ICv2 Top 5 Hobby CCGs (Collectible Card Games)

1. Magic: The Gathering

2. Yu-Gi-Oh!

3. World of Warcraft TCG

4. Pokemon

5. Legends of the Five Rings

ICv2 Top 5 CMGs (Collectible Miniatures Games)

1. Dungeons & Dragons

2. HeroClix

3. Star Wars

4. HorrorClix

5. ActionClix

ICv2 Top 5 Board and Family Games

1. Settlers of Catan

2. Ticket to Ride

3. Carcassonne

4. Descent

5. Puerto Rico

ICv2 Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Games

1. Warhammer 40K

2. WarMachine

3. Hordes

4. Warhammer Fantasy

5. Reaper Dark Heaven

ICv2 Top 5 Role-Playing Games

1. Dungeons & Dragons

2. Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy

3. World of Darkness

4. Shadowrun
5. Exalted

Parece que o lançamento da 4ª edição realmente foi muito bem sucedido, pelo menos em termo de vendas, e pelo segundo ano consecutivo as vendas da categoria hobby games se mantiveram estáveis ou com um pequeno aumento. Mas dentro da grande categoria que são os hobby games ( que incluem board games, RPGs, miniaturas e card games) a diferença me parece no papel que os cards tiveram ano passado em comparação com este ano. Em Agosto de 2007 a ICv2 nos brindou com:

The quarterly ICv2 market report on game sales in the ICv2 Guide to Games #46 reported gains in all games segments over-all, but particularly strong sales at mass, with sales of the Pokemon TCG, in particular, described as ‘on fire.’

Um ano depois, agora em 2008 temos:

Board games and the big launch for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition kept the game category steady to up a little in the hobby channel in the second quarter, according to the ICv2 Guide to Games #58, released at Gen Con. With high gas prices driving a trend toward in-home entertainment, and a good value proposition in terms of hours of entertainment per dollar spent, board games may even be benefiting from economic conditions.

D&D blew away expectations, with almost everyone we talked to surprised by how well the launch of 4th Edition has done. The success of 4th Edition also spilled over into sales of D&D Miniatures, which have also done well recently.

Collectable games are feeling the pinch, both from the relatively high cost to participate and from declining numbers of store visits, which are required to keep feeding collectable game purchases.

Enquanto os hobby games se mantiveram estáveis ou com pouco crescimento, dentro da categoria houve uma queda dos card games e aumento dos board games e RPGs, que mantiveram a categoria apesar da queda dos cards. Bacana!

Falando especificamente dos Top 5 RPGs mais vendidos, tivemos um resultado parecido com o de Agosto do ano passado, mas com uma leve dança das posições. D&D continua em primeiro como sempre, mas em segundo ao invés do Star Wars Saga RPG, que aliás caiu fora da lista, aparece o Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy, que curiosamente foi cancelado pela Games Workshop e posteriormente adquirido pela Fantasy Flight, e continua com um futuro meio indefinido. Em terceiro temos o World of Darkness, que subiu uma posição, e que se posso arriscar um palpite, estará na segunda posição no próximo ranking em Dezembro. Depois temos o ressurgimento de Shadowrun e por último o Exalted, que ocupa o lugar antes preenchido por seu primo Scion. Todo mundo em casa, e a White Wolf feliz!

O ICv2, ótimo site especializado em notícias do mercado nerd, como quadrinhos, filmes, jogos eletrônicos e RPGs, publicou uma nota sobre a queda de vendas de 7,5% em relação ao mesmo período do ano anterior registrado pela Books-a-Million, a terceira maior cadeia de livrarias dos EUA, com 212 lojas em 20 estados. Embora as coisas não pareçam estarem indo muito bem para nossos amigos do monopólio de vendas de livros (a Barnes & Noble também não tem se dado bem..), dois dos poucos aumentos de vendas foram identificados justamente no mercado de livros de RPG e graphic novels.

