Over on enworld Matt Sprange from Mongoose posted his annual State of the Industry and made some interesting observations about the industry in the UK and Europe:
In the USA. What was once an 80% share in our business has shrunk to something like 55-60%. However, not all is doom and gloom, as this has been matched (even exceeded) by a growing tide in Europe and the UK, where we have seen both RPGs and miniatures games experience a sharp rise, to the point where even relatively small UK distributors have leapfrogged most of those in America. The second largest distributor (in terms of Mongoose sales) is in the UK, and is nipping at the heels of the Number One in America. My first prediction for 2007 is the Rise of Europe. Americans – you are letting your side down! You cannot have us Brits be the centre of roleplaying! Start playing more!
I was just wondering what everyone else thought of this. Certianly for us, we get a lot of orders through Esdevium (2nd only to Alliance), and I assumed this was because we're UK based and able to concentrate our marketing here. But, perhaps it's symptomatic of a growth in the market on this side of the Atlantic.
So what does everyone else think? Do you get many sales to Europe? Anyone got any ideas why this might be? And how can we capitalise on this trend?
Certainly I think the Collective Endeavour is a move in the right direction, as it will help create a readily identifiable presence at a lot of UK conventions. How else can we help the market grow?
Maybe from a different point of view?
Submitted by Malcolm Craig on Fri, 01/12/2006 - 12:55.
I wonder if this doesn't, however, present a somewhat skewed point of view on things? I think that Mongoose very much look at things via sales to distribution, whereas most of us involved in small press tend to look at sales direct to the public or through sites like IPR, sales at conventions and so forth.
The advantage of selling direct and through IPR is that you know exactly how many copies of your game are in the hands of gamers. it's not based on figures that have gone out to distributors, it's based on games in the hands of the people who are interested in them.
I think the interesting thing about the period we are in now is that it is transitional. We are seeing a trend away from the traditional three tier model towards a more profitable, satisfying model of production and distribution. Guys like Brennan are really helping push this forward with sites like IPR. The three tier model only benefits the big boys, everyone else gets scammed and burned. trust me, I have first hand experience of this with a|state going through the traditional 3 tier model.
We can help the market grow by acting collectively and support each other, not just in terms of small press UK games, but in terms of the small press games scene in general. Small press games are now being recognised for the quality and creativity that make them great. 'State of the industry' addresses are, to my mind, a load of hot air, offer little to us and have precious little relevance to our situation. Mongoose is operating on a totally different model, sot heir perceptions are very much focussed towards the market situation of that model. The questions we need to ask are: are we satisfied with our games? Are we happy with the way we are selling? Are people having a good time reading and playing our games?
From my own personal point of view, I'm far happier with the way things are with CGS now than a year ago. We've shifted away from 3 tier, we're selling much more direct, we know how many copies of our games are going into the hands of gamers and we are getting much more feedback on those games through actual play. GenCon Indy this year showed that the small press scene in the US is undergoing fantastic growth. We need to pull together to do the same for the UK, in terms of sales, play and design.
Cheers
Malcolm
Contested Ground Studios
Interesting
Submitted by Matt on Fri, 01/12/2006 - 14:07.
As Malc says, distribution is its own thing, so how much this situation applies to us is tricky to disentangle. I don't know enough to comment on that angle really.
As to how to grow the market. For small press games I think decent outreach is key: Real Play by Real People sells games.
I think a cohesive attempt to organise small meetups, conventions and store roadshows to build interest is the way forward. The Collective is probably a good unit to base this off, so I may start a thread about that in the Conventions forum.
-Matt
Realms Publishing