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"Reducing print runs" is a regular theme in this report, with SJG having a greater reliance on Kickstarter in 2018 to determine print runs ahead of a game's production, while also opening a second "Warehouse 23" account on Kickstarter to handle projects that would be sold directly to gamers and not enter distribution.
Reed says that the main trend from 2017 — i.e., the game-publishing business becoming "more a periodicals business", as covered in this March 2018 BGG News post — only accelerated in 2018:
Quote:
If 2017 was the year for new games, 2018 was the bigger, louder sequel. Thousands of new titles were released in 2018, with some coming and going so fast that even professionals missed the release. Many of those games got pushed to the clearance racks faster than ever before; during the winter holiday sales, some games released as recently as September were already on deep discount.
As he writes elsewhere in the report: "This is an industry-wide issue; we've discussed the problem with several of our friends, and most of us are watching as demand for new games continues to drop."Note that the games category includes video games, playing cards, role-playing games, game-related calendars, and many other items beyond board and card games.
• I thought that I had posted this video already, but alas I had only placed it in a post-to-come. I have many such incomplete posts saved in this blog, yet thankfully sometimes I rediscover forgotten material that is still relevant. In this case, we have two videos from YouTube creator Archipel, with the focus of their videos being "Japanese creators, artists, and the places that inspire them".
In November 2018, Archipel posted its first video in a new series titled "Hidengen", which apparently means something like "analog". These videos will feature graphic designer and game designer YACOYON talking about and interviewing people about the board game scene in Japan. The first video focuses on board game cafés, specifically Asobi Café (which I don't think is connected to publisher ASOBI.dept) and Jelly Jelly Café (which is related to publisher Jelly Jelly Games):
The second video, which is what led me to re-discover the first one, appeared in late March 2019, and it profiles those behind game publishers Arclight, Oink Games, and Ten Days Games:
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