"Market Share" Topic

There was discussion in another thread about the relative sizes of the US and UK wargaming populations. I'd like to bring up another argument for my belief that the two are much the same--meaning a much higher percentage of the population plays miniature wargames in the UK than in the US.

The Great Wargaming Survey listed the percentage of respondents by region for each years starting with the 2016 survey and running through the 2023. The lowest "UK/Ireland" was 32.1% and the highest 35.9%, while the lowest "US/Canada" was 33.2% and the highest 37.4%. Unless we start getting census takers to ask about miniature warfare, I think this is the best we're going to get.

Same as the other post, there is no basis to establish a relationship between the number of wargamers and the number of people who take the survey.

Cling to ignorance if it makes you happy, eto. But unless you have a reason why North American miniature wargamers would hugely disproportionately refuse to take the survey as opposed to miniature wargamers in the British Isles, I'd say it's pretty good evidence that the numbers are roughly equal, which was my point.

Every year or two the issue comes up, and someone announces that there are five or six US wargamers for every UK one, based solely on the fact that we have more people. By that reasoning, most miniature wargames are played in China and India. I can't find any evidence based on actual participation to support it.

For myself, I think having a fairly good feel for total numbers of miniature wargamers and distribution at least on a national level in discussions of convention potentials, or the value of overseas dealerships.

Well, it's not ignorance. It's fundamental logic. Your appeal:

unless you have a reason why North American miniature wargamers would hugely disproportionately refuse to take the survey as opposed to miniature wargamers in the British Isles, I'd say it's pretty good evidence that the numbers are roughly equal

is one of the core fallacies in rhetoric, called the Appeal to Ignorance. It's a fundamentally logically inconsistent position. You have provided no proof that the proportions of wargamers in both countries are the same, so by your logic, I am justified in asserting that they are not.

You're also creating a Strawman Argument, by positing that NA wargamers refusing to take the survey is the only reason for disproportionate representation. What makes you think the same proportion of of UK and NA wargamers even know that the survey exists? This is piled on top of another A2I.

Just because the argument you are trying to counter is fallacious, doesn't justify equally fallacious logic to counter it.

What's the geographical distribution? I'd assume most UK gamers are closer to a B&M store than US gamers (e.g. the one (and only) B&M store closest to me is at least 40 minutes away.) That can have a big impact on how many play and/or shop. YMMV… ;-)

eto, it's a "fundamental logic" which amounts to clinging to ignorance. We do not get perfect unimpeachable data for human activities. Even what we have for inanimate objects is subject to experimental error and fraud. This doesn't mean we have no evidence, or that our conclusions based on it aren't supported by subsequent evidence and events.

If I were still working ground OOB, and one of my bosses asked me how many tanks country X had, assuming they didn't own a factory, I'd be doing pretty much the same thing--searching through records or purchases and foreign aid--along with anything else I could find--and tell them "we have records of X many entering the country. We have no evidence of any being re-exported, sold for scrap or converted to farm tractors." If we keep a reasonable eye on the country, "we have no evidence" is pretty good. Less so otherwise, but I've established a ceiling.

This is how the real world works. We don't say "none of our evidence in unimpeachable, so we live in complete ignorance." We say "this is the evidence we have, so we'll make our decisions based on it, and keep in mind the level of uncertainty."

I am not asking for perfect knowledge. I'm asking for any.

"we have records of" is presumably based on the idea that we actually know where country X is and we have been conducting multiple types of surveillance on it over time. How would your commander react if they found out "we have records of" meant you pulled some numbers from an annual survey conducted by Tank Commanders Monthly?

And you're running a strawman again. Please show me the part where I said anything like "unimpeachable" or "perfect".

eto, if you've stuffed yourself with straw, it's not my problem, and I suggest you stay away from donkeys.

Whenever we get into a discussion of wargamer numbers, you announce, in effect, that since none of our sources are comprehensive and unimpeachable, we can know nothing. We live in a world of imperfect data. You live in that world, and I daresay you navigate it well enough. Is this an ipi thing? Do all the ipis venerate ignorance?

I noticed that you decided to make fun of what i said instead of answering a simple question, where did I ask for "unimpeachable" or "perfect" knowledge?

So along with the continuing criticizing me for things you made up instead of what I said, please point out the part where I said "we can know nothing" about the topic.

Zephyr1 – a logical thought but doesn't actually work.

There are virtually NO b&m stores left in Britain, except Games Workshop of course! They were never common and most seemed to disappear in the 80s and 90s. The nearest to me that I can think of is a six hour drive away!

Anecdotal internet evidence would suggest that they are far more common in the US.

Now that Cerdic has mentioned GW, you could do worse than compare their sales in the UK and the USA. As a very rough comparison.

link

But that's sales. It doesn't really correlate with number of players, even GW, let alone all wargamers.

Way to go, Eto! Thank you. Magazine subscriptions for the various wargame magazines broken down by nation would be another indicator. I suspect the various companies are keeping them as proprietary information. My guess is about a dozen companies out there have a much better feel for number and distribution of wargamers than any of us.

And yes, obviously more useful for present purposes if it broke down by purchaser, but I doubt they could even if they wanted to: too much of the sales went to dealers. Helpful for relative size of the markets, though.

Cerdic, so nearly as I can tell you're right about b & m stores--gone in the UK, and still going here. When I travelled in the UK in the 1980's, they were relatively common. When I did so c. 2004, there was nothing left. I used to figure in the US, any community of 100,000 or more had some sort of game shop. That may still be true. (It is true where I travel, but I don't travel as much.)

I suspect the difference is population density compounded by wargame population density. In the UK, there appears to be a convention with dealers pretty much every weekend in a country so compact they're day trips for much of the population. The "lower 48" are about 40 times the area of the UK with--well, we've been discussing the relative number of wargamers. As many, as in the Great Wargaming Survey? Twice as many, as might be inferred from the GW data? No more conventions than the UK, I think. Much too long between day trip conventions for us to rely on them for paint and brushes.

Magazine subscriptions for the various wargame magazines broken down by nation would be another indicator.

Twice as many, as might be inferred from the GW data?

The magazine data would be no more useful than sales data. You would need to be able to make some type of reasonable assertion about the proportion of wargamers who subscribe to magazines, the durations of those subscriptions, and the customer overlap with multiple magazines.

"based on a large number of completely unsubstantiated assumptions and data" = "based on a large number of completely unsubstantiated assumptions"

so nearly as I can tell you're right about b & m stores--gone in the UK, and still going here.

Now here's something you can do with the data:

link

UK vs USA ~78% of the stores in ~2.5% of the land area. So actual data is useful for showing the value of anecdotal data.

True, eto, if Cerdic hadn't specified "except Games Workshop."

He did, but you didn't. Otherwise, I would have included this link instead of skipping it.

link