Games Workshop riding high

Games’ Workshops’s success story of recent years continues with the release of ICv2’s latest North American game sales charts. These charts are from Fall 2018.

The miniatures chart doesn’t just show Warhammer 40,000 dominating but also we see Age of Sigmar finally entering the top 5. It’s been a long journey for Warhammer’s replacement but my feeling is we’ll see the game stay in the top 5 from now on.

The Nolzur’s line of miniatures continue to sell well, and Star Wars X-Wing returns after the subdued sales effect of that game’s second edition. Not shown on the chart is Warmachine, a game which used to sit comfortable in second but now seems stuck in the past, trying to service a market which has moved on.

In other categories, Catan stays relevant to board games while one of my current favourites, Sagrada, makes it into the top 10.

That’s a good result for an independent game released via crowdfunding.

These changes, and other charts, come against a backdrop of overall growth in hobby games continuing for a 10th straight year.

It seems that across the board in hobby games, clever use of online marketing and sales connections are helping fuel continued growth. Kickstarter is a launching pad, not a place grabbing pre-sales from stores and this can be seen from the later sales success of games like Sagrada, Gloomhaven, and Scythe. Meanwhile old gods like Games Workshop seem to have finally worked out how to use online channels to help them, and achieved great success.

Exciting times.