The Force Awakens

X-wing overtakes 40k as most popular tabletop game in North America.

The ICV2 survey results for Fall 2015 are out.

http://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/33912/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-fall-2015

X-wing has taken 1st place in the sales from distributors and independent retailers in the US market.

This happens at the same time as a reduction in retail sales for Games Workshop, and without licencing money GW would have had a much worse time. 

So what is ICV2 and why should anyone care? 

Internal Correspondence version 2 is basically a trade website for pop culture stuff. If you are a buyer for a chain (like Forbidden Planet) or an independent retailer (like most of the US market), then ICV2 is somewhere you go to in order to work out what to stock after Magic. Like it or hate it Magic, with Friday Night Magic, organised play, etc etc pays the bills for most Local Gaming Stores. The secondary market for cards helps as well, much like Game Stop and their second hand games. 

Aren't there problems with the survey? Doesn't it miss off ebay scalpers, people fire selling their collections and GW direct? 

Yes, GW never releases a breakdown of what they sell, and this leads to some amusing stories about how Space Marines outsell everything else put together, or how paint sold better than fantasy after the End Times that people can't back up with quotes from the financial report. GW are competing with people fire selling their collections as much as LGSs do, and some LGSs monetise this through second hand bins.

The secondary market for GW is huge, but that is because of the churn and burn business model GW has. 

What does this actually mean?

It means what I have been finding anecdotally in the UK already, that you are going to find it easier to get a game of X-wing at a club or store than a Games Workshop game. 

Why?

X-wing and Armada, which comes in 3rd on the sales list, both have standard play formats. For X-wing this is 100 points. How easy is it for a new player to get to 100 points? For Rebels buy the starter, Force Awakens X wing blister and either an E-wing or X-wing, and you have a good 100 point force to fly all Aces. For Imperial buy the starter, Imperial Aces and an Interceptor and you are there as well.

For Age of Sigmar there is no agreed play format because there is no balance mechanism, so unless you are planning out a game with people ahead of time and know what each others forces are and then engage in long conversations, facebook chats, whatever, then you might have a balanced game or you might have a one sided slaughter, you just don't know. This leads to a lot of people not bothering, because they have jobs and lives and families, and life is too short to engage in a long conversation on game design before every game. 

For 40k, you can still play games, but it seems to be getting harder to organise. You need to discuss allowing formations for a start. And buy, assemble, paint and then carry your army, whereas X wing you can fit it all in a box or small Plano case. 

Why is it important what other people play?

Games are a social activity. While 40k was on top you had the network effect, where you played because it was easy to find a game. Warhammer Fantasy Battle had that for fantasy games, something Age of Sigmar didn't inherit, with legacy players going to Kings of War, 9th Age and Frostgrave. 

There have been a lot of good games not make it because they didn't build up enough of a network of players. All Quiet on the Martian Front seems like it was a good game, got heavily backed on Kickstarter, but died at retail. The players couldn't find enough other players, and couldn't get the critical mass needed. 

So what does this mean?

40k losing the top spot means that any LGS or nerd store looking to get into miniatures looks at it, sees X-wing at the top, sees how similar the support given to stores by Fantasy Flight is to Magic, which is the 1st stop for any nerd store doing gaming, and picks X-wing. 

Lower number of product codes, a more familiar sales format, Fantasy Flight publishing lots of popular board games just makes that easier. 

Greater availability of X-wing + more store events reinforces the network effect. 

Fantasy Flight's biggest problem with X wing has always been not being able to get it into stores fast enough and in big enough numbers. They have solved that problem now.

The game is easily accessible, has depth to it, has possibly the world's most popular IP, is supported by tournaments and events and is a very good game. GW need to solve at least some of their issues not just to defend their market share, but to simply lose market share less quickly in North America. 

Fantasy Flight is a division of Asmodee, who are competing with Hasbro (WotC being one of their divisions). Games Workshop are used to competing with smaller players that they can crowd out. Warlord have, through clever expansion and deals, now got a lot of good miniature ranges in their portfolio and will be launching a Doctor Who IP miniatures game later this year with a plastic core set.

Also GWs smaller competitors are mainly composed of people who used to work at GW, and are part of the GW Old Boy network. Which led to Mantic Games having a better idea of what Age of Sigmar meant than the people at Forgeworld. 

Games Workshop are treading water in an industry that is massively growing. All the growth seems to be going to other companies. Kickstarter has helped some companies both get product out there and launch entire product lines at once and in hard plastic. Not all of them have survived, but things like Zombicide have, and Mantic have used it to get to hard plastic sprues years before they otherwise could have, as has Hawk Wargames with Dropfleet Commander.