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 Wayshuba wrote:

Backfire wrote:


This logic doesn't hold water. By same logic, video game industry should be in a middle of an enormous boom, given how huge growth video game Kickstarters have enjoyed. Yet in reality, opposite is true: video game market is stale or in decline.

I do not think Kickstarter growth tells anything about the health of a business as such. Some mediums just suit better to crowd funding than others and KS is an exciting new thing. It will be interesting to see this years numbers, there has been talk about people having KS burnout, but does it translate to actual lack of growth?

Sorry, my friend, your are arguing his logic doesn't hold water based on your own limited personal observations. Here is how absolutely wrong your personal observations are.

Except of course, I wasn't basing it to my personal observation so your personal attack is hilariously misdirected. Admittably, I was only looking at US numbers as they were most closely available:





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Backfire wrote:
The point was a specific claim that a wargames market has doubled over last 5 years, which to me seemed hilariously optimistic and not supported by my observations of general state of the hobby - and still isn't.

Here's the thing though, on one side there is the ICv2 guys (who's numbers aren't perfect by any means but are still the closest thing we have to real numbers freely avalible), the CEO of FFG, and most (all?) of GW's competition saying they are experiencing massive growth. And on the other side is your personal observations?

Except of course, I wasn't basing it to my personal observation. I just saw the claim, thought that it is unlikely to be right, and when I dug the issue up, found that I am most likely correct. Latter has nothing to do with my "personal observation" which was just a starting point.

It would be much more fruitful if you tried to dispute my actual points, instead of just grasping the straws "omg he said 'personal observation', ho ho he must be wrong".

Ok, I'll dispute your point. Your Graph cuts off at 2010. Going to that vgsales wikia on the front page I found this:


USA is down on 2010 sales, but North America is up.
Europe is down a little but everywhere other than the UK seems to be up.
Asia-Pacific is way up.

By my calculations 2010 made 83.7 Billion all up (counting the regions rather than countries).
2013 made 97.1 Billion.


I'm not sure what this has to do with wargaming but there you go.

Backfire wrote:
...snip...It would be much more fruitful if you tried to dispute my actual points, instead of just grasping the straws "omg he said 'personal observation', ho ho he must be wrong".

I'm not going to waste my time disputing your points anymore. You keep pulling assumptions out of the air, where more people in this thread are citing numerous sources of facts, observations and market trends. No, those things may not be perfect (as this seldom is), but they do support leading to some pretty logical conclusions. Heck, even the CEO in the subject of the OP discusses the amazing market growth.

As an example, you dismiss Sean's discussion about market share by throwing a very wild 50% market share for GW in fantasy/sci-fi which is a number pulled from where? You need to debate facts, with facts - not assumptions and estimates pulled from nowhere without something saying how you arrived at such assumptions. You also discount historical and say you know little about them, yet much of Warlord's Games growth with Bolt Action comes from ex-40k players. Players who used to spend money on GW but now direct that to Warlord Games. Also, you claim there are no big players versus GW. Have you ever see what Tamiya's revenues are? They make GW look like a very small player in the market. While they do sell into a lot of different hobby markets (as any mature company should do as they grow, unlike GW), they also have a significant presence in the historical wargaming market.

I am done this debate because you continue to isolate targeted data sets trying to dismiss each in turn so you can say see, the double-digit growth is a complete fantasy. It is not, as evidenced by all the data taken together as a whole to arrive at some pretty clear cut conclusions. This is not rocket science, it is pretty much how market research is done. As an example, just look at the Microsoft slide I posted earlier. Look at the number of sources cited to arrive at their estimates and conclusions. This is what is being discussed but you keep going point by point dismissing things based on your observations (as you clearly noted in response to an earlier post in this thread).

So, if we are going to debate further, let's start with this. Show us where the 50% market share came from, with links or references. Then give us links to anything which supports the numbers, assumptions or estimates you keep recanting with. Show us anything which can lead thread readers to the conclusion that GW owns such a huge market share that you run a conclusion to. Then we can debate further.

Also, you can view this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NmfMSA0NDs) and see how huge Salute was and the numbers of companies represented at the show. You will notice that in front of almost 2500 people GW had zero (nada, nilch, nothing) presence.

Note: As an aside, note the first source Microsoft quotes in their games numbers - NPD Group. The same company that Hasbro and many others use for traditional gaming industry data and t hat I noted much earlier in this thread. They actually track this stuff. Unfortunately, you need a pretty expensive subscription to access the data.

 jonolikespie wrote:

I'm not sure what this has to do with wargaming but there you go.

Whole point was whether KS growth is representative of overall growth of a hobby - that's it. Regardless of what set of numbers you use, it is obvious that video game Kickstarters have grown much faster than video game sales overall - that was the point I made, no more, no less.

 Wayshuba wrote:

Also, you can view this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NmfMSA0NDs) and see how huge Salute was and the numbers of companies represented at the show. You will notice that in front of almost 2500 people GW had zero (nada, nilch, nothing) presence.

That was almost 2500 pre-sale tickets. The bigger queue was people on the day. Real numbers would have been at least double that - a lot of people not seeing any GW presence (beyond FW and independents).

Herzlos wrote:

 Wayshuba wrote:

Also, you can view this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NmfMSA0NDs) and see how huge Salute was and the numbers of companies represented at the show. You will notice that in front of almost 2500 people GW had zero (nada, nilch, nothing) presence.

That was almost 2500 pre-sale tickets. The bigger queue was people on the day. Real numbers would have been at least double that - a lot of people not seeing any GW presence (beyond FW and independents).

So it even worse than the first few minutes of that video show. That's a lot of people not getting exposure to GW....

 Wayshuba wrote:

I'm not going to waste my time disputing your points anymore. You keep pulling assumptions out of the air, where more people in this thread are citing numerous sources of facts, observations and market trends. No, those things may not be perfect (as this seldom is), but they do support leading to some pretty logical conclusions. Heck, even the CEO in the subject of the OP discusses the amazing market growth.

As an example, you dismiss Sean's discussion about market share by throwing a very wild 50% market share for GW in fantasy/sci-fi which is a number pulled from where?

