2005 Guild of Blades Unit Volumes

[guildofblades]

Hi All,

I see some other companies have been posting their 2005 sales figures and thought I would offer up the Guild's 2005 numbers as well. Since our accountant laid these in our hands a few days ago, I can finally do something with them. I have listed two columns for each game, one for direct sales and the other for wholesale sales. It is important to remember that wholesale sales means any game solf by a 3rd party, so while we do not do business with distributors anymore, it includes retailers we sell to, online merchants, affiliates sales and the few consignment deals we run. Wholesale ranges from 15% off to 60% off. Also, I have lumped together out of print product liquidations and PDF sales into their own little categories rather than separate them item by item.

Title____________________________________MSRP____Direct____Wholesale

The War to End Wars 2.5 Ed.                          $34.95         335              62           
The Great War in Africa 2.5 Ed.                        $24.95         72               57
North American Upgrade Set 2.5 Ed.                $19.95          53              38
Rise of the Red Army 2.5 Ed.                           $34.95         91               49
WWI Extra Army Upgrade Set                          $11.95         60               32
The Spanish Civil War 3rd Ed.                          $14.95         142              45
The Battle for the Falklands 2nd Ed.                 $14.95         115              54
Arab Isreali Wars                                            $19.95          87               33
The Trojan War                                               $15.95         120              46
Rome's Greatest Foe: 2nd Punic War               $14.95         117            51
African 30 Years War: Chad vs Libya                $14.95          58               28
Pantheons: War of the Mythos                          $9.95           63               32
Europe 1483 2nd Ed.                                       $44.95         151              40
Africa 1483 2nd Ed.                                         $27.95          80               35
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 1                       $6.49           32                8
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 2                       $6.49           30                8
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 3                       $6.49           27                8
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 4                       $6.49           27                8
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 5                       $6.49           27                8
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 6                       $6.49           27                8
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 7                       $6.49           27                8
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 8                       $6.49           27                8
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 9                       $6.49           14                0
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 10                     $6.49           14                0
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 11                     $6.49           14                0
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 12                     $6.49           14                0
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 13                     $6.49           14                0
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 14                     $6.49           14                0
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 15                     $6.49           14                0
Europe 1483 Extra Army Pack 16                     $6.49           14                0
Africa 1483 Extra Army Set #1                          $9.95          45                8
Africa 1483 Extra Armies: Tribals                       $9.95          19                2
Beyond Hadrian's Wall                                      $5.49         312              99       
The Vietnam War                                             $4.95          282             103
Barbary Coast War                                           $4.95          290              88
Battle of Thermopylae                                      $4.95           341             142
Battle of Midway                                              $4.95             0               64
The Nitrate War                                               $4.95           234              80         
Coral Sea                                                        $4.95           189             75
Jutland                                                            $7.95            24              32     
Empires of History Magazine Issue #1                $12.95          22               6
Risk: Over the Trenches                                    $21.95          72              29
Over the Trenches: 5-8 Player Expansion           $13.95          50              14
Overlords Fantasy Battlescape Wargame           $44.95         144            167
Overlords 2 Player Game Set                             $9.95          109             44
Overlords Monster Pack AAA                             $5.95           44             16
Overlords Monster Pack BBB                             $5.95           39             16
Overlords Monster Pack CCC                             $5.95           39             16
Overlords Monster Pack DDD                             $5.95           39             16
Overlords: Healers & Berzerkers Pack AA           $5.95           32               9
Overlords: Healers & Berzerkers Pack BB           $5.95           32               9
Overlords: Healers & Berzerkers Pack CC           $5.95           32               9
Overlords: Healers & Berzerkers Pack DD           $5.95           32               9
Heroes Forever RPG Core Rules                       $11.95          163             42
Heroes Forever Starter Box Set                         $27.95          30              39
Heroes Forever: Handbook                                $13.95          68              25
Heroes Forever: Equipment                               $13.95          71              25
Heroes Forever: Magic                                      $13.95          74              21
Heroes Forever: Weapons of the Ages                $7.95           55              25
Heroes Forever: Charlemagne's Knights              $3.95           41              18
Button Wars Demo Pack                         $.99              0              12
Button Wars 2 Player Starter                       $6.95          268             32
BW: Folklonian Empire Button Pack #1             $5.95          161             17
BW: Folklonian Empire Button Pack #2             $5.95          161             17
BW: Earth Alliance Button Pack #1                $5.95          162             17
BW: Earth Alliance Button Pack #2                $5.95          161             17
BW: Elvesfferan Federation Pack #1                $5.95          161             17
BW: Elvesfferan Federation Pack #2                $5.95          161             17
BW: Thrash Empire Button Pack #1              $5.95          161             17
BW: Thrash Empire Button Pack #2              $5.95          161             17
BW: Quo-Ti Button Pack #1                     $5.95           88              12
BW: Quo-Ti Button Pack #2                     $5.95           88              12
BW: Quo-Ti Button Pack #3                     $3.95           51              12
WHAT Fantasy Quest Game 1.5 Edition          $54.95         116             19

