Thursday, June 3, 2010

List Making

As a retailer, I am a little obsessed with watching what other store owners are doing. Unlike your normal work environment, we generally work alone. Those little bits of knowledge and tradecraft you would normally grok by just being around people are hard earned on our little desert islands. Oh, you use 8x10 bags instead of 7x4? Genius! You can yell at UPS for not delivering a package during posted business hours? Amazing! When it comes to product information, this is no different.

There is no monolithic clearinghouse for new game information. Even the big distributors only carry a fraction of what's available. So we prowl forums and social networking sites and scoff at the various top lists that show up on occasion. There is scoffing, but there is also some analysis of what we might be missing. The list I've scoffed at the most over the years is the ICV2 list. Who are these guys? Where do they get their wacky information? You can go nuts trying to analyze these things, or go bankrupt thinking you can follow someone else's list.

Still, lists are intriguing, so in the spirit of oversharing, I thought I would compare the current ICV2 list to my own. It's as close as we've ever gotten to their listings, so it struck me as interesting. Feel free to discuss.

Top 10 Hobby Channel Collectible Games -- Q1 2010
# ICV2 BDG
1 Magic: The Gathering Magic: The Gathering
2 Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG
3 HeroClix D&D Miniatures
4 Naruto CCG Pokemon TCG
5 Legend of the Five Rings CCG Game of Thrones LCG
6 Pokemon TCG Naruto CCG
7 Star Wars CMG Star Wars CMG
8 D&D Miniatures Warhammer Invasion LCG
9 Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Axis & Allies CMG
10 Arcane Legions Heroscape



Top 10 Hobby Board, Card, Family Games -- Q1 2010
# ICV2 BDG
1 Settlers of Catan Dominion
2 Dominion Settlers of Catan
3 Ticket to Ride Space Hulk
4 Pandemic Dungeon Lords
5 Carcassonne Carcassonne
6 Mystery Express Pandemic
7 Ticket to Ride Agricola
8 Munchkin Thunderstone
9 Bang! Runewars
10 Agricola Memoir 44



Top 5 Roleplaying -- Q1 2010
# ICV2 BDG
1 Dungeons & Dragons Dungeons & Dragons
2 Pathfinder Pathfinder
3 Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Rogue Trader/Dark Heresy
4 Rogue Trader/Dark Heresy Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
5 Dragon Age Star Wars RPG



Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines -- Q1 2010
# ICV2 BDG
1 Warhammer 40k Warhammer 40k
2 Warmachine Warmachine
3 Warhammer Fantasy Warhammer Fantasy
4 Hordes Malifaux
5 Dark Heaven Dark Heaven