Carbondale Eclipse Card

 In case you want to get an early start on your upcoming Eclipse festivities, we have a free "Carbondale Eclipse" Cards Against Humanity card. Just stop in and ask for one.

CAH Clones

 

1)      Cards Against Humanity clones. We’ve already seen a few of these. Crabs Adjust Humidity from Vampire Squid and Personally Incorrect from Lion Rampant come to mind offhand and I spotted several more either in development or already launched, such as Heebie Jeebies from Zipwhaa. The ones I saw all use the basic Apples to Apples mechanic of having players choose cards and a judge deciding which one is the “best” in anywhere from mildly to highly offensive combinations of cards. This indicates the approaching crest of the popularity of Cards Against Humanity.

 As I tell the students in my Principles of Marketing and Product and Pricing Strategy classes, every new product goes through the Product Life Cycle of Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. During the Introductory and Growth stages, the new product sees heavy demand (assuming the launch is successful) and double or even triple digit sales increases, much like we have seen with Cards Against Humanity for the past couple of years. 

A key marker of when a product moves from the Growth stage to the Maturity stage is the appearance of knockoffs and “me too” products. By this point in the original product’s lifecycle, other manufacturer have noticed its success, decide there is additional unfulfilled demand for it and come up with their own product to fill the perceived gap in the market. Unfortunately, this also means demand for the product has probably topped off and, while growth will continue, it will no long see the outsized increases of the past. Ergo, while we will still see respectable Cards Against Humanity sales, stores won’t see near the levels that they did in the past.

Who Prints Cards Against Humanity (and Other Games)

For those of you interested in the business side of the industry, the current issue of Business Week has an article on Art Magic, the company that co-ordinates the printing for games like Cards Against Humanity, Poop:  The Game and Exploding Kittens. I find it interesting that games is the number 3 category funded on Kickstarter, only exceeded by films and music. Of course, the games category on Kickstarter includes both tabletop and video games, skewing the numbers in terms of the games that people reading this are primary interested in.

A Glut of Games

By my estimate, there are some 70-100 new board and card and miniature and role-playing games released every month, meaning some 900 to 1200 new games to compete with the 1000s already on the market. How does a retailer, unless they have unlimited shelf space like Amazon, stock all of them and how does a manufacturer with a new game break through the clutter?  Given that, based on past performance, less than 100 of those games will still be around 5 years from now. it is unlikely that many will. The ones that do will do so by getting people to talk about them, either through secondary brand association through play or creation by a "celebrity"--Exploding Kittens and any of the games featured on Wil Wheaton's TableTop series come to mind- or bypublic awareness through both the  mass media and individual communications. Cards Against Humanity and Catan come to mind as examples of the latter.

Top 5 Games for Christmas

Based on our sales for 2015, these are 5 most popular games, in terms of numbers sold, for 2015. The list includes both board and card game, but no collectible ones:

1.  Cards Against Humanity--Cards Against Humanity LLC  "A Party Game for Horrible People"

2. Catan (and expansions)--Mayfair Games  The game of exploring and developing the land of Catan.

3.  Munchkin (and expansions)--Steve Jackson Games  "Kick down the door, kill the monster, steal its treasure."
4..Ticket to Ride--Days of Wonder  Collect the cards to build the tracks you need to win.

5.  The Resistance--Indie Boards and Cards  Uncover the spies among you before they sabotage your mission.

Store Philosphy and Product Mix

Every store is different. No store has the same product mix, target market or philosophy of business so what works in one store will not work in another.

Take Cards Against Humanity. It is probably the most in-demand game in our industry over the past 3 years. Some stores with which I am familiar view the game as vile and refuse to carry it, saying that to do so would go against their moral beliefs and counter the store’s positioning as “family friendly”.  Other stores say it is the most requested game in their store and that new customers, including families, come into the store daily looking for Cards Against Humanity and only for Cards Against Humanity. These stores have decided satisfying customer demand takes precedence. Each one believes they are right.

Take Yu Gi Oh! Several stores with which I have spoken dropped in store play for Yu Gi Oh due to problems with theft amongst players as well as well as cleaning up after them.  Sales of Yu Gi Oh there weren’t worth the hassle of dealing with in-store play. On the other hand, other stores either are willing to put up with the difficulty of dealing with in-store play or have lowered the “ban-hammer” on players to get them to straighten up (Of course, there are many stores that have no problems with Yu Gi Oh players at all, but as a group, they are the ones stores consistently report having difficulty with).

Take Role Playing Games. Save for the big two, Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder, RPGs sell very slowly at most stores. The ones that do well with them put quite a bit of work into the category, making sure the staff is familiar with them, stocking a wide selection, running regular demoes and encouraging in store play. It pays off for them. Other stores, however, look at the amount of work it takes to generate strong sales in the line and prefer to focus their efforts on only product categories. Once again, philosophy of the store influencing product mix and, through that, the target market.

In a mass market or chain store there is one overriding store philosophy directing  the decision(s) to add an item or items to the product mix. If you go into an Fatburger or Barnes & Noble, you will find the same offerings, no matter what store. Due to the diffusion of the retail side of the game industry, not so here.

Creating Your Own Category

As mentioned on Wednesday, the first way to create a successful product in a category already dominated by one or two other brands is to spend lots of money and time to try to push your brand ahead of the others. This is what WOTC tried to do with Kaijudo. Needless to say, this doesn't often work, as WOTC can now attest, both with Kaijudo as well as Hecatomb and Dreamblade (and Upper Deck with the Vs. TCG).

The other way to cause your game to dominate its category is to create your own category. Cases in point:  Dominion and Cards Against Humanity. Though to be accurate, neither company planned to create a new category, rather the game play did so.

Both games entered the very crowded board/card game category, which was dominated by games like Munchkin, in the straight hobby card game category, and Settlers of Catan in the hobby board game category.  Ergo, Dominion creates a new category, the deck building game and it becomes successful as shown by the number of deck building games that have hit the market in the years since Dominion released. Same thing with Cards Against Humanity. Yes, it is a risqué Apples to Apples knockoff, but it was a risque Apples to Apples knockoff that caught people's attention and created a new category into which other games (Personally Incorrect and Love 2 Hate come to mind) have moved indicating that these companies see this as a viable category.

In both cases, Dominion and Cards Against Humanity dominate their particular category, mainly because they are both good and have first mover advantage.. Unless superior games arise in the categories, both should continue to dominate their respective category and nether will have to fight to succeed in the much broader board/card game category. Create your own category and dominate it.