Your arguments are going downhill fast as strawmen build up.

"50%" was a wild guess, never claimed anything else nor did I build any of my arguments around it. However, given that next five biggest companies which manufacture scifi or fantasy wargames are between 5 to 10% of GW's size, the guess seems reasonable. In fact I'd assume it's actually 60 to 70%. However it's not terribly relevant here. In fact, Sean's estimate about overall market share might well be correct and would fit to GW holding a 50% share on Scifi/Fantasy genre. I didn't "dismiss" historicals, quite the contrary. However, even Battlefront which is one of the largest companies there, is very much much smaller than GW.

 Wayshuba wrote:

You need to debate facts, with facts - not assumptions and estimates pulled from nowhere without something saying how you arrived at such assumptions. You also discount historical and say you know little about them, yet much of Warlord's Games growth with Bolt Action comes from ex-40k players. Players who used to spend money on GW but now direct that to Warlord Games. Also, you claim there are no big players versus GW. Have you ever see what Tamiya's revenues are?

No I haven't. What I do know is that vast majority of it comes from RC cars, tanks etc. Plastic model kits, much less miniatures, are only tiny part of their business.

If you have the numbers, sharing is caring!

 Wayshuba wrote:

I am done this debate because you continue to isolate targeted data sets trying to dismiss each in turn so you can say see, the double-digit growth is a complete fantasy. It is not, as evidenced by all the data taken together as a whole to arrive at some pretty clear cut conclusions. This is not rocket science, it is pretty much how market research is done. As an example, just look at the Microsoft slide I posted earlier. Look at the number of sources cited to arrive at their estimates and conclusions. This is what is being discussed but you keep going point by point dismissing things based on your observations (as you clearly noted in response to an earlier post in this thread).

Which I of course haven't. I provided you proof how if you combine your claims with the ICv2 listings, either WHFB sales should have been absurdly low even in 2008-2009 or GW's competitors have not grown at all, and you haven't responded. I have to assume this is because neither outcome supports your claim.

To quote your own recent post from Warseer:
"According to this (http://www.purplepawn.com/2013/08/fa...flight-report/) Fantasy Flight did about $30 million last year with 16% attributed to miniature sales. Miniature sales incorporate X-Wing and Dust (though I don't know if the boxed game falls into this category or under miniatures as well). So that means, X-Wing is probably about $4 million to $4.5 million in sales."

So after "market is doubled in 5 years", the 2nd place on the ICv2 list is gained with $4.5 million annual sales. I'm not too impressed. Which is nothing away from FFG, they're doing really well, which is great! The business needs new, strong players to stay fresh.

In fact, since you like to discuss facts, how about the fact that ICv2 has never even claimed that wargame industry has "doubled over last 5 years"? The article in question only talks about year-to-year growth of the HOBBY game market, which includes all genres, of which many are much more popular than wargames - most notably CCG's. http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/28119.html

 Wayshuba wrote:

So, if we are going to debate further, let's start with this. Show us where the 50% market share came from, with links or references.

You're completely straw manning here. I never claimed that as a fact, nor the specific GW market share is terribly relevant to my point.

Backfire wrote:

"50%" was a wild guess, never claimed anything else nor did I build any of my arguments around it. However, given that next five biggest companies which manufacture scifi or fantasy wargames are between 5 to 10% of GW's size, the guess seems reasonable. In fact I'd assume it's actually 60 to 70%. However it's not terribly relevant here. In fact, Sean's estimate about overall market share might well be correct and would fit to GW holding a 50% share on Scifi/Fantasy genre. I didn't "dismiss" historicals, quite the contrary. However, even Battlefront which is one of the largest companies there, is very much much smaller than GW.

Are they 5-10% of GW's size in total or each?

What about the next couple of hundred competitors? If there are even 200 companies that average 0.1% of GW's income (~$200k) each*, then they are easily responsible for 20% of GW's revenue alone, meaning that if you discount the "next big 5", GW can't have more than 83.3% of the market. If you assume each of the "next big 5" makes 5% of GW's income, that means GW can't have more than 69% of the market. And that's with the assumptions in GW's favour.

Hell, even Kickstarter took 15% of GW's revenue for table top gaming last year, and that's often for stuff that is a long way from release. So there's definitely demand to spend money on table top gaming.

GW has the biggest share in the market of an individual company, that's not up for debate, but I think you're grossly overestimating how much of the overall market they have.

Backfire wrote:

To quote your own recent post from Warseer:
"According to this (http://www.purplepawn.com/2013/08/fa...flight-report/) Fantasy Flight did about $30 million last year with 16% attributed to miniature sales. Miniature sales incorporate X-Wing and Dust (though I don't know if the boxed game falls into this category or under miniatures as well). So that means, X-Wing is probably about $4 million to $4.5 million in sales."

So after "market is doubled in 5 years", the 2nd place on the ICv2 list is gained with $4.5 million annual sales. I'm not too impressed. Which is nothing away from FFG, they're doing really well, which is great! The business needs new, strong players to stay fresh.

That's $4-4.5 million at trade. So $9-10 million at retail. I don't believe FFG sells much X-Wing direct.

Then you're comparing relative performance of gaming in UK stores to imply a tiny fraction of GW's income, using GW's worldwide income. GW's US sales were about 20% or $45 (IIRC). So for Warhammer Fantasy to be knocked off the top spot it'd need to be making less than $4-4.5million trade ($2.4-2.7m), or 6% of GW's trade sales, which is entirely reasonable and fits in with the figures thrown about with Fantasy accounting for about 10% of GW's income (assuming a slight GW-Direct bias because FLGS customers are more likely to be using 3rd parties**).


*There are easily dozens, if not hundreds, that must be doing more than that, simply due to the number of staff they employ. An average wage here for entry level stuff is £15-20k, doubled when you consider the employer costs, so say £30k/$50k. That means a company with 4 employees needs to make $200k (0.1% of GW's income) just to pay the wages. So if you factor in building rents and stuff you can assume any operation with more than 1 full time employee must be taking in at least $200k/year in sales, so the only ones you can drop are the real garage companies***.

