In our hobby community everything seems to be geared towards online sales. But how important is the friendly local game store (FLGS) to the hobby anyways?
Hasbro exceeded expectations when they released their Q4 and Full Year 2016 reports recently. Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast, which makes games such as Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, is extremely reliant on the hobby channel.
80% of sales for Wizards of the Coast were in hobby channels and local game stores, that’s a huge number.
But what does this mean? How important is the mom and pop business that many of us have grown to love? The online market has definitely grown, but when a company such as Hasbro puts out that their overall sales and gaming were up 11% in Q4, it makes you wonder where the majority of product is being sold.
Should companies such as Games Workshop, Fantasy Flight, Privateer Press, and Kromlech focus on getting their product out through the hobby channels a little more? 
If a big company such as Hasbro is coming out and saying 80% of their sales come from hobby stores where would you focus? From these number you could say that our hobby community as a whole is growing across the board.
More and more people are looking for outlets to get out from behind their computer screens, and having a game you enjoy that let’s you do just that seems like a great solution.
What are your thoughts? Where should these big companies focus their sales? The online community or the local game stores? Let us know in the comments below.