Eu não sou nenhum especialista em quadrinhos como meu amigo Leo, mas acho que é claro para todo mundo que as graphic novels tem se tornado o modelo padrão dos quadrinhos, e meu palpite de leigo é que isto está ocorrendo tanto pelo amadurecimento do público, como pelo foco das grandes editoras em maxi-séries e mega-eventos, que logo depois são encadernadas e vendidas aos milhares, geralmente em qualidade superior, com material extra e por um preço bem em conta. E claro, o gigantesco sucesso de alguns filmes de super-heróis como O Cavaleiro das Trevas e Iron Man devem ter feito um bem danado para as vendas de quadrinhos em geral!

E sobre o RPG, bem os caras da ICv2, que não brincam em serviço e vivem de avaliar e acompanhar o mercado, consideraram que a alta foi derivada direta do lançamento do Dungeons & Dragons 4ª edição. Nem é tão difícil apontar isso, mas acho que atrás do carro chefe das vendas vale apontar o monte de coisas excelentes saindo por diversas editoras, como a supremacia da Paizo e ótimo resultado da White Wolf nos ENnies indicaram, embora não exista comprovação que a aprovação da crítica tenha se transformado em vendas e dólares.

Mas a notícia liberada pelos executivos da Books-a-Million, mostra o tanto que o mercado de RPG está se destacando, ao ponto de ser mencionado como destaque positivo em uma conferência de uma rede milionária de livrarias, e que se tudo continuar assim, no fim das contas 2008 será lembrado como um ano muito bom para o mercado dos livros de role playing games.

Lifetime Achievement Awards to:

Gary Gygax presented by Kevin Kulp
Dave Arneson presented by Erik Mona
Erick Wujcik presented by Kevin Siembieda (Erick was presented the award in January in front of family and friends before he passed away).

Best Fan Product
Gold: DungeonMastering.com
Silver: FlamesRising.com

Best Art, Cover
Gold: Pathfinder #1: Burnt Offerings, Paizo Publishing
Silver: Scion: God, White Wolf Publishing

Best Art, Interior
Gold: Changeling: The Lost, White Wolf Publishing
Silver: Pathfinder #1: Burnt Offerings, Paizo Publishing

Best Cartography
Gold: Pirate’s Guide to Freeport, Green Ronin Publishing
Silver: DCC #51: Castle Whiterock, Goodman Games

Best Production Values
Gold: Changeling: The Lost, White Wolf Publishing
Silver: The Savage World of Solomon Kane, Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Best Writing
Gold: Changeling: The Lost, White Wolf Publishing
Silver: Trail of Cthulhu, Pelgrane Press

Best Rules presented by Mike Selinker:
Gold: Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition, Wizards of the Coast
Silver: Trail of Cthulhu, Pelgrane Press

Best Adventure
Gold: Pathfinder #1: Burnt Offerings, Paizo Publishing
Silver: Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, Wizards of the Coast

Best Setting
Gold: Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer, Paizo Publishing
Silver: Pirate’s Guide to Freeport, Green Ronin Publishing

Best Adversary/Monster Product
Gold: Pathfinder Chronicles: Classic Monsters Revisited, Paizo Publishing
Silver: Elder Evils, Wizards of the Coast

Best Supplement
Gold: True20 Companion, Green Ronin Publishing
Silver: Hollow Earth Expedition: Secrets of the Surface World, Exile Games Studio

Best Miniature Product
Gold: D&D Icons: Legend of Drizzt Scenario Pack, Wizards of the Coast
Silver: Dragon Tiles: Forest Adventures, Fat Dragon Games

Best Regalia
Gold: Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girls Guide to Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast
Silver: Hobby Games: The 100 Best, Green Ronin Publishing

Best Aid or Accessory
Gold: Pathfinder Chronicles: Harrow Deck, Paizo Publishing
Silver: Hero Lab, Lone Wolf Development

