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| How big is the "Wargames Industry"? - it's hard to know. |
Over at Shed Wars there is an
interesting post about the estimated size of the Wargames Industry.
This is a subject which various people have tried to address over the
years, and the guesses (and that is truly what they are) have been
all over the place. That is no fault of those who are doing the
guessing; there is really very little hard evidence to base a
judgment upon, and what data and evidence exists is subject to
varying forms of interpretation. There is always an American view, a
UK-centric view, and a global view—all of which may read the data
from a slightly different perspective.
The Shed Wars post does differ slightly
from many similar estimations in that, while it does look at the
possible number of gamers, its real point is to illustrate the
potential size of the industry in dollars. Starting with a
guestimation of how many hobbyists are on line—which is admittedly
very difficult, if not impossible a task, it moves on to project an
annual industry spend based on an average annual amount per-person.
The estimation of approximately $200 (converted from UK pounds) may
or may not be valid; there is really no way of knowing. Some
wargamers spend practically all their disposable income on the hobby;
others may go for a year or two spending nothing at all—especially
when life's “distractions” pull them away from the hobby for
extended periods of time.
This latter point is another reason why
basing any kind of projections on TMP registrations is sketchy, since
the site has been online for so long, there are probably a high
percentage of visitors who have registered years ago and have long
since left the hobby for other pursuits. As a result, it's hard to
know how many of these registrants are “active.”
Indeed, the available data
that the post offers seems to point in all different directions. TMP
registrations seem to indicate that there are 5000 members based in
the UK. And yet the UK's largest game show, Salute, drew over
10,000 visitors. Some quick geographically-based calculations and
projections provide a final estimation of about 50,000 hobbyists in
the UK, and a simple “double-that” for the USA. Again, using the
$200 per person spending level, a $180 million worldwide market is
projected.
Interesting, but again—because the
data that the calculations are based upon is suspect and conjectural,
the results must be as well. This is revealed again at the end, when
released global sales figures for Games Workshop of $240 million are
given; it is then argued that Warhammer players are of a very
different sort and that their numbers and spending must be counted
separately from historical wargamers, with the result that the GW
sales total is simply added onto the original $180 million – for a
global total of $420 million.
Again, going back to the very beginning
of the calculations, I would ask—yes, but how many of those TMP
registrants were 40K and fantasy gamers, at least on a part-time
basis? I would guess a significant number—as a look at many blogs
makes clear, a number of dedicated historical wargamers also may
dabble in GW and other fantasy realms from time-to-time (Warhammer
Historicals, anyone?). Even taking this lightly into consideration,
the overlap between the two markets makes it clear that claiming
absolutes in this area is not highly recommended.
In the end, what we are left with is an
admirable attempt to make sense out of the meager and suspect data
that we have available. I believe there are flaws in some of the
calculations and assumptions—but in the end, while we may disagree
with the exact final tally, I cannot dispute the final verdict:
“So
we are not really a big market – we are very niche. To put it into
context the UK sells around £700m worth of bananas a year.”
Yes.
Exactly. Well said.
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