Over 80% of game retailers are experiencing increased sales in 2015, according to the results of a new survey conducted by ICv2 in the run-up to the holiday season.  Asked about the 2015 trend for their business, over 30% said sales were up over 10%, and over 50% said sales were up from 1-10%.  Only a little over 10% of game retailers reported flat sales, with single digit percentages down 1-10% and none down over 10%.

This is a much stronger positive sentiment than is held by comic retailers, for which we reported survey results yesterday (see "Comic Retailers Confident about Customers, Concerned about Publishers").

Like comic retailers, nearly two thirds of game retailers chose "consumers/fans" when asked what part of their primary business gives them the most hope for the future.  The positive retailer sentiment about the ultimate purchasers of games is a promising indicator of potential future growth.

The next highest number of choices when to parts of the business that make the products retailers sell.  Over 15% of game retailers chose "publishers/manufacturers," and around 10% chose "creators" when asked what part of their primary business gives them the most hope for the future.

There was little agreement on the sources of concern about the future, with five parts of the game business getting choices within a narrow range.  Publishers/manufacturers was the #1 source of concern for game retailers, chosen by around 25% of respondents.   This was around half the percentage of comic retailers that chose publishers/manufacturers as their greatest source of concern, reflecting more confidence about suppliers in the games category.

Consumers/fans, "other," and distributors/wholesalers were each chosen by around 20% of game retailers as the part of the business that caused them the most concern, with almost all of the "other" respondents describing some form of online competition, also a source of concern for a significant percentage of comic retailers.

Survey respondents were recruited via multiple channels (ICv2 email, editorial, and advertising) during November 2016.  To qualify for this sub-group, respondents had to self-identify as retailers and describe games as their primary business (biggest category in dollars).  Given that the sample is self-selected and relatively small relative to the size of the population, it may differ significantly from the actual situation for game retailers as a whole.

Click any image for larger view or see the graphs in the gallery below.