The Force is strong with this one.

In my previous post on licenses I made reference to the popularity of Star Wars within the hobby.

Star Wars is one of those properties that has serious longevity and is consistently establishing new fans to enjoy the games by publishers such as Fantasy Flight Games.

What caught me by surprise today is that ICv2 have released some market performance information around the success of games in the Non-Collectible Miniature format during Summer 2013.

These numbers are taken from independent stores in North America and doesn’t include Games Workshop stores in that mix.  The numbers show that the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures game outsold Warmachine, Warhammer Fantasy and Hordes.  Now there are no numbers published to give market share or anything like that but seeing the game selling so well in comparison to the stalwarts of that format is surprising.

Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines – Summer 2013
Title
Publisher
1
Warhammer 40k
Games Workshop
2
Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures
Fantasy Flight Games
3
Warmachine
Privateer Press
4
Warhammer Fantasy
Games Workshop
5
Hordes
Privateer Press

Mind you looking back at my post on bias/snobbery in the hobby I had managed to determine that the market for Warhammer (both games combined) was something in the region of 1.5 Million players worldwide.  So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that a game which gives fans of Star Wars the opportunity to play games of starship battles or maybe it’s more a reflection of the size of that format as a whole but either way it was a surprise to me to find X-Wing as the 2nd most popular Non-Collectible Miniature game of the Summer.