** Because they'll have more awareness of them existing, and the price differential is more obvious when they are on the same shelf. People buying direct can be assumed to be either 1. not convenient for an independent, 2. unaware of competition, or 3. price insensitive.

*** For instance, not in your top 5 you have (off the top of my head): Gripping Beast, Foundry, Warlord, Plastic Soldier Company, Artisan, Black Tree, Battlefront, West Wind, Perrys, Vitrix, North Star, FireForge, Mantix, Scribor, Ax Faction, CHS, Raging Heros, Crooked Dice, Hasslefree, Kingdom Death, Reaper, CMoN, SodaPop, Wargames Factory, Airfix.

Backfire wrote:


Your arguments are going downhill fast as strawmen build up.

Look up the definition of 'strawman', there has been no such thing. But here:

Structure of a Strawman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) - italics mine:

1. Person 1 has position X (which I stated, and pointed to data points of what lead me to state it).
2. Person 2 disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y (which you have done with 'observations, examples and wild guesses'). The position Y is a distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position.
Quoting an opponent's words out of context—i.e., choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's actual intentions.
Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then denying that person's arguments—thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[3]
Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
3. Person 2 attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed (which you have done to everyone who has questioned your lack of data points to arrive at such a strong argumentative stance against anyone saying the market is in fact growing and GW is not gaining anything from it).

Backfire wrote:
50%" was a wild guess, never claimed anything else nor did I build any of my arguments around it.

No? This seems to be quite the argument dismissing Sean's addition to the thread (emphasis mine):

Backfire wrote:
Oh, I've made no such assumption as I really do not know how big the pie is. I only made examples meant to be illustrative.
On scifi/fantasy-wargames, GW appears to hold more than 50% of the market share, based on that its five biggest competitors don't make up even half of GW's revenue. However, I have no idea how big the historicals market is, it is substantial, there is no single huge corporate but there are many small/medium sized companies, plus model kit companies who manufacture miniatures etc. (However at that point line between miniature manufacturer and wargame manufacturer becomes bit fuzzy. I bought plenty of Airfix figures when I was a kid, but never used them in any kind of game.

One can assume GW's market share to be smaller, in that case relative growth from other companies required to achieve claimed overall growth becomes much smaller. However, required ABSOLUTE growth becomes much larger.

That is the exact definition of a strawman.

You want to say the wargaming hobby hasn't doubled in the last five years, or hasn't grown by double-digits? Fine, I'll accept that point of view. Now show me the data to back up what you are claiming specifically to dismiss it. I have given plenty of links and sources to say why I believe it has (as well as a few other people in this thread), now it is your turn to give plenty of links and sources to why it hasn't. So far, all you have is dismiss that your observations and completely pie in the sky "examples and wild guesses" prove that what is being said is false of which they do no such thing. Your entire debate throughout this thread has been a strawman versus many presenting what data or sources they have cited to lead to the conclusions they do. You have not done so even once. In fact, when you have presented data on some point of your strawman (ala, the video game industry being in decline), data points have quickly been provided to show that your strawman is on thin ground.

Now it is time for you to back up what you have been saying throughout this thread. Because almost all of your arguments have been based on personal observations, wild guesses and examples (your words). You say I (and others with a similar point of view are wrong), then tell us, with data, why the wargaming market has not grown by double digits or doubled (because the guys running Salute sure as heck wouldn't believe you).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Backfire wrote:
So after "market is doubled in 5 years", the 2nd place on the ICv2 list is gained with $4.5 million annual sales. I'm not too impressed.

And you said the same thing earlier about the Kickstarter numbers. It's only $17 million (or whatever it was - not looking back at moment) and you weren't impressed. That $4.5 million for X-Wing didn't even exist the year prior. Nor did a good portion of the Kickstarter growth in tabletop gaming. Where do you think it comes from? Thin air? Let's add to that Mantic have just two Kickstarters (linked earlier) that were almost $2.5 million, or the rapid growth of Warlord with Bolt Action (which is obvious to see considering they release new products faster than GW does now), or Hawk Wargaming, who came out of nowhere, and has grabbed a good customer base very fast... and on and on and on.

But "you're not impressed" so it means that we should just dismiss it. No, all of these add up and add up faster than you realize - and that is what many, including Sean's excellent post, have been trying to point out to you.

I have given my datapoints that lead to my conclusions (which may or may not be totally correct, but at lease I back up with data WHY I have the beliefs I have). You have not done so.

So, you want to debate that GW has huge market share, that the market didn't grow by double-digits, or has doubled over the last five years? It is your turn to show, with data (no more observations, wild guesses or out of thin air examples) what is leading you to those conclusions. Because so far you have none.

Since Wayshuba seems to be under false impression that I "dismissed" Sean OBrien's market share estimates as somehow hurtful for my case, lets clear that up. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the opposite is true!

So lets estimate that GW's market share was 30% in 2008, and 15% in 2013, that's easiest to follow. GW revenue in 2008: 184 million dollars, in 2013: 225 million dollars. If GW was 30% of the market in 2008, that means non-GW share of wargames market was about $430 million, rising to whopping $1275 million in 2013. In fact this would mean that market more than doubled: lets tone down a bit and say that non-GW market was one billion dollars, that would fit to "wargames market doubled from 2008" claim, from about $600 million to $1200 million when including GW.

What is that one billion dollars made of? Lets start with FFG and PP which are amongst the biggest players. We know FFG's revenue was about 30 million (most of which was something else than wargames, but lets not split hairs). We'll give PP $20 million. We assume there are three other companies of PP's size, this should easily cover Battlefront and other potential big historical miniature sellers like Perry Miniatures. Those companies total $110 million in sales.

Lets assume there are ten more companies with about $10 million revenues. This should cover Wyrd, Reaper, Corvus Belli, Mantic, Spartan Games, Battletech etc. This is probably overestimate, but OTOH, I'm not too familiar with historical segment so lets play safe. Lets further estimate that there are further 10 companies within $5 million range. Those all add up $150 million. This all may seem generous but as pointed out, many model kit manufacturers also produce miniatures which are used in wargames, even if they don't produce any games themselves.

