaming store closes, that means you automatically lose a hub for meeting and playing games, that online meet ups can't fully replace.
Online sales is basically murdering pretty much any brick and mortar independent store, whether it's selling optics for birders, fish for aquarists, or plain old hardware/electronics/clothes.
Eh, I haven't ever seen a group that would like to play in gaming store. I mean, people here hate doing stuff in public :p
I GMed my ongoing campaign in a gaming store from 2012 to 2015. I recruited the three players I currently have there, and still have occasional online contact with others that dropped for various reasons. I found that playing in public was the best way to recruit new players. Most of my players since I started GMing Pathfinder have been players new to the game. Without access to the store (that closed because the building was not up to safety code), I am not sure how I'm going to recruit new players to fill the seats vacated by a package-deal pair of players whose schedules changed.
The only real danger to gaming stores is Magic: the Gathering (or, CCGs in general), fading away. If that happens, they're screwed. Until that happens, they're fine.
This is VERY true. If anything, I always felt a little bit like an interloper running my game at the store because I was occupying a table that might otherwise be used for Magic: The Gathering or Vanguard. I recruited my players primarily from card game players that were interested in "what's going on over at that table." It's a case of the game is the advertisement for the game.
The clerk in the shop told me once that the owner mostly used the store as a place to have people play the games and as a means for the shop to BUY Magic: The Gathering cards from players. He said that a desirable card might sit in their shop display case for months if they only dealt locally, but they resold most desirable cards within a week because they sold them on Ebay. The shop made some money on closed box drafts, entry fees for weekly tournaments, major new releases, and bottled refreshments, but their main money was in the second-hand market generated by the trading card aspect of the cards that they brought back in from players, often traded in by players for new random packs.
Of course this is all anecdotal, but I found it very fascinating. The trade-in market is much harder to track as well since it's more 1-on-1 transactions of what are technically second-hand goods (even if someone trades back a card they've just pulled out of a random booster).
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There's nothing anecdotal here. In 2016, US/CAN sales broke down as follows: 750m USD for collectible games (CCGs, collectible miniatures and dice games), 305m USD for board games, 205m USD for miniature games (Warhammer, Warmachine etc), 130m USD for non-collectible card and dice games and a whopping 45m USD for RPGs.
And of that 45m USD, D&D is likely something around 50-60%.
Sure, these numbers are US/CAN only, but unlike with CCGs and board games, US/CAN is something close to 80% of global pnp RPG market, so it's kind of the only metric that matters.
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I don't think that would work here as well since people over here are much more timid about talking to strangers :P Like, only drunk people here talk in bus for example, people think you are crazy if you start talking to someone you don't know.
Anyway, I got my current player group through roll20 so I think for newer generation of people in this hobby online sites will be more relevant than gaming stores. I suppose conventions also work as good newbie hooks as well.
I can’t comment on the state of play in America but certainly in the U.K, sites like Facebook, Meet/up.com, Instagram etc have recruited far more players than game stores did, which are far and few between.
Regarding online sales, to put it simply, game stores have to deliver excellent customer experiences and people will patronize them. Maybe not those who live hand to mouth, but certainly gamers with disposable income can be influenced to spend that inhouse.
I wouldn’t dream of buying Games Workshop products online despite being cheaper because when I go into my local GW store I get good conversation, the manager takes care of me (puts a copy or two aside when something’s popular) and gives me the occasional cup of tea.
Make customers feel valued and impulse buying will take care of the rest. Or be smart, and retail online as well so your stock works twice as hard.
Except Game stores can sell through amazon as well. So they don’t need to take the risk either in the same way. A game store becomes a display portal for stock and a method of recruiting new players.
Chief Technical Officer
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There's nothing anecdotal here. In 2016, US/CAN sales broke down as follows: 750m USD for collectible games (CCGs, collectible miniatures and dice games), 305m USD for board games, 205m USD for miniature games (Warhammer, Warmachine etc), 130m USD for non-collectible card and dice games and a whopping 45m USD for RPGs.
And of that 45m USD, D&D is likely something around 50-60%.
Sure, these numbers are US/CAN only, but unlike with CCGs and board games, US/CAN is something close to 80% of global pnp RPG market, so it's kind of the only metric that matters.
I'm pretty sure your numbers are A) estimated and B) specific to a single segment of the market (i.e., hobby retailers). Does whatever source you're using explain how they estimate and what segment they're covering?
