With the start of a new year comes reflection on the year gone by. In this case, it's reflection on how things have gone, sales wise, for Contested Ground Studios. 2007 saw the release of the full version of Mob Justice, the Cold City Companion and the Dossier (also for Cold City). Let's look at Mob Justice first.

To put not too fine a point on it, sales of MJ have been somewhat disappointing. However, I don't see this as reason to be down hearted. At the tail end of the year, there were a few mentions of MJ on sites such as RPG net, Story Games and so on, all very positive. Iains attendance at UK cons since the release has also been a very positive factor. The recent changing of webhosts for CGS and the increased space and bandwidth this offers means we can really pump up the amount of support and coverage for MJ. With this in place, I think 2008 could yet see a strong showing from the game.

With a release in August of 2007, sales for MJ broke down as follows:

IPR: 39
Direct: 6
Con: 16
Vendors: 10
Comp: 1
PDF: 19

Total sales for 2007: 91

Cold City moved into it's first full year of release and continued to show strong sales. Switching printers to Fidlar Doubleday drastically improved the physical quality of the books themselves. Sales for the last two months of 2007 paralleled the same period in 2006, with a drop-off in sales compared to previous months. As usual, August was our strongest month due to Gen Con.

Full years sales for CC broke down as follows:

IPR: 218
Direct: 48
Con: 76
Vendors: 17
Comp: 15
PDF: 156

Total sales for 2007: 530

The Cold City Companion was a valuable addition to the game line and one which achieved good sales, despite being a supplement and a relatively slim one at that. The first print run sold out by November, requiring a further printing before year end. Again, using Fidlar Doubleday meant a great quality product.

Sales from release in August 2007 looked like this:

IPR: 83
Direct: 16
Con: 56
Vendors: 14
Comp: 2
PDF: 78

Total sales for 2007: 249

The Dossier came in two forms. One was the hand-made folder of documents, a high-value item that startled us in how quickly it sold at conventions. With only 30 produced, they went pretty quickly. The PDF version has also continued to be a good, steady seller.

Sales in PDF from release in march 2007 looked like this:

DTRPG/RPGnow: 62
IPR: 33

Total sales for 2007: 95

Finally, there's the old warhorse of a|state. Sales have been slack for a while now, but the last quarter of 2007 saw a startling increase in sales via IPR. While these aren't many, it's a great change from the one or two per quarter that were selling through this venue. One thing i think has contributed to this is a resurgence in the reputation of the game as a great setting. Putting aside the mechanics, it seems that many people value it for the colour and flavour, which is very pleasing. It will be interesting to see how the release of Avenues & Alleyways in early 2008 affects continuing sales.

Cheers
Malcolm