Lets again estimate there are 50 companies with about one million USD revenue. There probably aren't that many, but I'm combining 500k-1M subsegments here. Further, there are small players, one-man firms. TMP listed nearly 2500 companies: most of those are defunct, OTOH maybe all are not accounted for, especially non-US/European operators. Lets say there are one thousand $100k companies. That's another $100 million. Finally, Kickstarter boardgame pledges totalled nearly $60 million last year - majority of them are not wargames, and in fact much of their revenue should be already included in above estimates, but hey, call me Backfire I the Generous and throw them all on the top of the heap.

I think everyone agrees that I was pretty generous in every step. When put together, that totals $470 million. Not even half way to required $1 billion. Where is the rest coming from?

How about not dealing in assumptions and guesswork to make a point which may or may not be supported by any resemblance of actual fact?

Backfire, it might be worth you re-stating your argument as succinctly as you can at this point, because all I'm really seeing is you stating "you're wrong because I think you are" and then citing nothing but your own anecdotal experience and numbers plucked from the air to try and defend your position.

 azreal13 wrote:
How about not dealing in assumptions and guesswork to make a point which may or may not be supported by any resemblance of actual fact?

Backfire, it might be worth you re-stating your argument as succinctly as you can at this point, because all I'm really seeing is you stating "you're wrong because I think you are" and then citing nothing but your own anecdotal experience and numbers plucked from the air to try and defend your position.

What numbers plucked from air? I used numbers provided by Wayshuba himself, his famed 'data points' he is so proud of. And Sean OBrians estimate which Wayshuba claimed I had no right to question, so I didn't.

It's hardly MY fault if they don't add up as you would like to.

As I've already stated, I'm not saying I agree with or disagree with you, so it isn't anything to do with what I want things to add up to.

You're just arguing your point horrendously.

Oh, and a US billion is 1000 x 1m, which is the usual definition, rather than the 1mx1m UK/European in financial circles, so your last post was only 3m off the 50%.

 Wayshuba wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Backfire wrote:
So after "market is doubled in 5 years", the 2nd place on the ICv2 list is gained with $4.5 million annual sales. I'm not too impressed.

And you said the same thing earlier about the Kickstarter numbers. It's only $17 million (or whatever it was - not looking back at moment) and you weren't impressed. That $4.5 million for X-Wing didn't even exist the year prior. Nor did a good portion of the Kickstarter growth in tabletop gaming. Where do you think it comes from? Thin air?

I thought it was stealing GW's market share? Because that's what everyone was assuring to me previously.

So I take it was not, then?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:

Oh, and a US billion is 1000 x 1m, which is the usual definition, rather than the 1mx1m UK/European in financial circles, so your last post was only 3m off the 50%.

You mean 30m, surely? I'm quite aware of US billion, we continentals call it 'milliard'

Yes, missed a 0 off.

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
How about not dealing in assumptions and guesswork to make a point which may or may not be supported by any resemblance of actual fact?

Backfire, it might be worth you re-stating your argument as succinctly as you can at this point, because all I'm really seeing is you stating "you're wrong because I think you are" and then citing nothing but your own anecdotal experience and numbers plucked from the air to try and defend your position.

What numbers plucked from air? I used numbers provided by Wayshuba himself, his famed 'data points' he is so proud of. And Sean OBrians estimate which Wayshuba claimed I had no right to question, so I didn't.

It's hardly MY fault if they don't add up as you would like to.

Actually you mixed some of mine, with some conclusions by Sean with some numbers thrown in. That is what Azreal is referring to.

I also didn't claim you, or anyone for that matter, have no right to question Sean's or my findings. They are both conclusions reached from available market data, trends and market observations. Market data can always be questioned. But, in so doing, should be questioned by presenting other evidence (market studies, global trends, market-wide observations) that show a different conclusion could in fact be reached. What you have done, however, is dismissed much of the frequent "up and to the right" data of the market trends, while GW is going "down and to the right" as saying that this growth can't possibly exist. That may or may not be true, but the current datapoints, from multiple sources other than GW financials paints a very different picture.

Finally, as to the market overall. Numerous studies have stated across multiple hobby markets (except maybe RPGs), that the hobby market grew double-digits this year. For sake of example, let's just take the ICv2 article you linked earlier. They state that the hobby market grew overall by 20% with a 15% growth on average for the last five years running. That 15% average growth over five years equates to a total of 101% market growth over the period (115%, 132%, 152%, 175% then 201%). Important understanding that market growth isn't linear but compounded. This shows growth in the hobby market doubled over that period. Now, based on the ICv2, the hobby game market is made up of CCGs, Board Games, Card/Dice Games, RPGs and Non-Collectible Miniature Games (i.e., wargaming). We know, from your earlier post that CCGs had a 42% growth over this same period. Slightly less than half of that overall growth.Which leaves 58% of the total period growth unaccounted for. Ryan Dancey not too long ago did an extensive post on the RPG market where it is relatively flat right now with revenue mainly shifting between companies (specifically Pathfinder taking over for the majority of D&D revenue). So that leaves board games, card/dice games and wargaming. Now, what is not known is what percentage is attributed to each category, but for wargaming we are seeing multiple companies, distributors and even stores reporting double-digit growth in the wargaming area. Board games are also doing well. And then, of course, there is the cross-over games (like Descent and Kingdom Death) that can arguably fall into either one of the previous two categories.

So, let's just say that wargaming had only a 15% growth a year in it's category and board games and card/dice games took in the lion's share of the rest. Wargaming would still have grown just over 100% over the five year period. What we don't know is what the true total of the big number is with respect specifically to wargaming, but one thing is for sure, it is not a niche market as GW likes to call it (and, for the record, they sound like complete idiots when they say this. A niche market, by every business definition, is a market with a global business value of $100 million or less. You sound like an idiot when you are a $200+ million dollar company saying you are in a niche market). With most of that growth coming in the very last year (at 20% for the whole market). GW grew through most of that period, but they have turned a corner recently when all indicators are the market is at it's best growth right now. Almost every company in the wargaming space is showing growth while GW is declining.

