Purple Pawn’s 2013 Game Industry Survey is now online.

I collected information from nearly 300 companies from over 20 countries and from 40 US states. Of those companies that didn’t close, the overwhelming majority are doing fine or better than last year. 13% report doing worse than last year (down 2% from last year’s survey); this percentage doesn’t take into account companies that closed.

More than half of responding publishers use, or plan to use, a crowdfunding source such as Kickstarter to publish their games.

Among responding retailers, Hasbro’s Magic: the Gathering CCG, Game Workshops’ Warhammer miniatures and rules, Mayfair Games’ Catan board and card games, and Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG products were at the top again this year, as they have been for the last three years. Rio Grande Games’ Dominion games sales dropped; its place in the top five was taken by Konami’s perennially popular Yu-Gi-Oh CCG.

Pathfinder products outperformed Wizards of the Coasts’ Dungeons & Dragons products by 2.5 to 1 – even more than last year – while players wait for D&D 5th edition to be released later this year. Gaming accessories, such as card sleeves, and items consumed by gamers, such as soft drinks, continue to be strong dependable sellers. RPG and miniature products from smaller publishers were included in the bestselling product lines of some retailers.

Strong new sellers this year include Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars X-Wing miniatures, Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars Edge of Empires RPG, and basically all Fantasy Flight Games’ living card games (LCGs), especially Android Netrunner (many retailers simply listed “Fantasy Flight Games” as their best selling products).

Another big new seller at responding retailers is Cards Against Humanity, a perverse alternative to more traditional and safe party games. Amazon already listed this game as a top-seller during most of 2012, but the survey respondents are now catching up.

• Comments Off on 2013 Global Game Industry Survey

The tabletop game industry includes companies as diverse as museums, box manufacturers, and advertising agencies, as well as major publishers and retailers. If your company makes or sells (or helps to make or sell or play) even one tabletop game for profit, we’re interested.

Unlike previous years, Purple Pawn’s fourth annual tabletop game industry survey is available online! The survey asks you, on behalf of your company, to answer a few simple questions about your company and what it experienced in 2013. RESPONSES ARE OPTIONAL. Answers will be aggregated and summarized, and provided to the public for free on Purple Pawn’s website.

NO INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR COMPANY IS INCLUDED IN THE SURVEY RESULTS. The results include only aggregate information and do not specify ANY company or personal information. WE DO NOT SELL OR PROVIDE ANY COMPANY-SPECIFIC INFORMATION TO ANYONE. OUR COMPANY DATABASE, INCLUDING ALL CONTACT INFORMATION, IS NOT FOR SALE.

Past survey results: 2010, 2011, 2012

Click here to take the 2013 survey.

This survey will end on March 22. Results will be posted about a week after.

• Comments Off on 2013 Game Industry Survey Questions Online Now

Ex-Illis was among the first hybrid miniature / digital games, but it went silent (but not dead) almost three years ago when its company Bastion Studios went bankrupt. Its assets and IP were picked up so the servers continued to function, but we didn’t hear much detail about who or what next.

The new company, with four of the original members of the old company, is Chinchilla Games. It’s first act is a Kickstarter project to add a physical rulebook to allow people to play offline. I caught up with Steeve Monniere, producer for Ex illis at Chinchilla Games, to ask him about the past, present, and future of Ex-Illis.

• Comments Off on Ex-Illis is Adding Cardboard: An Interview with its New Producer

Eurogames by Stewart Woods (2012, McFarland & Company)

Summary

A nice introduction to Eurogames and to some game studies topics in general. Well written, accessible, covers the topic without much industry detail. Could have used more about specific Eurogames and its culture and less about other topics.

Overview

Eurogames is around 200 pages, excluding 50 pages of preface, introduction, end-notes, and bibliography.

Chapters 1 to 4 (about 70 pages) cover the history of board games in general and Eurogames in particular.  The history does not reach back to ancient cultures, but sticks mostly with modernity. After dividing games into classic, mass-market, and hobby games, hobby games are then divided into genres, each with a short history. The book analyzes the origins of Eurogames in America and Germany and briefly mentions game awards and conventions.

Chapter 5 (40 pages) categorizes Eurogames, mostly through mechanics, with a brief introduction as to how the categories were chosen. This section also includes talk about elements, rules, mechanics, goals, themes, information aspects, chance, and the end-conditions of Eurogames.

