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Hobby Games: It Was a Very Good Year
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<blockquote data-quote="iamarogue" data-source="post: 7768383" data-attributes="member: 50159"><p>I think it's plateauing to a certain extent. I am a retailer and have been in business for 20 years. We saw marked growth over the past, say, 5 years and have tripled our staff as a result. But this year (2018) we only just barely surpassed the previous year's sales figures and in fact some areas - notably board games - we saw a decline. Sure lots of people are playing RPGs, but Paizo's in trouble, White Wolf is in trouble, John Wick's in trouble, Evil Hat's in trouble, Steve Jackson's in trouble. D&D 5e is having ever-increasing market share and that's not necessarily a good thing for the industry as a whole.</p><p></p><p>Wizards of the Coast recently is moving to more mainstream sales (Amazon, Target, Walmart) and that has the potential to be a big problem for FLGS and by extension, the industry. We also sell wargames (like Warhammer) and that's an industry that requires a community for the hobby to be sustained. Over the past several years, we saw a rise in discount online stores and then a subsequent decline in the number of people actively playing those games, followed by the manufacturers taking measures to shut down these online discount stores. There's a big fear that Wizards (let me remind you, they also do Magic: The Gathering) is going to go that way and start to kill the hobbies they created.</p><p></p><p>If you're not clear on what I'm talking about, it looks like this: selling in more channels sounds like a good idea (increase sales) and there's more competition on price, so customers go to the cheapest option (Amazon, perhaps) and initially there's a boost in sales because existing players can buy more books for cheaper. But then FLGSs can't compete on price and go out of business or stop carrying those lines (locally, one FLGS in my area has gradually been shifting to sell crafting supplies), and the hobby slowly becomes inaccessible to new players (there's nowhere for them to go to gain entry into the community), so yes they could buy an introductory set online, but that's daunting for many, and who would I play with anyways? We get so many customers that wander in and say something like "I think I might like this D&D thing, but I'm not sure" followed up by questions like "Do you know anyone who's looking for players?" or "How do I get started?" or "Do you run any games here?". Fewer new players means the industry starts to die off. So in the long term, selling outside of FLGSs is bad for the industry, but in the short term, it looks appealing to corporations.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="iamarogue, post: 7768383, member: 50159"] I think it's plateauing to a certain extent. I am a retailer and have been in business for 20 years. We saw marked growth over the past, say, 5 years and have tripled our staff as a result. But this year (2018) we only just barely surpassed the previous year's sales figures and in fact some areas - notably board games - we saw a decline. Sure lots of people are playing RPGs, but Paizo's in trouble, White Wolf is in trouble, John Wick's in trouble, Evil Hat's in trouble, Steve Jackson's in trouble. D&D 5e is having ever-increasing market share and that's not necessarily a good thing for the industry as a whole. Wizards of the Coast recently is moving to more mainstream sales (Amazon, Target, Walmart) and that has the potential to be a big problem for FLGS and by extension, the industry. We also sell wargames (like Warhammer) and that's an industry that requires a community for the hobby to be sustained. Over the past several years, we saw a rise in discount online stores and then a subsequent decline in the number of people actively playing those games, followed by the manufacturers taking measures to shut down these online discount stores. There's a big fear that Wizards (let me remind you, they also do Magic: The Gathering) is going to go that way and start to kill the hobbies they created. If you're not clear on what I'm talking about, it looks like this: selling in more channels sounds like a good idea (increase sales) and there's more competition on price, so customers go to the cheapest option (Amazon, perhaps) and initially there's a boost in sales because existing players can buy more books for cheaper. But then FLGSs can't compete on price and go out of business or stop carrying those lines (locally, one FLGS in my area has gradually been shifting to sell crafting supplies), and the hobby slowly becomes inaccessible to new players (there's nowhere for them to go to gain entry into the community), so yes they could buy an introductory set online, but that's daunting for many, and who would I play with anyways? We get so many customers that wander in and say something like "I think I might like this D&D thing, but I'm not sure" followed up by questions like "Do you know anyone who's looking for players?" or "How do I get started?" or "Do you run any games here?". Fewer new players means the industry starts to die off. So in the long term, selling outside of FLGSs is bad for the industry, but in the short term, it looks appealing to corporations. [/QUOTE]
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