I was at a briefing that Gene Billingsly gave about GMT games. He said sales have increased by about 40% in each of the last two years and he more than doubled his warehouse space. He attributes it to the younger millennial's liking to play strategy games. It's about strategy and interactive play.
GMT has spoken to my son about doing a modern Special Ops game along the lines of GMT Hornet Leader series as that is one he does not have and thinks would be a winner. He is also negotiating with a German Army leadership unit about doing a board game simulation of military and NGO's in a setting like Aleppo.
This is the largest game trade show in Germany: 10times.com/spiel
I'm seeing more board games that use figures and miniatures than ever before. It's also easier to produce a game now using Print-On-Demand services and social media/Kickstarter marketing. You can get a game to market without a $50,000 USD investment, storage, shipping, etc.
Most board games sold at retail have a 6x markup. Boardgame publishers will generally give a new game designer 2-4% of the wholesale price of the game and they take care of the upfront investment for production, sales, shipping, credit card processing, etc. I am talking to a company that wants to offer me 3% of $45 USD and they'll do an initial print run of 12,000 copies and have great retail distribution, something you cannot do with POD.
The POD company I'm talking to can do the same game but at a higher unit cost than having Chinese offset printers do it. However, I can put out the same quality of the game at a lower cost and make much more per copy but not have a wide retail distribution and some headaches on the business side.
Another thing is using POD and self-publishing you can generally get a game to market much quicker. Some of the major board game publishers have dozens of designs in the pipeline that they want to publish but it can take 2+ years before you, as a new and unproven designer, can get into that pipeline. They may also have the final say on the rules and physical components but they generally put out a great polished product.
I'm not expecting any decrease in published games in the near future as almost anyone can now get a game published.
Wolfhag