Now, a simple conclusion. If GW declined approximately $10 million in revenue and X-Wing shot on the charts at $9 million - $10 million retail ($4-$4.5 million trade) then X-Wing alone accounted for GW's loss (if one wants to view it that way). But yet we still have FFG, PP, Corvus Belli, Mantic, a ton of small ones on Kickstarter, Warlord Games, Battlefront, Wyrd, 4Ground, Hawk Wargaming and many, many others that are showing growth as well. These all contribute to the overall market growth.

Now, to show how the small players can add up really fast, let me give an example of the market space I am currently in where the numbers are well known because it's business spending - online recruiting. Most people would hear online recruiting and immediately think of Monster, CareerBuilder, LinkedIn and Dice as the BIG players, the dominant companies in the market. Monster represents about $1 billion (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but generally around there), LinkedIn has $700 million on the Hiring Solutions, CareerBuilder just south of $500 million (about $477 million) and Dice about $300 million. All told, $2.5 billion among the big 4. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Last year spending on online recruiting was $30 billion dollars. So the BIG boys total account for only 12% market share. 88% of the market is divided among thousands of small companies. It adds up very, very fast.

Wargaming has a ton of examples of this effect as well. We don't know how much the average small vendor does, but we do know there are a ton of them out there and, as my example above shows, you can be very surprised just how much these "little guys" add up to on the total market.

 Wayshuba wrote:

Finally, as to the market overall. Numerous studies have stated across multiple hobby markets (except maybe RPGs), that the hobby market grew double-digits this year. For sake of example, let's just take the ICv2 article you linked earlier. They state that the hobby market grew overall by 20% with a 15% growth on average for the last five years running. That 15% average growth over five years equates to a total of 101% market growth over the period (115%, 132%, 152%, 175% then 201%). Important understanding that market growth isn't linear but compounded. This shows growth in the hobby market doubled over that period. Now, based on the ICv2, the hobby game market is made up of CCGs, Board Games, Card/Dice Games, RPGs and Non-Collectible Miniature Games (i.e., wargaming). We know, from your earlier post that CCGs had a 42% growth over this same period. Slightly less than half of that overall growth.Which leaves 58% of the total period growth unaccounted for.

Umm, no, that's not how it works. If one market subsegment grows 42%, and all others 58%, that does not make up 100% overall growth. That only makes up 42 to 58% growth, depending on how big subsegments are to each other.
If the CCG market really only grew 42%, it would be almost impossible to pony up necessary growth from other categories, since they'd have to grow more than 100%.

However, the report mentioned was based on 2011 data and years past that were only estimates. If Superdata's newer report is to be believed, the global CCG market today stands at $4.1 billion, of which $1.3 billion are digital cards. Doubling the market in three years seems incredible, however not totally impossible if we assume much higher-than-estimated growth in digital cards and more modest but substantial growth in physical cards. This would more or less fits in with reported MtG's huge sales surge over last couple of years and some other very popular titles coming up, like My Little Pony TCG and so on. Hasbro itself has mentioned WotC and some trading card games as one of the bright spots on their portfolio. So there must be something to it.

However, talking about Hasbro: whilst card games seem to be doing great for them of late, same does not reflect to overall state of their company. Hasbro has not grown at all since 2008, that includes their gaming division! By their financial reports, their games division produced revenue of $1.340 billion in 2008, had brief dip in 2011, then last year grew back to around $1.31 billion.

So Hasbro is actually doing WORSE than GW in gaming market!

It actually looks like Hasbro gaming division is a disaster, kept afloat by couple of wildly successful titles. Hmm, sound familiar?

 Wayshuba wrote:

Now, to show how the small players can add up really fast, let me give an example of the market space I am currently in where the numbers are well known because it's business spending - online recruiting. Most people would hear online recruiting and immediately think of Monster, CareerBuilder, LinkedIn and Dice as the BIG players, the dominant companies in the market. Monster represents about $1 billion (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but generally around there), LinkedIn has $700 million on the Hiring Solutions, CareerBuilder just south of $500 million (about $477 million) and Dice about $300 million. All told, $2.5 billion among the big 4. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Last year spending on online recruiting was $30 billion dollars. So the BIG boys total account for only 12% market share. 88% of the market is divided among thousands of small companies. It adds up very, very fast.

Wargaming has a ton of examples of this effect as well. We don't know how much the average small vendor does, but we do know there are a ton of them out there and, as my example above shows, you can be very surprised just how much these "little guys" add up to on the total market.

I'm sorry, you can't take a random market and assume that same principles apply to other totally unrelated market. I could just as well cite, say, computer operating systems market and observe that it is overwhelmingly dominated by one big player (Windows), couple of smaller ones (Apple, Linux) and then there are bunch of others who barely blip up on the radar. For starters, on some markets economies of the scale are much bigger than others. On others, being small and agile may actually be a signifant advantage.

In my example I was being very lenient all the way (much more so than Sean OBrien implied, in fact), yet came up with not even half the required revenues. For example, I doubt that there are actually even 50 companies in the business with annual revenues 1 million USD or more. Even $1 million company would have very notable Web presence on this day and age. Also, I gave Kickstarter much more impact than it in reality has, by a factor of three, at least. And so on. I definitely agree that when you add up the notable non-GW companies, they probably easily match GW's market share. And quite likely many of them have had nice growth of late. However, a dose of realism is needed.

Backfire wrote:

 Wayshuba wrote:

Finally, as to the market overall. Numerous studies have stated across multiple hobby markets (except maybe RPGs), that the hobby market grew double-digits this year. For sake of example, let's just take the ICv2 article you linked earlier. They state that the hobby market grew overall by 20% with a 15% growth on average for the last five years running. That 15% average growth over five years equates to a total of 101% market growth over the period (115%, 132%, 152%, 175% then 201%). Important understanding that market growth isn't linear but compounded. This shows growth in the hobby market doubled over that period. Now, based on the ICv2, the hobby game market is made up of CCGs, Board Games, Card/Dice Games, RPGs and Non-Collectible Miniature Games (i.e., wargaming). We know, from your earlier post that CCGs had a 42% growth over this same period. Slightly less than half of that overall growth.Which leaves 58% of the total period growth unaccounted for.