Out of Print Product Liquidations:        $780
PDF Revenues:                     $2231
Advertising Revenues:                 $120
Accessory Sales:                                 $1,487

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com

[Luke]

Impressive. Which, if any, of these are rpgs?

-L

[guildofblades]

Heroes Forever is our only in print RPG line right now.

We previously had the WHAT Customizable RPG and Dark Realms Role Playing Universe as RPG lines. Both were discontinued a few years ago. Dark Realms 2nd edition is a purely PDF line now. The WHAT RPG will be eventually come back first as a PDF line, then eventually in print. Launching a new RPG line now in the industry is pretty tough and for it to gain the level of success we want, well, we're waiting until we can provide it some unique support and marketing options that we're just not capable of doing presently.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com

[MatrixGamer]

You all have been busy this year. Hats off to your work ethic!

Chris Engle
Hamter Press = Engle Matrix Games

[guildofblades]

>>You all have been busy this year. Hats off to your work ethic!<<

Thanks Chris. But its a bit misleading. All of those products are not recent releases. The oldest product in our current in print propduct list was a 1999 release. But I have been publishing since 1996 and much of our creative content has been slowly added to each year since then. With the exception of two product lines and a couple stray products, we haven't taken much our of print. Just released new and improved editions as our production capabilities improved and we refined the existing work.

We've released somewhere between 5 and 30 new titles a year over the years.

The problem we have run up against with having so many titles available is that is meant a major shift in marketing focuss. There are a lot of titles we have that could be getting much better sales, but frankly we lack sufficient time to market them with the attention they deserve. Instead we've had to select core product or flagship games for a given product line and mostly push those, hoping that the other titles in the line will pick up sales as customers browse our site.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ryan,

Very cool. Thanks for sharing your data.

Most of your titles sell 3x or 4x better direct, but a small few sell better wholesale. Any thoughts on why Battle of Midway, Jutland, Overlords Fantasy Battlescape Wargame, and Heroes Forever Starter Box Set sell better wholesale than they do direct?

Paul

[guildofblades]

>>Most of your titles sell 3x or 4x better direct, but a small few sell better wholesale. Any thoughts on why Battle of Midway, Jutland, Overlords Fantasy Battlescape Wargame, and Heroes Forever Starter Box Set sell better wholesale than they do direct?<<

Hi Paul,

Well, Battle of Midway is an easy one. That product is sold exclusively by retailers we have signed up to our "Point of Purchase" program. We don't sell it any other way.

For the Heroes Forever Box Set, I *think* I understand that one. The Heroes Forever books are not large books. Core rules about 90 pages, the various sourcebooks about 112. Comic sized in trim. Retailers like the box set because it shows up more on the shelf. For consumers coming to our website, they seem to either want to true the system out with just the core rules, which are pretty cheap, or they want to go hog wild and they buy the package deal off offer there, which is the whole line. The Starter box is nothing but the core rules, equipment book, a results chart, D12 and about 20 character sheets in a box. No new material.

Overlords...thats a bit of a unique case. We have a couple retailers that just seem to be able to move a lot of it. One of them is a major out if print dealer with a large customer base. Overlords was designed as a sort of variant on Titan. So when people come to that retailer looking for Titan, which is pretty darn hard to find, he suggests Overlords instead. A few retailers in general who deal with out of print and used games sell Overlords far better than the average store and apparently, better than our own web page. But our own web pages are seriously in need of a cosmetic face lift, which is something I've been working towards the last couple of months with my free time.

Jutland...Jutland didn't officially release to this month. Its not even for sale on our website yet. No product page, etc. But we've been selling it through our wholesale channel since mid December. The only direct sales that we've shipped we for those who pre ordered it. I'm sort of behind schedule on getting it listed on the website presently....gotta dot hat one of these days. lol.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com