Economics and Reasoning : Entertainment

What does working in a hobby store teach you about the economics of gaming?

Mark-Up

One of the virtues of the board game is simple; you sit face to face with your opponents and get the rouse of personly backstabbing them. It gives you a highly personal expierence over other similar experiences. For example :

1. Playing a video game is almost a solo activity if done over Xbox Live or the sort of items.
2. Watching TV/Movies is pretty much solo IF you want to hear it :).

Video Game Economics
But lets look at the economics of the above. For one a video game costs millions of dollars to produce, they provide an limited gaming expierence and cost $50 when they are first produced. However they are reduced usally down to about $10 after a few months. The COST of the item has been paid for by this situation; thus the logic says it most likely will not sell. At least in the video game industry.

TV/Movie Economics
TV/Movies last about thirty minutes to two hours and are not highly repeatable. Yet they tend to cost $10-80 depending on what one is looking for. They cost millions to produce but are distrubted in a fashion where the cost is easily distrubted.

Boardgame Economics
Yet a boardgame, an object that takes more close design then the above. Is produced for much less, and provides more entertainment in the long term costs more $ to make. A game will be sold from the publisher for almost $25-30 per game; a good price. To the production side this will give them a more or less a double amount back profit wise. The components and royalities on a game will usally not equal a high cost. This has many reasons; for example most games are created in a less formal environment, handed off to a company and then designed. Given the average amount of items on a game board compared to the average items in a video game however, plus the less specific art style shows that most people would spend less time; and thus less money in production. H

The Problem
A solution to our problem is simple; distribution. In a 10 mile area there will most likely be a 4-1 distrubition of board game sellers to other entertainment designers (Wal-Mart/Kmart etc sells boardgames so this makes up for a LOT of this estimate.) Since its harder to find a good deal of these items in the stores they continue to get hidden away. Economies of scale usally walk up on the idea of board games, it also builds upon the idea of the economies of scale being more or less misproportioned to the amount of mechanimes required to send a game from point X to point YU.

-Alex