Umm, no, that's not how it works. If one market subsegment grows 42%, and all others 58%, that does not make up 100% overall growth. That only makes up 42 to 58% growth, depending on how big subsegments are to each other.
If the CCG market really only grew 42%, it would be almost impossible to pony up necessary growth from other categories, since they'd have to grow more than 100%.

However, the report mentioned was based on 2011 data and years past that were only estimates. If Superdata's newer report is to be believed, the global CCG market today stands at $4.1 billion, of which $1.3 billion are digital cards. Doubling the market in three years seems incredible, however not totally impossible if we assume much higher-than-estimated growth in digital cards and more modest but substantial growth in physical cards. This would more or less fits in with reported MtG's huge sales surge over last couple of years and some other very popular titles coming up, like My Little Pony TCG and so on. Hasbro itself has mentioned WotC and some trading card games as one of the bright spots on their portfolio. So there must be something to it.

However, talking about Hasbro: whilst card games seem to be doing great for them of late, same does not reflect to overall state of their company. Hasbro has not grown at all since 2008, that includes their gaming division! By their financial reports, their games division produced revenue of $1.340 billion in 2008, had brief dip in 2011, then last year grew back to around $1.31 billion.

So Hasbro is actually doing WORSE than GW in gaming market!

It actually looks like Hasbro gaming division is a disaster, kept afloat by couple of wildly successful titles. Hmm, sound familiar?

 Wayshuba wrote:

Now, to show how the small players can add up really fast, let me give an example of the market space I am currently in where the numbers are well known because it's business spending - online recruiting. Most people would hear online recruiting and immediately think of Monster, CareerBuilder, LinkedIn and Dice as the BIG players, the dominant companies in the market. Monster represents about $1 billion (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but generally around there), LinkedIn has $700 million on the Hiring Solutions, CareerBuilder just south of $500 million (about $477 million) and Dice about $300 million. All told, $2.5 billion among the big 4. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Last year spending on online recruiting was $30 billion dollars. So the BIG boys total account for only 12% market share. 88% of the market is divided among thousands of small companies. It adds up very, very fast.

Wargaming has a ton of examples of this effect as well. We don't know how much the average small vendor does, but we do know there are a ton of them out there and, as my example above shows, you can be very surprised just how much these "little guys" add up to on the total market.

I'm sorry, you can't take a random market and assume that same principles apply to other totally unrelated market. I could just as well cite, say, computer operating systems market and observe that it is overwhelmingly dominated by one big player (Windows), couple of smaller ones (Apple, Linux) and then there are bunch of others who barely blip up on the radar. For starters, on some markets economies of the scale are much bigger than others. On others, being small and agile may actually be a signifant advantage.

In my example I was being very lenient all the way (much more so than Sean OBrien implied, in fact), yet came up with not even half the required revenues. For example, I doubt that there are actually even 50 companies in the business with annual revenues 1 million USD or more. Even $1 million company would have very notable Web presence on this day and age. Also, I gave Kickstarter much more impact than it in reality has, by a factor of three, at least. And so on. I definitely agree that when you add up the notable non-GW companies, they probably easily match GW's market share. And quite likely many of them have had nice growth of late. However, a dose of realism is needed.

Do you do this simply for the fact of debating?

Here, let me make this plain, in simple math. 101% total market growth over a five year period (15% average per year over five years). During that time based on the previous CCG chart you posted they grew overall 42% of that 101%. Now, 101-42 equals what? 59. In other words, the other segments have to total up that remaining market growth. You haven't the foggiest clue of what you are talking about and that last statement shows it.

Second, the example I gave was illustrative of how little companies can make up a heck of a lot of market share, regardless of market segment. And, yes, in this case you can pick any market, anyone at all, where there are a ton of small companies and it is perfectly applicable to the case of the example. We are not talking about lateral expenditure of consumer dollars here, we are talking about small players making up market share in markets. It is pretty common in many, many markets, INCLUDING WARGAMING.

Third, $1 million is nothing. There are probably a LOT of companies north of the $1 million mark in revenue at this point. Heck, a little dinky company like Studio McVey did almost $1 million on Sedition Wars on Kickstarter alone. Until YOU can come back and define how many companies their truly are to back up your point, all the evidence from many different sources is going completely against every point you have made.

Fourth, on your Hasbro example, you have debated this entire thread about the specifics of the wargaming segment alone... now you bring up an entire gaming division of Hasbro, which is a heck of a lot more than wargaming. Your debate points bounce back and forth to whatever convenience you find to dismiss points. Yes, their gaming division was down 4% overall, yet their franchise titles, mainly lead by MTG were up 14% - pretty typical for the Q1 period for them. So, in other words, most of their retail store games were down while their hobby related interests (and NERF because everyone loves a good NERF fight) were up by double-digits. Finally, you call their gaming division a disaster? They were down $11 million from $231m to $220m on their reporting period which is also, historically, the worst period of the year because it follows Christmas (look at every single year in their financials). But gaming at the close of 2013 was up a total of 10% YoY from 2012 ($1.17 b in 2011, $1.2 b in 2012 and $1.31 b in 2013). Doesn't sound like any sort of disaster to me - their YoY growth was equivalent to almost half of GWs entire year's revenue. They grew double-digits in the same period GW dropped by double-digits. So even that example is bad. (see p. 32 of their 2013 Annual Report for all the information).

Lastly, how do you know you were being lenient in your example. You were simply giving examples that sound good without any reference points to base it on. You assume that there are only as many companies making the revenue you claim. That is why I gave the example I did. Frequently these smaller companies add up to A LOT more than you realize. For all we know, many small companies could be doing in the $2 m - $5 m range, but they also may not be. You think what you gave sounded good, but you didn't include any references at all towards the parts you filled in. Anyone could use the same example you gave and simply say that the small players are all doing at least $5 million in revenue. Why, because there is no basis point included to say otherwise other than do you believe it or not. No facts, just blind faith.

I am done entirely with this debate. Once again, you simply dismiss facts without ever putting up one to support why your conclusions you so adamantly debate are so true. You simply say "yours are wrong or let me take your numbers, add a few examples of my own and show you why they are so wrong". Instead of constantly telling everyone how wrong they are, it is time for you to show how right you are instead.