The remaining 95 pages discuss players and the motivations behind play. They spend a lot of time on a 2007 survey of BoardGameGeek users conducted by the author, giving us the makeup of a typical circa-2007 BGG user (one type of Eurogamer). They discuss collecting games and the relationship that gamers have with publishers and designers.

Why gamers play is then discussed, including an overview of “flow”, social interaction, luck, and the other elements of games that are fun, as well as goals, and the tension between fun and striving to win. Social problems with games (such as cheating) are also discussed. The book concludes with a few pages on games and culture.

Reactions

This book is aimed at the general public, i.e. not academic and not business. It is easy and friendly, and covers the general idea of Eurogames very well. It also covers, slightly more than necessary, various topics in game studies: what gamers are like, why people play games and why they cheat. These topics are covered in order to flesh out the idea of the kind of person who plays Eurogames, but the analysis really applies to any gamers of any genre, and even to anyone who plays games at all.

It’s a fair survey of these topics; for more depth, you can read many of the titles referenced in the bibliography. I found the topics to be only peripherally concerned with Eurogames and gamers, and so were not really necessary. Instead, I felt that the book should have spent more time going into depth about certain Eurogames.

For example, a couple of pages on how Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride was designed, how it is played, how the mechanisms interact, and how sessions go. Maybe focus on a dozen other popular games. Also missing were details about the game industry; how the industry arose in general is covered, with mentions of Z-Man Games, Rio Grande Games, Mayfair Games, etc, but not a look at real facts about the current game industry: number of companies, profits, distribution, penetration, country statistics, etc.

I say this only FYI. You can’t blame a book for what it’s not trying to be.

The book provides good coverage of many parts of the social scene of the die-hard gamers: the early Internet groups, the awards, the evangelists, and so on. It includes many quotes from BGGers on every topic from what makes a game fun to what makes a game serious.

One problem I fault the book for is that its data about gamers and their motivations comes from a voluntary survey of BoardGameGeek users. I don’t think that BGG users necessarily represent Eurogamers, or even gamers, in general. They are a certain type of active social gamer/collector, and tend to have a myopic view of the world. In my own town of about 40,000 people, only a handful of people come to game nights and have BGG accounts, but dozens or even hundreds play or have played a Euro or hobby game.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the read. Those of you who are unfamiliar with the history of modern hobby games, or with the various topics covered, such as what makes a gamer enjoy games, will find this book to be a pleasant overview and a nice read.

A complimentary copy of Eurogames was provided for review.

• Comments Off on Second Look—Eurogames

Purple Pawn checked over 8,400 companies who make money from analog, tabletop games from across the globe to see if they were still operating. We conducted our annual survey of over 7,700 operating companies to see how they performed in 2012 and received 212 responses. You can download the 17 page report for free here [PDF].

Summary

Over the course of a year, around 4.7% of the companies in our DB closed. Single-game game companies closed at twice the frequency than that of other companies.

We received 212 responses from 22 countries and 29 US states. 2012 apparently was much like 2011 and 2010. Of those companies that didn’t close, the overwhelming majority are doing fine or even better than last year – only 15% report doing worse than last year.

Among the responding retailers, the top performing game lines from last year – Magic: The Gathering, Catan properties, Dominion games, Ticket to Ride games, and Warhammer properties – were the top again this year. Dominion did not score quite as well as Catan did this year; last year they were neck and neck. Pathfinder products outperformed Dungeons and Dragons products by 2 to 1, just as they did last year. Cardfight: Vanguard was the best new performer.

To participate in future surveys, send your name, company name, website address, and email address to shadejon@gmail.com .

• 9 Comments

Purple Pawn checked over 8,500 companies  who make money from analog, tabletop games from across the globe to see if they were still operating. We conducted our annual survey of over 6,900 operating companies and received 391 responses. You can download the 18 page report for free here [PDF].

Summary

Over the course of a year, around 7.5% of the companies in our db closed. Single-game game companies, brick-and-mortar retailers, and miniature manufacturers closed at a higher frequency than other companies. Sometimes new retailers open in the same locations as ones that closed.

