Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Pokemon TCG sales up in 2005

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GymLeaderPhil

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ICv2 News has reported that it was another year of declining sales for most game retailers. Except for Pokemon. It'll be interesting to see how much of an impact Pokemon will have in Minatures this year.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/8407.html

2005--A Tough Year For Game Retailers
Hobby Dollars Drop 15%

March 23, 2006
Last year was a tough go for most game retailers with three of the four categories we track down substantially from 2004. ICv2 estimates that dollars in the hobby channel declined about 15% in 2005, hardly a heartening performance, but the 2005 drop-off was significantly less than 2004's decline of 20%, and a strong 2005 holiday season kept the year from becoming a total disaster. One distributor told ICv2, "Over-all, I think it was the holiday season we needed to see for a lot of stores." The lone bright spot in the games market was the Family/Board Game category, which posted a nearly 18% gain for the year.

Other categories were not so fortunate -- collectible card games declined substantially and from the head down as the categories aging top performers, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic, both dropped and new entries in the highly competitive market failed to get much traction.

There were some bright spots. Magic's second-half release, Ravnica, performed much better than its predecessor, the Kamigawa block; and Pokemon and Comic Images' CCG version of the Energizer Bunny, WWE, maintained some momentum; but ICv2 now estimates that the overall CCG market in the U.S. is around $450-$500 million versus our perhaps too generous estimate of $800 million in 2004.

Sales were also down for miniature games, with drops in sales of both CMGs and un-painted miniatures. While there were some success stories such as Privateer's War Machine, ICv2 estimates that the category declined about 25% in 2005.

Role-playing games are the smallest category we cover and RPGs continued a pattern of steady decline thanks in large part to the success of online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft and City of Heroes. The one sector that prospered in 2005 was the Board Game and Family Game category, which was aided by a very strong fourth quarter performance.

In the Retailers Guide to Games #9, ICv2 also released its rankings of the top ten games in each category. Here are the top five in each:

Top Five CCG Properties
1. Yu-Gi-Oh!
2. Magic: The Gathering
3. Pokemon
4. Versus
5. Legend of the Five Rings​

Top Five Miniature Game Properties
1. Pirates of the Spanish Main
2. HeroClix
3. Star Wars CMG
4. Dungeons & Dragons
5. MechWarrior​

Top Five Board Games
1. Settlers of Catan
2. Carcassonne
3. Ticket to Ride
4. Axis and Allies
5. World of Warcraft​

Top Five RPG Lines
1. Dungeons & Dragons
2. World of Darkness
3. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying
4. Green Ronin
5. Mongoose​

For info on how to get your copy of the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Games #10, which contains much more market information see "ICv2 Releases Retailers Guide to Games #10."
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Very good news,

now we should congratulate ourselves since it is us that help that ;D


long live Pocket Man!!!
 
I always bring my 20 sided dice everywhere, even while at starbucks with friends, i roll them to see if i get +5 INT or +3 SPD.
 
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ColdFire64 said:
Well that is good news, considering that PUI will be increasing the scholarship amounts to Nationals next year as one attempt to make more people try to attend Nationals, while making Worlds harder to get into (no grinder next year either). With the Gym Challenge structure being slightly different (and being named something else) next year too, it also looks like more Worlds invites will be given out for each GC event. Those are the newest updates for the 2006-2007 tournaments for now.
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Uhhhhh...WHERE are you getting THIS information?

'mom
 
ColdFire64 said:
Talk to your PTO...
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Sounds like your PTO may have awfully loose lips and may be just pulling your leg or possibly wrong. NOT that I know anymore or less than you. JMHO

Keith
 
Yea! :biggrin: thats is very great news

ColdFire64: no grinder for 2007? hasnt the grinder been there since worlds started? (well from what i know) ... i dont see why that would change ... i thoulght i just read that the grinder will be cut top 8 this and next year too? (from in another topic - maybe i should re-read that)
 
That would speed up PRs, but remove that section of ranking by POP (Limited). IF the number of invites to Worlds increase next year, I am all for that and more scholarships is always welcome! As long as we still have something that is fairly local to many "gyms" that have invites as prizes, I will like that. Not too worried about the Grinder, although it was an interesting tourney in 2005, to say the least.