Best Free Product or Web Enhancement presented by 2008 ENnies sponsor, AvatarArt:
Gold: Pathfinder RPG Alpha, Paizo Publishing
Silver: Changeling Quickstart, White Wolf Publishing

Best Electronic Book
Gold: Book of Experimental Might 2, Malhavoc Press
Silver: Changeling: Fearmaker’s Promise, White Wolf Publishing

Best d20/OGL Product
Gold: Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition, Wizards of the Coast
Silver: Monte Cook’s World of Darkness, White Wolf Publishing

Best Game presented by Peter Adkison:
Gold: Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition, Wizards of the Coast
Silver: Aces and Eights, Kenzer & Company

Product of the Year presented by Peter Adkison:
Gold: Changeling: The Lost, White Wolf Publishing
Silver: Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition, Wizards of the Coast

Fan Choice Best Publisher presented by Peter Adkison:

The Gold winner is…Paizo Publishing
And the Silver winner is…White Wolf Publishing

Destaques, claro, para o Fan Choice Best Publisher, que foi para a Paizo e deve continuar assim nos próximos anos, e para o Product of the Year para o Changeling: The Lost da White Wolf. Estou esperando o post do Sooner, o especialista em White Wolf de plantão, falando disso no blog dele!

Erik Mona, cabeça da Paizo postou um relato obviamente animado sobre a performance da editora na Gen Con desde ano:

Gen Con is awesome. It really is the best convention of the year, and given how damn hard everyone at Paizo has been working to build toward this moment, it’s definitely a mile-marker for the year. In fact, as a publisher I tend to measure my years from Gen Con to Gen Con, as we always release the biggest products of the year at the con and I always get a chance to meet with old friends I only get to see once a year.

This Gen Con has been particularly sweet.

We sold out of our print edition of the Pathfinder RPG Beta Playtest Edition in 9 hours and 8 minutes. That means that we sold out of every copy we brought for all four days of the show one hour and 9 minutes into the second day of the convention. Not bad. Great, in fact. I couldn’t be happier. The audience is really embracing our take on the game, and I couldn’t be happier. The future seems more assured now than it has at any time in the last two years, since Wizards of the Coast decided not to renew our license to publish Dragon and Dungeon magazines and basically threw our company and my life into turmoil.

The debut of our Pathfinder Society organized play program has been a smashing success. We’re running 25+ 6-person tables every slot at the convention. On Thursday, in the first slot of the convention, I got a chance to run the very first scenario for a table including my old RPGA buddies Rick Brill and Joe Cirillo. Convention gaming used to be a major part of my life, but I’ve fallen away from it in recent years as my convention appearances have become more business-oriented. It was great to game with old friends, and I loved getting back into the swing of things.

Oh, and we kicked some serious ass at the ENnies, the major RPG industry awards. Here’s what we won:

1. Best Interior Art: Classic Monsters Revisited (Silver)

2. Best Adventure: Pathfinder #1: Burnt Offerings

3. Best Monster/Adversary Product: Classic Monsters Revisited

4. Best Setting: Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer (I am particularly proud of this one, as I wrote the book and basically invented the setting with able assistance from iuztheevil).

5. Best Aid or Accessory: Pathfinder Chronicles: Harrow Deck (illustrated by my friend and neighbor kyle_hunter).

6. Best Cover Art: Pathfinder #1: Burnt Offerings

7. Best Free Product: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Alpha (also by iuztheevil).

And the best award of all, the one I wanted most, and the one that makes the last two years of professional hell completely worthwhile:

8. Best Publisher: Paizo Publishing

Tomorrow we sell out of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting and bask in the glory of what may very well be the most successful showing by any company at the ENnies ever.

Life is pretty damn sweet right now.

Wow, assim como o básico de Forgotten Realms e o Player’s Handbook do D&D 4ª edição, o Pathfinder RPG Beta Playtest Edition também sumiu do estande da Paizo antes do fim do evento. Esses nerds da Gen Con estão muito frenéticos! O cara tem toda a razão para estar feliz e apostando que o Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting também vai esgotar, afinal a Paizo definitivamente subiu para o ranking das maiores e mais importantes editoras de RPG atuais.

