Extra Credits: Tabletop Industry 'Extinction Level Event'

[CleverNickName]

From today's episode of Extra Credits:

"Not gonna sugar-coat this, things are rough in the tabletop industry right now. And it seems like a lot of the game-playing public isn't terribly aware of it. Turns out, there's been cascading problems going on over the past two years to the point where one publisher called this 'An Extinction-Level Event.' So we asked our resident tabletop aficionado Eddie Webb to start at the beginning, explain how things got to this point, and tell us what he thinks we can do as fans to help people who make the games we love."​

It's an interesting take (from an industry insider) on the current state of affairs in the tabletop gaming industry. But it's a bit weird too, considering the timing. Just last week Wizards of the Coast reported almost a billion dollars in earnings just last year.

What are your thoughts, fellow ENWorlder?

 

[TerraDave]

TLDW: The focus of the video are the supply disruptions that are rippling across the whole world economy.

The big for the world economy is booming demand for stuff (versus services). Apparently including games, hence WotC doing so well.

I could see smaller publishers being hurt. What the video did not mention is that across hobby gaming, there a lot of publishers making a lot of games. Which is good, but may not have been sustainable in any case.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

There was a TIME article about the shipping crisis and its impact on board games, back in September 2021. There was a quote from one of the DUST 1947 people, predicting that they would go under because of this crisis.

Shortly after, they did!

How the Shipping Crisis Is Crippling the Board Game Industry

"It's so problematic that we're probably going to close by the end of the year"

time.com

 

[overgeeked]

Without watching the video it's likely an extinction-level event for non-WotC publishers who primarily print physical books outside of the US. Margins for non-WotC publishers is exceedingly thin. Going digital only makes things a bit easier. Physical production of books is quite expensive. It's cheaper to print in China and ship books to the USA than it is to print in the USA. Disruptions to the supply chain have drastic knock-on effects for most businesses, but in RPGs, where the margins are already hyper-thin...it's easy to see that as a death knell.

 

[Morrus]

For TTRPGs its not the same as boardgames. We saw about a dozen million dollar Kickstarters in 2021, compared to about 4 over the previous 12 years' and TTRPGs are very friendly to online play. And, as you say, WotC is now a billion dollar tabletop gaming company.

We print in Europe, but we only sell books. Boardgames need more parts made and are often more reliant on manufacturing and shipping from China.

 

[Umbran]

We print in Europe, but we only sell books. Boardgames need more parts made and are often more reliant on manufacturing and shipping from China.

And, you can deliver in pdf, if need be, which I could imagine being pretty darned helpful.

I've backed a few kickstarter projects for games that require physical elements, and those have faced delay after delay.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

One of the kickstarters that I backed some time last year did arrive on my step the other day. The other has been pushed back to March or May.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Isn't a lot of WotC profit margin from Magic, rather than TTRPGs?

 

[Jacob Lewis]

To the point of the video, let's not confuse the topic: the video specifically calls out board games. And while the RPG industry might be affected similarly, it is board games that are feeling the brunt of the shipping-paper-pandemic trifecta of a business-killing event. Board games require much more production in the way of accessories, tokens, cardboard, etc. And as @Umbran pointed out, a lot of RPGs can be sold in digital formats which circumvents the need for paper & print productions.

Keep in mind that WotC has a lot of alternative revenue streams to keep the cash flowing without relying on overseas-based manufacturing and shipping problems. DriveThru RPG alone gives them a large cut of anyone's work that uses their current GSL and IP. And their licenses with software companies making games or tabletop modules (like Roll20 and Fantasy Ground), not to mention movie rights, 3rd party publishers, toy makers, etc. Plus the juggernaut that is MtG; the online game is free, but the many of the cards must still be purchased and collected. There's probably much more that I'm not thinking about or might even know of.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Sounds like the boardgame industry could do with a VTT type application.