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From ICv2
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20744.html

The list for those who don't want to click.

1) Warhammer 40k
2) Warmachine
3) Warhammer fantasy
4) Hordes
5) Malifaux

There are a lot of reports there, and some of the news is arguably even more surprising, like Paizo's Pathfinder outselling WotC's D&D in the same period. They tied last quarter, but this was a flat out win at a time that most folk were banking on WotC's resurgence. Interesting times in hobby/game land. Of course, the millon pound gorillas in the room remain Magic the Gathering and Yugioh. Flat crack indeed.

Is this in North America? US only? Are these results from stores or specific distributors?

plastictrees wrote:Is this in North America? US only? Are these results from stores or specific distributors?

I can't say whether or not these are from stores or distributors (references are made to 'retailers'), but this does seem to be an international list.

proditorcappela wrote:From ICv2
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20744.html

The list for those who don't want to click.

1) Warhammer 40k
2) Warmachine
3) Warhammer fantasy
4) Hordes
5) Malifaux

There are a lot of reports there, and some of the news is arguable even more surprising, like Paizo's Pathfinder outselling WotC's D&D in the same period. They tied last quarter, but this was a flat out win at a time that most folk were banking on WotC's resurgence. Interesting times in hobby/game land. Of course, the millon pound gorillas in the room remain Magic the Gathering and Yugioh. Flat crack indeed.

AH! Do you subscribe to icv.2 like me or just look at the web site?

plastictrees wrote:Is this in North America? US only? Are these results from stores or specific distributors?

I think US only, but the rest of the answers may help dope that out. The data is apparently from distributors and shops and the information is supplied to (what looks like) the major distribution players. They used the phrase "Released to the trade", so I guess this holds some weight. The list from the link below of those releasing it to their clients is: "Alliance Game Distributors, Diamond Comic Distributors, ACD Distribution, GTS Distribution, AAA Anime, Bookazine, other distributors".

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20737.html


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Adam LongWalker wrote:
AH! Do you subscribe to icv.2 like me or just look at the web site?

No, I stumbled on the link while I was looking at the Ennie results. Is it worth subscribing in your opinion?

Hasbro definately needs to rethink how they do DnD next, as a prior, retooled DnD system just beat out its latest incarnation.

It's actually shocking to see Warmachine beating out Warhammer Fantasy. I had an assumption that this was the case only due to my local FLGS showings, but I never thought this was reality overall.

It's interesting to see Malifaux on there if this isn't just a North America list. Malifaux is tremendously popular in the US, but I thought it was on-par if not lesser than the likes of Infinity and such elsewhere.

Are there any associated sales figures?

plastictrees wrote:Is this in North America? US only? Are these results from stores or specific distributors?

They generally poll distributors and stores from what I read and then gather the results. Its not really based on any hard facts like sales data but more the general opinions of the people in the various levels of the hobby business polled. Either way, good for Paizo and PP! Its nice to see the big boys (WOTC and GW) get some competition.

Warmachine outstripping Fantasy?

Is that because:

1. Warmachine is getting more market share?
2. 8th Ed is bombing?
3. A combination of the two?



The other thing that this list doesn't show is the parity (or disparity) between each position. For example, Malifaux may be number 5 - which is great by the way, well done Wyrd - but that for every 1 Malifaux sale there may be 100,000 40K sales. That could mean that Malifaux is number 5 by default simply because nothing else got as many sales as it, not because it is 'competing' with 40K (BTW, I'm not trying to pick on Malifaux specifically - just using them as an example).


Also, looking at the RPG listing, we've got Pathfinder, D&D, and then Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch. Good to see FFG up there (but, again, the parity problem could skew these numbers).

I wonder where Warmachine would be if they could actually meet their demand with supply. Either way, the data is strictly anecdotal so I wouldn't expect any hard numbers (they simply ask retailers and possibly distributors what their top five are in the category and record the results). The data also doesn't include online retailers and big box stores like Barnes and Noble so its skewed to the traditional FLGS sales patterns for the RPG data (since they're carried in those outlets).

warboss wrote:

plastictrees wrote:Is this in North America? US only? Are these results from stores or specific distributors?

They generally poll distributors and stores from what I read and then gather the results. Its not really based on any hard facts like sales data but more the general opinions of the people in the various levels of the hobby business polled. Either way, good for Paizo and PP! Its nice to see the big boys (WOTC and GW) get some competition.

If that's the case then it could just mean that Warmachine has a strong following in key areas. I wouldn't be surprised by their placing if it wasn't for all the supply problems they're having, and have been having for this whole year. I know that there are groups of people locally who haven't started playing because they couldn't get the models they wanted.

That said my LGS carried 40k for two years, just started carrying Warmahordes this year and still only carries IoB for Fantasy.

Absolutionis wrote:It's actually shocking to see Warmachine beating out Warhammer Fantasy. I had an assumption that this was the case only due to my local FLGS showings, but I never thought this was reality overall.

It's interesting to see Malifaux on there if this isn't just a North America list. Malifaux is tremendously popular in the US, but I thought it was on-par if not lesser than the likes of Infinity and such elsewhere.

I have never seen fantasy as a strong contender in my area. I'm aware of at least a 2-1 warmachine to fantasy skew around here. It's even more pronounced since these are sales numbers and not player counts. A fantasy army costs at least twice what a wamachine force does for general gameplay.

As for malifaux, the US market is the largest wargaming market and products can float very well on strong US demand (40k for instance) while ignoring other economic zones.

Thanks for the link, it's pretty interesting. I agree there will be a lot of disparity but when PP can't make enough product you know they must be doing well, at least in the US.