• Scott Rouse is very confidant that the new version of the GSL will make third parties a lot happier, and they’re specifically using Clark Peterson (Necromancer Games/Orcus) as their bellweather of how friendly it is.
• According to Randy Buehler, the game table part of D&DI won’t be out until 2009, but most of the other applications will be out in some form by the end of the year. Bartoneus and I were pretty blown away by the functionality of D&D Insider, especially the character generator. Even the Compendium, which looks pretty sad on its own, gains a few levels in conjunction with the rest of the software. (Expect our
• Day 1 of GenCon: WotC sold out of Forgotten Realms Campaign Settings, Player’s Handbooks, and DM Screens. They replenished the first two on Day 2, but sold out of the Campaign Settings again within an hour of opening. We’ll have to check in on Day 3, the busiest day and the day people are most likely to buy, to see how their sales are going. I’d say that’s a pretty good indicator that GenCon folks, at least, are very into 4e.
• WotC takes very, very good care of the press, whether you happen to be a blogger, podcaster, or print journalist. Our treatment has been top notch.

As you can tell, we’ve been spending a lot of time on WotC/D&D stuff, which obviously this is their big show, and hanging out with RPG Bloggers only compounds our desire to play D&D. But we do plan on hitting a few other things tomorrow.

Tomara que toda essa animação do Scott Rouse sobre a GSL se converta em uma licensa usável. Até porque, por mais legal que o Clark Peterson da Necro seja, ele sempre foi um cara muito disposto a mudar para a 4ª edição, alias foi o primeiro a anunciar produtos para a nova edição, voltando atrás justamente pela aberração que era a GSL.

O game table do D&D Insider não me parece muito legal, sei lá, não vejo muito sentido em jogar sem meus amigos por perto, mas deve ser algo genial para quem esta impossibilitado pela distância ou incompatibilidade de tempo. Já o gerador de personagens deve ser bacana, ainda que o prospecto da Wizards nessa área seja terrível…

E as vendas, caramba! Esgotaram o básico de Forgotten Realms duas vezes, e os Player’s Handbooks logo no primeiro dia! O povo realmente caiu de cabeça na 4ª edição por lá, mas isso já era meio esperado dos jogadores hardcore. De qualquer forma é um belo indicativo que a 4ª edição está se sustentato muito bem em vendas apesar dos tropeços em outras áreas.

Joethelawyer (ótimo nick!), usuário da ENWorld, postou uma longa transcrição de uma espécie de reunião sobre os lucros da Hasbro ocorrida em 21 de Julho deste ano. A parada é longa o suficiente para eu não copiar aqui (mais exatamente 7996 palavras), e cheia de coisas não muito interessantes. Na verdade um dos pontos de interesse é justamente o fato do D&D sequer ser citado na reunião, mesmo esta tendo acontecido apenas algumas semanas após o lançamento da 4ª edição. As únicas referências a Wizards of the Coast são sobre o card game Duel Masters, que esta vendendo muito bem no Japão e a iniciativa digital da editora.. Outra coisa curiosa é a referência ao início das operações da Hasbro no Brasil.

Joethelawyer continuou o post com mais alguns trechos de conferências antigas, e novamente foi dito algo sobre o Brasil, especificamente em Fevereiro deste ano:

ARGARET WHITFIELD: In your comments, I think David, you were referring a lot to the full year numbers. Could you give me some color on why the operating profit in North America was down 22% but it was up 40% overseas?

DAVID HARGREAVES: Yes. I think in the U.S. in particular, A, we were trying to anniversary a very strong fourth quarter last year. I think what happened last year is that we ended up exceptionally clean in terms of obsolescence in terms of markdowns. In the fourth quarter of last year, we reversed some reserves. That said, this year also included a number of items of investment spending. We are spending against a start-up in Brazil, a start-up of our own company. We have certainly been — kept the advertising going throughout the full quarter in order to make sure we drove very clean retail position and we have also been investment spending in the Wizards of the Coast online initiative. So I think those were factors that meant the operating profit in North America were low in the fourth quarter.