We received 391 responses from 35 countries and 39 US states. 2011 apparently was much like 2010. Of those companies that didn’t close, the overwhelming majority are doing fine or even better than last year – only 13% report doing worse than last year.

Among the responding retailers, the top performing game lines from last year – MtG, Catan, Dominion, and Warhammer – were the top again this year (and in the same order). Pathfinder products outperformed D&D products by 2 to 1 (last year they were about even).

To participate in future surveys, send your name, company name, website address, and email address to admin@purplepawn.com .

• 3 Comments

I stopped by the factory and visitor center of Prince August while on vacation in Ireland The factory is located to the west of Cork just outside a small town called Macroom. Signs along the road point the way.

Prince August was founded in Sweden by Jan Edman and moved to Ireland in 1976. In 1987, Lars Edman (Jan’s son) began the Mithril line of Middle Earth figures intended for the ICE RPG. The sculptor was Chris Tubb, who remains until today Prince August’s solitary sculptor. In addition to the Mithril line, Prince August makes hundreds of other sculpts: Irish heroes, various military figures, and Chess sets. They also produce lines of miniatures called Warzone and Chronopia (the latter aka Drakar och Demoner), originally for a game set in the Mutant Chronicles world by Target Games from Sweden. The game is now owned by its daughter company Paradox Entertainment. Licenses were briefly given to Excelsior Entertainment (which went on to become Cauldron Born) and COG Games (as usual, it’s all very convoluted). The games are not in production, but it appears that the minis still are (although some were destroyed).

However, Prince August’s focus doesn’t appear to be selling the figures, but the molds and modeling kits for you to make the figures yourself. Each kit comes with a prepared mold, clamps, metal, brush, pan, instructions, etc.

See the process of miniature making, mold making, and more of what the store has to offer after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

• 5 Comments

For three and a half years, a big chunk of my life has been fulfilled by having dedicated readers, commenters, re-posters, and followers on Purple Pawn. Yeah, I’m talking about you. Thank you. I hope you continue to read, comment, re-post, and follow Purple Pawn into the future.

I am taking a break from Purple Pawn for at least the next three months. All of my spare moments for three and a half years have been consumed by reading through headlines and articles, searching through databases, chasing down sources, people, and sites, bookmarking, writing, editing, and everything else involved in keeping this going. I need to take a huge break, not only from Purple Pawn, but from online distractions in general.

The good news is that, since this site is written by more than one pawn, the other pawns will continue to write the same quality, interesting content you’ve read until now. We are hopeful that one or more of the pawns will continue my “special features”, such as criminal, promotion, Kickstarter, and patent roundups, but you’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, now more than ever is a good time to step up and become a contributor to Purple Pawn.

David Miller is now editor-in-chief. Please send all press releases, news tips, advertising offers, kudos, criticism, spam, and so on directly to him.

I will continue to write on my personal blog Yehuda. You can always reach me at my email.

Blogging is an involved process. Just by doing this blog I have learned an incredible amount about the game industry. I have made thousands of contacts and dozens of friends. I have grown, I hope, as a blogger and a writer. It has been my privilege to write for you.

Thank you, again. Best of luck to the other pawns, to the readers, to the players, and to the makers. Every one of us has some gamer inside. That’s what makes it all worthwhile.

Yehuda

• 6 Comments

Right next to where I have just moved to in Raanana, Israel is an organization called Romach. Romach runs role-playing games as therapy for troubled kids.

Disclaimer: I am planning some joint gaming events with Romach.

The organizers have enlisted a psychiatrist and some therapists for the project. They trained them as to how RPGs work (their RPG of choice is Warhammer Fantasy; 4e is too combat oriented) and they received training on how to run the sessions to ensure that each child encounters situations that can help them work through issues. The sessions, and the club, look nothing like therapy, which is the point.

The therapy is supplemental to general therapy, and it is not intended for children with serious therapeutic problems. They are looking to expand their services to the army for leadership training.

Since they already had a club lying around, Romach also runs Warhammer and Magic events, represents WoW TCG in Israel, and is starting up board game events.

• 2 Comments

Click on a header to sort by the column. Items with raised amounts in fuchsia have already hit their target funding level.

New:

Read the rest of this entry »

• Comments Off on Weekly Kickstarter Game Roundup