Post Pandemic Retail

I recently watched an interview from Metatopia titled Retail Insight on Pandemic Product Planning. The panel was hosted by Avonelle Wing, interviewing Jennifer Ward of Crazy Squirrel Games, and Scotia Buchan of A Muse N Games.

It’s an interesting watch, with a lot of nuanced insight covering everything from seam placement on shrink wrap, box sizing, retail playtesting, microchip shortages, and more.

I want to highlight a couple of items that stand out to me – as marking shifts within the industry.  

Cyclical vs Secular Trends in Gaming

In finance (and economics) there is an important distinction between cyclical and secular changes. Cyclical shifts are tied to an economic cycle, whereas secular shifts are a more endemic and long term structural change.

It’s the difference between brick-and-mortar retail sales slowing because of a recession (or short-term disruption), versus slowing because of a structural growth in online sales.

Let’s take a look at a couple of trends that Jennifer and Scotia highlighted.

Fulfilment Uncertainty

We just put in a giant order for the holidays, and got an invoice for 20% of what we ordered. It’s unclear if orders will get fulfilled. - Jennifer

Demand for things we can’t get has gone through the roof. Now there is [no supply] and I am not getting what I pre-ordered. But, every once in a while a publisher will come through and I’ll get the full amount I asked for, and I am like “oh, no, I expected this in 4 waves.” - Scotia

From freight backups, to lack of microchips to repair long haul trucks – the supply chain is a mess. While the surface problem is cyclical – meaning that eventually things will normalize, some of the fallout could be more structural.

Both retailers highlighted the importance of communication from publishers and noted that they are being more selective with the publishers they work with, especially for pre-orders.

Order sizes necessitating scale is also driving higher selectivity of games. An ability to sell a game to retail buyers may be more important as stores may be less likely to take a fly with small quantities.

Sell Your Game

A big thing for me is – I have a hard time taking on new publishers without a lot of advance warning and some good playthroughs. – Scotia

With employee shortages, retailers are having a harder time having adequate staff to have experts on every game. They need easy ways to teach their employees your games, and gameplay cheat sheets.

Supply chain disruptions (necessitating lumpier orders) are compounding the situation. Retail stores are increasingly selective with games they are ordering, and especially pre-ordering. This puts an increasing onus on publishers to educate retailers about their games, and make the decision to pick up your game as easy as possible.

In function, this could mean hosting retail playtest sessions, making sure your distributors have sell sheets, and providing easy teach content to stores.

The Games We Play

During lock down and the pandemic there was a focus on solo and 2-player. We did a lot of choose your own adventure, and roll and write. Party games became non-existent. – Scotia

We do a ton of roleplaying… You can roleplay online easier than tabletop games. Painting became huge, indie RPGs are doing better, and solitary games – people are still being careful. – Jennifer

As a small publisher I am not looking to chase trends – we just want good games that fit our wheelhouse. But, it is interesting to watch how gaming preferences shift over time. Is a shift towards RPGs, solo, and dueling games a cyclical effect of the pandemic, or is it a more persistent secular change?

What secular shifts has the pandemic brought on in the way you think about gaming and games publishing?