E sobre a Wizards, sua iniciativa digital, Magic e o finado Gleemax:

AL VERRECCHIA: Good morning.

THOMAS RUSSO: Good morning. Al, actually, on the comments relating to the investment spending at the moment of Wizards, with their online offering, I’m curious as to how you will go about developing that product and whether it falls into the EA online relationship? And then speaking as well about your online activities in particular as it relates to the virtual world that others in the toy industry have created for their children audience with abundant chance for the kids to spend lots of ongoing money. What’s your role in the virtual gaming area and then also what’s your plan for spending the money on developing wizards?

AL VERRECCHIA: In terms of Wizards, let me start by — I think you know that Magic:Online has been up and running for a number of years now. Some of the money we’re spending is to improve that, the technology that supports that offering. And then we’re also investing in something we called Gleemax which was an online gaming site for people who not only play Magic but are really involved in gaming in general. It’s a site that will have — it’s more of a building a community of game players. There will be the opportunity to play games. There will be the opportunity to communicate with other game players. It’s a place where people can go, who are really interested in what we would call hobby or niche games. We’re spending a fair amount of money in that regard and that site’s probably, while it’s up now, will be continuing to add games and new features to it throughout the year. In terms of the virtual world for children, I’ll let David talk about the VIPs, which were recently launched and we’re starting to go nationwide with that.

É parece que muitas fichas estavam colocadas no Gleemax, embora boa parte dessas expectativas e investimento talvez possam ter sido realocados no D&D Insider e Magic Online. E ficou meio explicito que por maior que o Dungeons & Dragons seja dentro do nicho dos Role Playing Games, ele não é nada comparado a Star Wars, Transformers, produtos da Marvel e card games no que tange a renda da Hasbro. O que pode ser uma boa coisa, já que teoricamente é sinal de uma menor interferência da mega-corporação nos rumos do jogo.

E a entrada da Hasbro no Brasil? Procurei mais coisas sobre isso, mas meu google-fu não deu conta do recado. É extremamente improvável que isso tenha algum efeito em nosso mercado de RPG, mas ainda assim, será que eles começarão a vender brinquedos diretamente, sem serem licenciados pela Grow, Estrela e outras empresas?

E finalmente – alguém pegou algo a mais que o Capitão Óbvio aqui?

ICv2 Top Five CCGs (Collectible Card Games)

Pokemon

Yu-Gi-Oh!

Magic: The Gathering

Naruto

World of Warcraft

 

ICv2 Top Five CMGs (Collectible Miniatures Games)

Star Wars CMG

Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures

HeroClix

HorrorClix

Pirates

 

ICv2 Top Five Non-Collectible Miniature Games

Warhammer 40,000

WarMachine

AT-43

Hordes

Dark Heavens Legends

 

ICv2 Top Five Board, Card, and Family Games

Settlers of Catan

Tide of Iron

Ticket to Ride

Carcassonne

World of Warcraft

 

ICv2 Top Five RPGs

Dungeons & Dragons

Star Wars RPG

Warhammer Fantasy

World of Darkness

Scion

Na mais recente edição do guia impresso deles, ICv2 Guide to Games #46, é possível encontrar versões expandidas das listas assim como análises do mercado, mas infelizmente eu não tenho acesso a revista… Ainda. De qualquer forma eles resumem na matéria as vendas como positivas em geral.

The quarterly ICv2 market report on game sales in the ICv2 Guide to Games #46 reported gains in all games segments over-all, but particularly strong sales at mass, with sales of the Pokemon TCG, in particular, described as “on fire.” Retailers reported mixed results with some finding sales up and others describing a flat or sluggish sales trend.