By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 11/30/2015
by Xavier Lancel Welcome to a new analysis of the Marvel sales. Reminder: I’m French, that’s why I’m talking funny. Please adress your complaints to my all-over-the-news country. Reminder: these sales numbers are estimates of sales to comics shops situated in North America. American comics do get sold somewhere else in their original floppy edition. […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/23/2015
In past years Milton Griepp’s ICv2 site hosted an industry event the day before NYCC. This year they’re scaling back a bit with an invite only happy hour event. PR: ICv2 has announced that it will be hosting an invitation-only event for business professionals, the ICv2 White Paper Happy Hour, on Thursday afternoon, October 8, […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/2/2014
ICv2 will once again hold a conference the day before New York Comic-Con officially kicks off, on Wednesday, October 8th. This year’s conference has a timely theme: “The New Comics Customer” — given all the quickly changing demographic info we’ve been seeing in the last 12 months, this should be a lively one. (Disclosure: The Beat is a sponsor of the conference.)
ICv2 has announced that its 2014 Conference, held in conjunction with New York Comic Con, will be called “The New Comics Customer,” and will focus on the dramatic changes in the comics audience that are transforming the business.
“The audience for comics is changing rapidly, in ways that present the greatest opportunities for the medium since the 50s,” ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp said of the topic. “New channels, formats, and content are reaching new customers, and the phenomenon appears to be growing by the day. This year’s conference will look at these trends and where they’re taking the business, with speakers from the forefront of the change.”
The ICv2 Conference: The New Comics Customer will be held on the eve of New York Comic Con, Wednesday afternoon, October 8th, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/19/2014
ICv2 has a new report on the size of a market, this time the hobby game market—games like Magic, Warhammer,various card capture games, D&D and so on which he estimates as being a $700 million industry — not far below the comics industry size of $870 million. : Here’s the pr:
Pop culture experts ICv2 released today the results of their study on the hobby game market and it shows that the North American market totaled $700 million at retail for 2013. Breaking down the estimate for the total industry by category shows that collectible games was the largest at $450 million; miniatures second at $125 million; boardgames were third at $75 million; card and dice games fourth at $35 million; with RPGs coming in last at $15 million. “Hobby games” are defined as those games produced for “gamers”and are most often sold in the hobby channel or game and card specialty stores, but these items are not limited to sales in that market.

ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp commented, “A $700 million market is a significant geek culture market segment. With the growth it’s been experiencing, a billion dollar market is within reach in the next few years, and hopefully this kind of industry analysis will help us get there. I cannot thank enough the industry insiders who helped us compile these estimates. Without their willingness to speak frankly with us about their own estimates of market size and the reasoning behind them, we would have been unable to complete this project.”
The hobby game industry remained strong in the Spring season of 2014, according to information compiled by ICv2. In collectible games, WizKids’ Dice Masters was the red hot and hard-to-find item due to high demand. Magic: The Gathering led the pack, but not as strongly as previous seasons. Boardgames continued to grow with support from hard core gamers and an influx of mainstream gamers coming over from other markets. The heat in the miniatures category came from Star Wars X-Wing and Star Trek Attack Wing, with any extra space filled by anticipation of the new edition of Warhammer 40K. The big news in the Card and Dice Game category was high interest and quick sell-out of both Boss Monster and Adventure Time Card Wars. The largest change overall in the RPG category was the failure ofDungeons & Dragons to hit the Top 5 list for Spring, before the release of the new edition. This change is a first in ICv2′s decade long history of sales reporting on the hobby game industry.
Dan, I don’t think Xavier is calling the new ASM a failure. He calls the title itself “successful.” I think he’s speaking to the diminishing returns of the constant relaunches the industry seems to be experiencing. Now that’s not a new argument, but it is an argument that the industry seems to be ignoring right now.
An Amazing Spider-Man #1 that sells fewer copies to stores than a Spider-Gwen #1 from just a few months earlier is a disappointment. Trying to pretend otherwise is kind of silly.
Mike
“the ASM #1 from last year (which was the first “ASM #1 in 25 years”
Dan Slott needs to check his dates, or his math. The Howard Mackie/John Byrne relaunch was in late 1998. But then, it is hard to keep track with all of Marvel’s renumbering…
Sorry, Carl. You’re right. Was typing too fast. I used “25 years” in an earlier post elsewhere and that was still on my mind.
*17 years.*
Still a good stretch of time though.
MBunge, I am nothing but impressed with Jason & Robbie’s success on Spider-Gwen, whether it’s their success out of the gate with Edge of Spider-Verse #2, the launch of Spider-Gwen #1 earlier in the year, or the relaunch of Spider-Gwen here. It’s a phenomenal team with a phenomenal take on the character. They deserve all the kudos and high sales they’re getting.
People can come up with whatever metrics they want to try to slam the current ASM book. Doesn’t faze me. We started out roughly in the low 50K zone. Over the course of 6 years we bucked industry trends and got our sales to go up. By the start of 2013 we regularly had both issues in the Top 10. And we’ve pretty much stayed there to this day. What’s silly is to try to paint that as a disappointment in any way.
There’s a good chunk of carry-over data missing (For example: ASM should have RYV and the previous series attached to the data), as well as several of the percentage calculations.
But I think the better comparison vis a vis ASM might be #2 — in May ’14 ASM #2 sold ~124k, compared to ~111k here, or about 10% down. That, I think, clearly shows the diminishing return of the constant industry-wide relaunches.
-B
Yes, I’ll put back those Spider-man numbers back. with all those relaunches and SW mini interruptions, the back numbers can look a little messy. i’ll try to clean that up a little.
Opps, catch a mistake: that’s Mark badger in the Dr strange collection comment, not Mike, sorry about that..
And Dan, I don’t remember ever saying that ASM was in disarray or that I slammed the book. As Alex pointed out, I even said several times that the normal sales on ASM is quite high and very good and that the Spider-Man franchise is at higher level in years. But calling the #1 relaunch an amazing success, I’ll not say that. It can’t be all praise.
And who cares about the TOP 10 positions? Sales numbers are what’s important. A title with less tahn 100K can be number #1 on month and would have been # 12 once month before. that’s not important.
And big thanks to Alex for his editing and the rapidity whith which he did it!
I’d say the same carryover data also for Iron Man, and probably Inhumans. You’re missing % changes on Spidey ’99 #2, 1602 Angela #4, and Figment #2. Since that is Figment *2*, ‘d also probably add historical carryover from series 1, were it me.
But that’s nit-picking )
-B
Dan Slott thinks the last ASM #1 was boosted by the movie ASM2? If you want to talk about poor sales, that thing bombed domestically and led to the entire film series to be rebooted again. Not sure he really wants to associate that thing with his book.
Not sure why he doesn’t want to be satisfied with the fact he produces a generally good and high-selling monthly title. Whining over diminishing returns is quite petty.
Skottie, I’m not saying ASM2 boosted sales. We came out right before anyone had seen it. I’m saying that the millions and millions of advertising dollars that plastered Spider-Man’s face around the world– JUST when we releasing a new AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 played an ENORMOUS amount into the sales of that first issue. That climate got my dumb face on TV for interviews– and on Page 3 of the Daily News. It got the “triumphant return of Peter Parker” in the comics ONTO the news, in magazines, and all over. And a LOT of that was due to the HYPE of a big screen movie that was coming out. That’s not rocket science. :)