Stonemaier Games, a publisher and developer of such board gaming blockbusters as Viticulture, Charterstone, Scythe and Wingspan, has offered a detailed breakdown of how well each of these games has performed in terms of sales across digital and physical channels.
Stonemaier Examines Digital and Physical Sales of Board Games
Often subject to speculation and some Luddite fear, Stonemaier Games has decided to settle the matter and use hard data and compare how some of the best games the company has developed compare across both platforms. Viticulture has been able to sell 234,826 tabletop hard copies, with 23,119 sold digitally. The game was developed by Digidiced.
Charterstone, another prominent legacy game, has 97,500 sales at the time of reporting in physical copy and 37,713 copies in the digital version developed by Acram Digital. Then, there is Scythe which has been able to sell nearly as many copies across both media – 544,102 copies in physical form and 535,000 copies in digital form.
Last, but not least, there is Wingspan, which has proven an absolute hit with 1,688,037 physical sales and 674,000 digital sales across the board. The numbers are interesting in many ways. Noticeably, though, Viticulture seemed to sell the fewest digital copies, somewhat proportionate to the smaller interest in the physical game as well.
Scythe definitely has proven a successful game when comparing its transition to the digital realm. The physical game was released in 2016 but the digital game has quickly caught up since it was released in 2018, proving that the tabletop experience is equally gripping across both the in-person and digital versions.
Cross-Selling Potential Visible in the Numbers
One data that is not immediately clear is cross-sale, and to what point one has spurred sales in the other. Would Wingspan fans who have discovered the game consider it worth buying it to show to their friends and even introduce them to the tabletop hobby? Conversely, would people who have physical copies also decide to purchase the digital game as well?
In certain cases, this could work. Some games, such as Through the Ages tend to be a little smoother and less fiddly when played in their digital variants. Yet, the love for board games remains rooted in the physical space. Digital copies do not seem to be a threat. If anything, they help drive the hobby forward or so Stonemaier Games’ data would suggest. You may find a more detailed breakdown of these numbers at Stonemaier Games’ offcial webiste.