Get In The Game is a weekly column by Dan Yarrington, managing partner of Myriad Games in Manchester & Salem, New Hampshire, Treasurer of the Professional Game Store Association, and Editor-in-Chief of GameSalute.com.  This week, Yarrington looks at the positive trends in the game industry and asks how to keep them going.

Welcome back to Get In The Game, a column that explores proactive ways we can improve the games industry.  After several weeks off for vacation and business travel, we're back!  This time we look at the recent indications that the tabletop games industry is growing.

Boom!
Gen Con, which took place August 4th - 7th reported the highest attendance ever.  ICv2 has been reporting continued growth in sales of tabletop games at the same time as comics sales are declining steadily.  Boxed games make up the largest portion of sales growth for tabletop games and they’ve been on the rise for well over a decade now.  So what do we do with this boom?  How do we take advantage of this time of growth to not only increase sales per store, but to grow the presence of the hobby overall?

Observations From A Crowded Room
I spent five days at Gen Con Indy last week, talking with publishers, distributors, retailers, and consumers about what excites them.  After dozens of interviews, meetings, candid discussions, and thoughtful conversations, the central theme is that of uncertainty and optimism.  There are tons of great games out there, but no one is really sure what makes a great game sell.  There’s some consolidation (see Filosophia's purchase of Z-Man Games), there's some new blood from existing clients (Lego taking a hefty step into the tabletop games market), some losses (see Nexus Games), and some new companies doing outstanding new products that rival the quality of vastly larger companies (see Clever Mojo Games).

What We Have
We can boast of lots of enthusiastic folks in this industry, a ton of awesome products, and lots of chaff floating around clogging up capital.  We're comprised of myriad independent companies with similar concepts as far as promotion, product development, and sales techniques.  We have a diverse portfolio of titles as well as a wide range of quality for both production and content.  While some large companies have sizable marketing budgets, there are many more mid-size companies with meager marketing budgets, and mostly tiny companies with virtually no marketing budget.  The industry survives and thrives on the efforts of volunteers who run events, conventions, stores, and games all throughout our local communities.

What We Lack
We are woefully deficient in information infrastructure for relaying, filtering, and leveraging product details.  Without a comprehensive database, updated continually, we’re doing everything at our best guess.  Those with many years of industry experience make slightly more educated wagers, but we're guessing all the same.  We don't know what products are selling best right now.  We don’t even have a central source for what products released this month or this week.  We lack a refined understanding of the underlying elements of what makes some games sell fabulously and some falter.  We also lack a compensation system that supports an expansion of high-quality full-time talent.  And of course, as an industry, we are persistently under-capitalized.

What We Need
We need comparative tools to help stores find the best products for their customer base.  We need a proactive preorder system that incentivizes involvement and investment from all tiers of the industry.  You're starting to see this through crowd-funding projects (through Kickstarter, Rocket Hub, Indie Go-Go, etc.) but those have primarily been consumers directly purchasing from publishers.  We need a system that brings our local industry hubs (stores in most markets) into the product evaluation and support cycle earlier on.  We need tools and services to help harness and expand on the enthusiasm of dedicated fans.  We need more publishers willing to scrap games that are just "good enough" rather than flood the market with a raft of "ok" titles that will just end up being blown out at bargain prices in a year (Heroes of Graxia and Guardians of Graxia, I'm looking at you).  We need to free up capital to allow publishers to promote their products better in existing markets and expand their reach to new customers.  We need to build and refine a system that fosters steady, sustained growth, and we need to start now!

Talk Back!
What's the best way to grow the industry?  What do we most need to expand?  What are you seeing in your neighborhood?  Chime in by Saturday the 20th and you'll be entered in to win a Free Game!  Tell me now by Talking Back! today!

What are you waiting for?  Get In The Game!

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.