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The Attrition Rate of Game Sales
- san il defanso
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Apologies if its been posted here before, but I hadn't seen it yet. Essentially, it's some data from the Starlit Citadel online store, where he tracks with how many new titles they stock every year, and what percentage of those titles are kept in stock for a stretch of time. Here's an interesting quote from the article.
Thirdly, the ‘demand’ for products takes a steep fall within 1 year. We drop 50% of products we bring in within 1 year, 60% in 2 years and within 3 75% of all products are dropped. As a publisher, if you haven’t sold off a significant % of your products in a year, you should seriously be considering adjusting your price / having sales because by year 3, you’re not likely to be able to sell it at all.
While I couldn't comment very much on the statistical elements at play here (that's why we have Space Ghost), I am curious as to whether the huge spike in products and the speed with which they fall off is typical for other retailers. Certainly it looks like the number of titles available was already growing plenty before 2011, but there's a definite jump around the time Kickstarter becomes available. Curiously Kickstarter isn't mentioned in the article.
I'm interested in what other people can add here. At first blush I find the numbers a little alarming just because of how quickly stuff turns over, but thinking about it, it doesn't actually seem that surprising. But then I don't have a great head for numbers and interpreting data, so I'd be interested to see how his methodology might have some gaps or some more insight into what these numbers reflect, if anything.
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- Michael Barnes
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This is also why expansions are a big deal, because they can extend the market viability of a product. Memoir '44 still sells because it's kept current with add-on purchases. Descent, Arkham Horror...same thing.
THere are a small number of games that sell constantly regardless of being old. Settlers, Dominion, Ticket to Ride, Axis and Allies, Carcassonne, etc...but in every case, there's something that is keeping those games at top of mind. A video game, cultural reference, nostalgia, etc. But most games literally may as well disappear after a year. The churn is just insane, and I can only imagine that it's worse now.
I remember going to the local distributor and they just had PILES of certain games that had been hot 12 months earlier. Just sitting. THis means stores weren't buying them anymore. Because consumers weren't buying them anymore.
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Hype and marketing is easy a quality product is another...See Kickstarter for example.
You also see this in Music, Movies and Book.
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When I was growing up, there were certain classic family boardgames that seemed to be constantly in print due to steady demand. Monopoly, Sorry, Clue, Risk, Stratego, Battleship, etc.
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Shellhead wrote: Blame the Cult of the New.
When I was growing up, there were certain classic family boardgames that seemed to be constantly in print due to steady demand. Monopoly, Sorry, Clue, Risk, Stratego, Battleship, etc.
I still see those games, but they're not as ubiquitous as they used to be. Nowadays most things are licensed and feature characters from video games, movies, or books.
Or they just go full-on product placement / advertisement:
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- Cranberries
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craniac wrote: I just looked at the highest rated games for 2013. Are any of those going to stick around for more than a year? I don't even know what Caverna is. Pathfinder card game, maybe?
All of these have staying power in my opinion:
Love Letter
Hanabi
Pathfinder ACG - This will persist through new sets continually churned out
Coup
Forbidden Desert
Caverna (the Agricola crowd is huge and this is their new darling)
Rampage
Duel of Ages 2
A Study In Emerald
Eldritch Horror
Space Cadets: Dice Duel
The Duke
Kemet
Firefly
It depends how you define staying power though. If you're asking what people here will be talking about/playing next year then no, many of these won't. I'm talking about being played/discussed by the majority of the people in the hobby.
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