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I'm pretty sure your numbers are A) estimated and B) specific to a single segment of the market (i.e., hobby retailers). Does whatever source you're using explain how they estimate and what segment they're covering?There's nothing anecdotal here. In 2016, US/CAN sales broke down as follows: 750m USD for collectible games (CCGs, collectible miniatures and dice games), 305m USD for board games, 205m USD for miniature games (Warhammer, Warmachine etc), 130m USD for non-collectible card and dice games and a whopping 45m USD for RPGs.
And of that 45m USD, D&D is likely something around 50-60%.
Sure, these numbers are US/CAN only, but unlike with CCGs and board games, US/CAN is something close to 80% of global pnp RPG market, so it's kind of the only metric that matters.
They're from ICV2, which is the only measurement that's publicly available. I believe they base the numbers upon interviews with retailers and don't factor in online sales, but I wouldn't be surprised that those more or less follow the brick and mortar trends, mainly that of CCGs being ahead of board games and with RPGs waaay at the end of spectrum.
What I see being sold over here, both online and with brick and mortars, basing on interviews with retailers/distributors back when I was a dealer's hall manager at the largest con in Poland pretty much confirms that, although I'd hazard the guess that board games are much stronger in Europe compared to CCGs.
ICv2 is explicitly an estimate of the entire market (including online sales).
It's not a terribly good estimate, no doubt - but it remains the best estimate there is.
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Chief Technical Officer
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While I don't have accurate information on how accurate their estimates are, my estimate of the accuracy of their estimates is that they're probably fairly inaccurate.
Most game sales in our industry are via four distinct markets:
• Hobby (your basic game stores)
• Book (Amazon, chains such as Barnes & Noble, and the few independent book retailers that remain)
• Mass Market (places like Target, Toys-R-Us, Wal-Mart)
• Direct (sales by the publisher themselves, commonly online or at conventions)
I believe that ICv2 probably has decent insight into hobby sales, and maybe into some book sales. I'd be surprised if they have much insight into mass sales, and I'm confident that they have almost no insight into direct sales. (We don't share our direct sales figures with anyone, and neither do a lot of companies.)
Online sales are also spread across all of those channels:
• When you buy Munchkin from paizo.com, that counts as a hobby sale, since we buy it from a hobby distributor.
• When you buy Munchkin from amazon.com, that counts as a book channel sale, since they buy it from a book distributor*.
• When you buy Munchkin from target.com, that counts as a mass sale, since they buy it from a mass market distributor.
• When you buy Munchkin from warehouse23.com (the publisher's web store), that's a direct sale.
So while ICv2 may have decent insight into *some* online sales, they have literally zero insight into other online sales.
While I agree they're the source of the best estimates available to the general public, it's important to realize that their margin of error is probably quite large.
Personally, I suspect their accuracy is low enough that I can safely assume that any actual number they report is almost certainly not the right number... but I also wouldn't be super surprised if most of the *ratios* between their numbers are within 10-15% of true.
While I don't have accurate information on how accurate their estimates are, my estimate of the accuracy of their estimates is that they're probably fairly inaccurate.
Most game sales in our industry are via four distinct markets:
• Hobby (your basic game stores)
• Book (Amazon, chains such as Barnes & Noble, and the few independent book retailers that remain)
• Mass Market (places like Target, Toys-R-Us, Wal-Mart)
• Direct (sales by the publisher themselves, commonly online or at conventions)I believe that ICv2 probably has decent insight into hobby sales, and maybe into some book sales. I'd be surprised if they have much insight into mass sales, and I'm confident that they have almost no insight into direct sales. (We don't share our direct sales figures with anyone, and neither do a lot of companies.)
Online sales are also spread across all of those channels:
• When you buy Munchkin from paizo.com, that counts as a hobby sale, since we buy it from a hobby distributor.
• When you buy Munchkin from amazon.com, that counts as a book channel sale, since they buy it from a book distributor*.
• When you buy Munchkin from target.com, that counts as a mass sale, since they buy it from a mass market distributor.
• When you buy Munchkin from warehouse23.com (the publisher's web store), that's a direct sale.So while ICv2 may have decent insight into *some* online sales, they have literally zero insight into other online sales.
While I agree they're the source of the best estimates available to the general public, it's important to realize that their margin of error is probably quite large.
Personally, I suspect their accuracy is low enough that I can safely assume that any actual number they report is almost certainly not the right number... but I also wouldn't be super surprised if most of the *ratios* between their numbers are within 10-15% of true.