Keith
 
I've been talking to a number of retailers who have told me that their sales from Christmas till now have been very, very strong - due in part, they so, to an incredible resurgance in Yu-Gi-oh.

Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:

ColdFire64 said:
  • No grinder in Worlds 2007.
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That would be an incredibly bad idea, IMO
 
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ColdFire64 said:
no grinder next year either
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Sounds great. The last chance qualifier is one event (not separte events like Gym Challenges, distributed somewhat fairly throughout the World).

It is biased towards people who live in California and rich people. Wealthy people can pay hundreds of dollars to travel to California to play in an event that they have to have straight wins in in order to have a chance (1/64, I think) to win at Worlds. What a waste of money (but if you're rich, it doesn't really matter...). It also happens to be a little too convenient for people who aren't rich and but happen to live in southern California.

The last chance qualifier was a bad idea to begin with, I won't miss it. In a organized play program that is all about fairness, I don't see why they would give us an event that is so extremely biased in favor of rich people and Californians.

We already have "last chance qualifiers": Gym Challenges, and that is enough.
 
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In my opinion, the grinder was only a good idea when they needed a way to fill the spots of people who wouldn't show up. Tacking trips onto most all invites and limiting it to a strict 8 (or 16 in case of 10-) defeats it's purpose. It's no longer necessary. So, I guess I wouldn't be sad to see it go and just have more qualifiers in it's place.
 
In defense of us from the West Coast, there were only 8 of 256 UNDEFEATED players let in after 5 rounds of totally random pairing. It also isn't like it doesn't cost us money to attend the event too, still gotta pay for hotel and gas from anywhere not in the remote area, remember California is the 3rd largest State in the U.S. By your guys' logic, it would be unfair to put Nationals in Ohio every year, as that gives out 8 TRIPS+Invites for 11-14 and 15+ to Worlds, and there's only 3 opportunites on the entire West Coast to earn a paid trip there (roughly 1,000 miles from Seattle to San Diego). As for Worlds itself, if there is no Grinder planned for 2007, maybe that means that Worlds will be out of the U.S., just a thought.
 
March 31, 2005
ICv2 has released its 2004 market reports in the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Games #7, and the over-all market for CCGs, miniature games, board and family games, and roleplaying games was weak in 2004. Some segments were down 25-50%, but the damage was mitigated by the fact that the worst hit segment was the smallest part of the smallest category. ICv2 estimated that the over-all U.S. and Canada market for trading card games was around $800 million at retail in 2004, down a bit from the $850 million number in 2003. Miniature games were estimated to be roughly stable at around $200 million, with some piece declines offset by higher retail prices. Board, family, and card games were up around 5% last year, with the hobbyist board games that sell primarily in game and book stores up 10% or more. Sales of roleplaying games were down 15-20% in 2004, to around $25 million retail. Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf bucked the trend; almost everything else was down a lot. ICv2 also released its top ten lists in all four game categories based on sales over the prior three months; here are the top five in each:

Top Five TCG Properties
1. Yu-Gi-Oh!
2. Magic: The Gathering
3. Versus
4. Pokemon
5. InuYasha
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http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/6654.html

Thus POKEMON is climbing in Rankins VS is dropping. Confirming that the game is here to stay.
 
Kevin89 said:
Why wouldn't there be a grinder then?
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Because it wouldn't be accessable to many people. While it's not really a huge deal to drive/fly across the US for the hardcore traveling groups having it out of the country literally reduces it to 8 spots for the host country. Which is obviously like a Super-Nationals for them compared to what they had already. :x Especially in the 11-14 and 10- which don't have as many travelers without 15+ companions.
 
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