 Wayshuba wrote:

Here, let me make this plain, in simple math. 101% total market growth over a five year period (15% average per year over five years). During that time based on the previous CCG chart you posted they grew overall 42% of that 101%. Now, 101-42 equals what? 59. In other words, the other segments have to total up that remaining market growth. You haven't the foggiest clue of what you are talking about and that last statement shows it.

You do realize that 42% growth spread over 5 years is not 15% growth annually. It would only make about 9% annual growth. If it was true, CCG's actually grew slower than the overall market in your example. Now, that is actually irrelevant since the mentioned report is obsolete. However what is not irrelevant is your flunking basic math. Once again: 42% growth in one subsegment and 58% growth in another does NOT make up 100% growth over entire segment.

Example: if you have three subsegments where one posts 42% growth, another 24% growth and third one 34% growth, it does not make up 100% growth. It actually makes up only 33% average growth. I'm sorry, but I do not believe anymore you have any kind of credentials in this area. No one who makes this for living, or was even casually acquinted with the subject, would make this kind of most basic maths errors.

As for Hasbro, if the gaming market really doubled between 2008-2013, yes, I do call their gaming division revenue SHRINKING over that period a truly terrible performance. I do not know if the former is true, mind you, but you assure me it is so lets go by this. (And the revenue drop might have mundane explanations (selling off subsidiares etc), I don't know). By the way, Games Workshop grew 10.9% over the period you claimed they "dropped double-digits" (2011-2013). You aren't getting anything right.

Backfire, I'm not sure if you are deliberately making a cock of the maths or not, but I'll break it down for you.

Market 1 has grown by 100% in a given time period.

Market 1 is made up of subsection 1a and 1b.

Of that growth, market 1a has contributed to 42% of the growth. That doesn't mean that market 1a has grown by 42%, it means that it has made up 42% of the overall growth. How much has market 1b contributed to the growth of the overall market?

 Eggs wrote:
Backfire, I'm not sure if you are deliberately making a cock of the maths or not, but I'll break it down for you.

Market 1 has grown by 100% in a given time period.

Market 1 is made up of subsection 1a and 1b.

Of that growth, market 1a has contributed to 42% of the growth. That doesn't mean that market 1a has grown by 42%, it means that it has made up 42% of the overall growth. How much has market 1b contributed to the growth of the overall market?

Yes, but that's not what Wayshuba says, or what the article in question says. This is what he said:

"That 15% average growth over five years equates to a total of 101% market growth over the period (115%, 132%, 152%, 175% then 201%). Important understanding that market growth isn't linear but compounded. This shows growth in the hobby market doubled over that period. Now, based on the ICv2, the hobby game market is made up of CCGs, Board Games, Card/Dice Games, RPGs and Non-Collectible Miniature Games (i.e., wargaming). We know, from your earlier post that CCGs had a 42% growth over this same period. Slightly less than half of that overall growth.Which leaves 58% of the total period growth unaccounted for. "

The chart he refers to is this: http://www.superdataresearch.com/content/uploads/2012/07/Worldwide-collectible-card-sales-Physical-vs-Digital.png

However, the article only concerns about (projected) growth of the CCG market and makes no mention of gaming market as a whole, or CCG subsegments contribution to overall market.

weeble1000 wrote:

With all of that context, you don't find it significant that the FFG CEO does not mention GW at all? I think the writing on the wall is plain for anyone to see. FFG is not beholden to GW, FFG is not dependent on GW, and FFG is a fast-growing threat to GW's market share.

I am very happy for FFG's success. They sell kick ass games, their CEO seems like a genuinely nice guy (talked to him briefly a few times at GenCon), and their people are active on their forums, answering questions about their games. I'll let people compare/contrast that with GW on their own...

However, are they really competing for GW's market share? Sure, they both make games. However, GW's bread and butter are table top miniatures with rules and supplements to support them. FFG sells primarily board games and RPGs. Lots of cross-over nerds and geeks, sure. But is that really taking money out of GW's pocket? I'm not so sure, Weeble1000.

 kronk wrote:


However, are they really competing for GW's market share? Sure, they both make games. However, GW's bread and butter are table top miniatures with rules and supplements to support them. FFG sells primarily board games and RPGs. Lots of cross-over nerds and geeks, sure. But is that really taking money out of GW's pocket? I'm not so sure, Weeble1000.

I would argue yes Kronk. Personally, my nerd budget is only so large each month so every time that I choose not to buy GW and instead buy a FFG game or from another company means less money I'm spending on GW. The growth in KS and the number of small to medium-sized companies means more choice for consumers. Couple the expanded choice with GW choosing to "turtle-up" and hide behind their "moat and wall" results in less people having impetus to buy GW, especially with the push to direct only. Direct only means that FLGSs will be less likely to support GW in their stores (in the US anyway where FLGSs are the usual place to buy and play GW games) and push other company's products who provide better support.

My personal opinion, based on nothing other than my own observations, is that the slow decline in sales volume at GW will continue and may even accelerate now that I'm starting to see less GW product in FLGSs in my area and more from other companies. Case in point the recent Warmachine expansion was really hyped by the largest game store in the area which held an all-day event with prizes and what-not all supplied by PP; the result is a greater number of people playing Warmahordes and less people playing 40k in that store. GW reducing their presence will only end badly for them because people will always gravitate towards companies that view them as partners rather bovines chewing on the grass of their corporate culture.

I don't have access to fancy data but I can speak to what I see in my area.

 agnosto wrote:

 kronk wrote:


However, are they really competing for GW's market share? Sure, they both make games. However, GW's bread and butter are table top miniatures with rules and supplements to support them. FFG sells primarily board games and RPGs. Lots of cross-over nerds and geeks, sure. But is that really taking money out of GW's pocket? I'm not so sure, Weeble1000.

I would argue yes Kronk. Personally, my nerd budget is only so large each month so every time that I choose not to buy GW and instead buy a FFG game or from another company means less money I'm spending on GW. The growth in KS and the number of small to medium-sized companies means more choice for consumers. Couple the expanded choice with GW choosing to "turtle-up" and hide behind their "moat and wall" results in less people having impetus to buy GW, especially with the push to direct only. Direct only means that FLGSs will be less likely to support GW in their stores (in the US anyway where FLGSs are the usual place to buy and play GW games) and push other company's products who provide better support.