** spoiler omitted **...
My general rule when using financial estimates like this (which I do rather a lot of) is to just compare like with like. If ICv2 say things have improved, they probably have. They can pick up things like the dormancy of D&D sales during 5E's playtesting and so forth. Most errors come when people forget where they've sourced a figure (so start dividing a Hasbro-derived revenue figure by an ICv2 estimated global sales figure to determine market share).
Luckily, the actual number doesn't really matter. Our lives and arguments won't be substantially different if global RPG sales are $45m or $450m.
EDIT: Well Vic's life might be substantially different if revenue increases tenfold across the board, but the rest of us wouldnt be affected.
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While I don't have accurate information on how accurate their estimates are, my estimate of the accuracy of their estimates is that they're probably fairly inaccurate.
You're likely 100% right, but the point of the thread that RPGs are, for American brick and mortar gaming stores, icing on the top of the cake at best, irrelevant at worst. These shops live and die on CCGs, wargames and board games.
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Chief Technical Officer
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You're likely 100% right, but the point of the thread that RPGs are, for American brick and mortar gaming stores, icing on the top of the cake at best, irrelevant at worst. These shops live and die on CCGs, wargames and board games.While I don't have accurate information on how accurate their estimates are, my estimate of the accuracy of their estimates is that they're probably fairly inaccurate.
CCGs and board games for sure. But I think that the data is misleading you a bit on the relative importance of wargames to the average hobby game store. Specifically, the numbers quoted might suggest that hobby game stores make 4.5 times more revenue from wargames than they do from roleplaying. But Games Workshop is a huge chunk of the wargames business, and a significant portion of GW sales go through their own Games Workshop stores, which don't sell other hobby games. I would estimate that the ratio of wargames sales to RPG sales in an average US hobby store is a lot more like to 2.5:1 or even 2:1.
(Games Workshop is one of the few companies whose data you can actually dig into, as they're publicly traded in the UK and so publish annual reports. You'll find the latest here.)
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I've asked all board game store owners I know (which is a double digit across the country). They said that crowdfunded foreign-made games are negligible due to
a) people in Poland buying mostly Polish language versions,
b) shipping being a beach,
while Polish-produced (either translated or original) crwodfunded sales don't impact them really, because the board game hobby grows fast enough and most of "newbies" stick with brick and mortar or "normal" online sales. Crowfunding is for invested nerds, in other words.
Oh, and one quite succcesful store owner asked me back "There are crowfunded board games? I didn't know, I'm too busy making my living by selling Ticket to Ride."
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Chief Technical Officer
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And Kickstarter? How do they factor in? They fall under "direct sale" but do you think the massive increase in Kickstarter board game sales have grown the "hobby" market or detracted from it?
Or maybe you can't answer that for business ethics reasons. No hurt feelings if you can't.
I have no data here. I can tell you that very few of the hobby distributors we sell to are anti-Kickstarter. The hobby retailers we have talked to are a bit more likely to be anti-Kickstarter, but (not surprisingly) Kickstarters that include a retailers tier are appreciated more than the ones that don't.
My personal opinion is that some of the higher-profile Kickstarters have probably brought some new customers into the hobby market. It may not be super easy to capture their interest with other games, or to get them into hobby game stores, but if the industry can find a way, it'll be a net positive.
Last month was the first time I can remember the PF Core rulebook not making the top ten selling items list. That seems significant (if it’s accurate). Whether because it shows a decline in sales (bad news) or that Starfinder is maintaining its momentum and crowding out the top ten (good news).
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CEO
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Last month was the first time I can remember the PF Core rulebook not making the top ten selling items list. That seems significant (if it’s accurate). Whether because it shows a decline in sales (bad news) or that Starfinder is maintaining its momentum and crowding out the top ten (good news).
Our Core Rulebook sales have been super steady over the past few years, so I am guessing that it is more about Starfinder doing so well.
Awesome. Thanks, Lisa. Well deserved! :)
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Last month was the first time I can remember the PF Core rulebook not making the top ten selling items list. That seems significant (if it’s accurate). Whether because it shows a decline in sales (bad news) or that Starfinder is maintaining its momentum and crowding out the top ten (good news).Our Core Rulebook sales have been super steady over the past few years, so I am guessing that it is more about Starfinder doing so well.
Thank you for Starfinder!