Please remember, these are survey polls, not sales facts. They do not represent the whole "hobby channel" (ICv2's term), only the companies that that were contacted and that responded.

I'm curious about how much space there is between the top three. Warhammer 40K greatly outsells Warhammer Fantasy in general and by quite a bit so it doesn't give us a good idea on where Warmachine stands in relation to Warhammer 40K. I'm curious whether Warmachine is just barely beating out Fantasy or if it is creeping up towards Warhammer 40K numbers.

My FLGS is similar to this:

Minis - 1) WH40k, 2)Warmachines, 3) Hordes, 4) Flames of War 5) WH Fantasy

Non-collectable card games- I don't keep up with, like I do the other portions of tabletop-gaming

Collectable games - 1) Magic, by far. 2) Pokemon, in a distant 2nd, but only due to regular saturday morning tournys. 3) WoW card game... may actually be second in sales, but doesn't see as much play as Pokemon, in shop... mainly done for the loot cards (admission of most players I've talked to... though they play magic mostly too... and like WoW's resource system better... just not enough support). 4) I'd say nothing else on the list is carried enough to even warrant me mentioning it... yu-gi-oh is pretty much dead at my shop and Redakai, while pushed fairly hard by the shop, has yet to see anyone buy any of it.... at all.

RPGs - 1/2) Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch sees the most weekend table-time, while Pathfinder sees a lot of weekday play... big tossup and too close to call... I'd say Pathfinder by virtue of Pathfinder Society days though. 3) Saga Star Wars RPG... still selling and the shop regularly tries to bring in used sets to sell... 4) Star Trek by Decipher still has groups 5) Dungeons and Dragons 4th ed... they only play their 'society' rounds and even then, the group turnover rate is massive... and I happen to know the GM is an excellent one. Most people just don't find the system challenging at all.

Board games are odd at the shop (as they'll go through spurts where there is a ton of play for a few weeks, then shelved for months and then cycled through again)
1) I'd say Call of Cthulhu, and Settlers of Catan share the most table time, 2) Red Dragon Inn gets a BUNCH of time in, and it can't hardly be kept in stock... the management has had people driving from other LGS locals an hour and a half away to get it from them... 3) Carcassonne 4) Ticket to Ride 5) FFG games tend to make their rounds in this spot imo

anywho... just my local shop's popularity and whatnot... this became a lot longer post than I thought it would be.

Not really any surprises there. Maybe a bit for Malifaux, didnt realize its aesthetic appealed tot hat many people. From what Ive seen the system is good, but I find the easthetic/theme unappealing.

Wasn't aware Warmachine was outselling Fantasy. Interesting, and it shows that GW doesn't have quite the stranglehold it used to.

chaos0xomega wrote:Are there any associated sales figures?

They don't even bother to collect sales figures. It's just ranked data based on people in the industry giving their opinion. Might be those folks look at sales numbers, or they might just ramble something off the top of their heads.

It's actually crap data. They don't have any data, for instance, on GW's numbers from their own stores and mailorder.)


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plastictrees wrote:Is this in North America? US only? Are these results from stores or specific distributors?

from 'industry sources'. Might be distributors, might be 20 or so stores they call, might be a guy running the forklift loading trucks at Alliance.


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H.B.M.C. wrote:Warmachine outstripping Fantasy?

Is that because:

1. Warmachine is getting more market share?
2. 8th Ed is bombing?
3. A combination of the two?



Probably a combination of the two. 8th less popular, but still selling well. WM gaining a lot of ground.

That has to be a US list.

There is absolutely no way Warmachine outsells WHF internationally. If PP hardly even supports their games in Europe I can't imagine they support it on other (non North-American) continents.

warspawned wrote:Thanks for the link, it's pretty interesting. I agree there will be a lot of disparity but when PP can't make enough product you know they must be doing well, at least in the US.

PP has never handled success well, they've had problems every time they start to do better, in a cycle going back for years. Their CEO hates to actually pay money for things like hiring extra casters. It doesn't help that they take a few weeks off to go to Gencon and sell everything direct, depleting stock and stripping staff from their HQ.


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TBD wrote:That has to be a US list.

There is absolutely no way Warmachine outsells WHF internationally. If PP hardly even supports their games in Europe I can't imagine they support it on other (non North-American) continents.

From numbers I've able to put together and estimate, WM doesn't come close at all to WFB when you take into account worldwide sales, GW's stores, and GW mailorder. Maybe approaching the sale of WFB through independent accounts taking into account the US only, but my data isn't good for that.

PP could certaily sell more just by actually making more, so stores could actually keep in stock. Most of my out of stock problems aren't from stuff selling incredibly, but from just not being able to restock models. Silly.

The list is just as worthless for miniatures as it is for RPGs.

I'm going with the guys above about this being predominately a US list. Fantasy has never been popular here. I haven't a clue why either. It's rare to see more than a single fantasy game being played at a time and most of the fantasy boards just have 40k armies on them. Even in several of the stores I go to frequently when asked to play fantasy they have tot ake the army out of the case and it's not just sitting on the table like 40k is.

Has anyone figured out why the US prefers 40k so much more?

SonicPara wrote:I'm curious about how much space there is between the top three. Warhammer 40K greatly outsells Warhammer Fantasy in general and by quite a bit so it doesn't give us a good idea on where Warmachine stands in relation to Warhammer 40K. I'm curious whether Warmachine is just barely beating out Fantasy or if it is creeping up towards Warhammer 40K numbers.

Very true about needing some numbers here and not just opinions. It appears from what I've read here so far, it appears to be a bit muddy on the data and what areas it refers to.
As Lord Kelvin once said, "When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you can not express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind. It may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the state of science."