Agree with this 100%. I have a certain amount I spend on leisure items/non-essentials (toys or whatever!) each month, and I think most people above a certain age are in the same boat. I would agree that board games might not be directly competing for exactly the same expenditure, but there certainly is cross-over (especially with stuff like X-Wing - that game is taking place in FLGS and clubs around the world, next to the 'standard' tabletop wargaming).

 kronk wrote:

I am very happy for FFG's success. They sell kick ass games, their CEO seems like a genuinely nice guy (talked to him briefly a few times at GenCon), and their people are active on their forums, answering questions about their games. I'll let people compare/contrast that with GW on their own...

However, are they really competing for GW's market share? Sure, they both make games. However, GW's bread and butter are table top miniatures with rules and supplements to support them. FFG sells primarily board games and RPGs. Lots of cross-over nerds and geeks, sure. But is that really taking money out of GW's pocket? I'm not so sure, Weeble1000.

Well in my case, FFG are hoovering up money (via X-Wing) that used to go to GW.

YMMV of course.

 kronk wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

With all of that context, you don't find it significant that the FFG CEO does not mention GW at all? I think the writing on the wall is plain for anyone to see. FFG is not beholden to GW, FFG is not dependent on GW, and FFG is a fast-growing threat to GW's market share.

I am very happy for FFG's success. They sell kick ass games, their CEO seems like a genuinely nice guy (talked to him briefly a few times at GenCon), and their people are active on their forums, answering questions about their games. I'll let people compare/contrast that with GW on their own...

However, are they really competing for GW's market share? Sure, they both make games. However, GW's bread and butter are table top miniatures with rules and supplements to support them. FFG sells primarily board games and RPGs. Lots of cross-over nerds and geeks, sure. But is that really taking money out of GW's pocket? I'm not so sure, Weeble1000.

I'd say they do in isolated cases, for sure. They did for me, anyway. I don't buy GW anymore. I buy FFG and Mantic. Both have taken over my needs from GW. But, I don't JUST buy X-Wing minis from FFG, I also buy their WHFB/40K games as well: Discwars, Invasion, Relic, soon Conquest...etc. None of those are minis games, but they give me my WH fix and I don't need GW to do it. So FFG has taken my business from GW. Most of my friends from back home have been the same way-buying FFG and quitting GW. Hence "isolated case". Am I the rule, or the exception to it? Or maybe a little column a, little column b? Don't know, but I go where the better games are-and that certainly isn't GW these days.

 kronk wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

With all of that context, you don't find it significant that the FFG CEO does not mention GW at all? I think the writing on the wall is plain for anyone to see. FFG is not beholden to GW, FFG is not dependent on GW, and FFG is a fast-growing threat to GW's market share.

I am very happy for FFG's success. They sell kick ass games, their CEO seems like a genuinely nice guy (talked to him briefly a few times at GenCon), and their people are active on their forums, answering questions about their games. I'll let people compare/contrast that with GW on their own...

However, are they really competing for GW's market share? Sure, they both make games. However, GW's bread and butter are table top miniatures with rules and supplements to support them. FFG sells primarily board games and RPGs. Lots of cross-over nerds and geeks, sure. But is that really taking money out of GW's pocket? I'm not so sure, Weeble1000.

IMHO yes, but not in a direct fashion nor are they deliberately going after GW's market. Nature Abhors a Vacuum, so the quote says. When people get tired of something they try something else. FF games is enjoying some of the aspects of the loss of customer base that GW has Alienated over the years.

Just simple human nature that is taking effect and that is all

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

 kronk wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

With all of that context, you don't find it significant that the FFG CEO does not mention GW at all? I think the writing on the wall is plain for anyone to see. FFG is not beholden to GW, FFG is not dependent on GW, and FFG is a fast-growing threat to GW's market share.

I am very happy for FFG's success. They sell kick ass games, their CEO seems like a genuinely nice guy (talked to him briefly a few times at GenCon), and their people are active on their forums, answering questions about their games. I'll let people compare/contrast that with GW on their own...

However, are they really competing for GW's market share? Sure, they both make games. However, GW's bread and butter are table top miniatures with rules and supplements to support them. FFG sells primarily board games and RPGs. Lots of cross-over nerds and geeks, sure. But is that really taking money out of GW's pocket? I'm not so sure, Weeble1000.

IMHO yes, but not in a direct fashion nor are they deliberately going after GW's market. Nature Abhors a Vacuum, so the quote says. When people get tired of something they try something else. FF games is enjoying some of the aspects of the loss of customer base that GW has Alienated over the years.

Just simple human nature that is taking effect and that is all

FFG made a table top miniatures sci-fi wargame...and that's not going after GW's market?

weeble1000 wrote:


FFG made a table top miniatures sci-fi wargame...and that's not going after GW's market?

Personally, I believe if FFG does this right, they are the first ones who stand a chance at toppling the GW 40k juggernaut. Everything Star Wars related (X-Wing, RPG and LCG) that FFG has done is topping gaming charts. Perhaps they should consider a boarding action game (similar to Space Hulk) that will dip their toe in the 28mm waters. From there, they could expand to a full blow larger skirmish game (more on the lines of Sage with 40-60 models a side, or even LOTR SBG) which will chew at the 40k base.

Face it, in Sci-Fi wargaming 40k is a heavy IP. If you are going to take on a heavy IP, you need an even heavier one plus you need to have the momentum going for the company that does it. FFG has that at the moment with X-Wing. Now is the best time to capitalize on that momentum (and customer satisfaction with their brand) and expand Star Wars miniature gaming even further.

I think if they really want to get into the 28mm scene with star wars, they could do worse than some kind of Necromunda type game. Folks could use their infinity terrain, or old necromunda stuff, and actually develop a team with a narrative campaign - you could have a jedi, a bounty hunter, a couple of droids, a smuggler etc etc. I think it would suit the style of star wars, and really get folks pulled in.