The Relative Popularity of Tabletop Games Companies on Facebook

[eldargal]

I thought it would be interesting to look at the popularitiy of the major tabletop gaming companies based on their Facebook pages. I got the idea while pondering whether I should sign up for Facebook in order to like GW and FW myself

A disclaimer, I am in no way claiming this represents any kind of accurate image of the respective companies actual popularity, this is merely looking at their facebook pages and the relative number of fans/friends they have:

1. Games Workshop (http://www.facebook.com/gamesworkshopofficial) 41,101 Likes as of 2:58PM 16/09/2011.
2. Forge World (http://www.facebook.com/ForgeWorldUK) 11,074 Likes as of 2:59PM 16/09/2011.
3. Privateer Press (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Privateer-Press/74721417049) 8739 Likes as of 3:01PM 17/09/2011.
4. Mantic Games (http://www.facebook.com/manticgames) 3405 Likes as of 3:02PM 16/09/2011.
5. Malifaux (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Malifaux/119460228073782) 779 Likes as of 3:04PM 16/09/2011.

All times are GMT. I was originally going to list GW and Forge World together but I felt that would be misleading.

Please don't read more into this than is stated, it is hardly a scientific survey. I was going to add Spartan Games but they only have a fanmade page with 98 likes to it hardly seemed valid. Feel free to link to other companies pages but please follow the above format of hyperlinked name, number of likes and time and date you checked the number of likes.

[Wildeybeast]

Forgeworld on it's own has more likes than PP? GW's dominance isn't going away just then yet. Is there any way of knowing how long the pages have been up for - might give us more of understanding about how representative these figures are.

[DrLove42]

Forgeworlds page has only been there 2 months or so....

Guessing PP has been there for longer than that...

3 days ago FW only had 10,000 something... so they're gaining at a good rate

[Lane]

Fortunately for GW there is no option to Dislike on Facebook.

[dvs1]

Doesn't GW count dislikes as likes also? Its not the same thing!? :confused:

[Mike X]

I was originally going to list GW and Facebook together but I felt that would be misleading.

You mean GW and Forge World?

[gwensdad]

But Eldargal, how do we "like" you? ;)

Anyway, I noticed Wyrd Miniatures (the parent company of Malifaux) actually has 1000* likes (as of 8pm EST, 9/16), that's a better representation of the company than just the game. Still, a bit surprisingly low.


*(hmmm...now 1001 because I just "liked it")

[scadugenga]

Hm..seems like social media is pretty much mirroring realworld popularity--at least in order of relative (perceived) popularity.

If you do join FB, Eldargal--please don't get sucked into the vapidness of FarmVille, and all the other nauseating cutesy life-sucking games of that ilk.

I couldn't even bring myself to try the FB Dragon Age game...

[whitestar333]

I'd be curious to see a location breakdown of each of the company's respective fans. I anticipate that PP has almost exclusively US fans, whereas I'm sure GW and FW have sizeable international numbers that PP might not (considering WM/H is not translated into any language other than English, IIRC).

I also anticipate GW has few fans in Oz anymore (too soon?)

[eldargal]

Quite, fixed that, thanks for pointing it out.


You mean GW and Forge World?

As I said this is is not a scientific survey of the various companies popularities, all it is indicative of the strength of their Facebook fanbase. Which would probably give some indication of their relative popularities but I would be cautious in reading too much into it.

I had a little look at GW Australia store pages and they all had likes in the low to high hundreds, there doesn't seem to be a seperate GW Australia facebook page.

[mikethefish]

Fortunately for GW there is no option to Dislike on Facebook.

Heh. True story.

[Lane]

The numbers may also be influenced by GW's policies. IIRC store operators are required to encourage customers to 'like' them on FB.

[whitestar333]

The numbers may also be influenced by GW's policies. IIRC store operators are required to encourage customers to 'like' them on FB.

GW also has the advantage of having their own stores, whereas Privateer Press, Mantic, and Spartan products are only accessible through independent retailers. Another thing I would be curious to glean from such data is the age demographic of the fans (and perhaps in general instead of just facebook 'likes'). It has been my experience in my local meta that the older generation of gamers have tended to flock towards Warmachine/Hordes, while the younger crowd generally plays 40k. I'd be curious to see if that was true elsewhere or if it's just my meta. If that were the case, it'd be interesting to see how many between 16-25 'like' things on facebook (more popular in that age range) compared to those aged 26-40.

All in all, I think PP having ~20% of the number of fans as GW* is a huge deal, considering the age and size of the company. Also, GW has the advantage of multiple iconic game systems. Yes, PP technically has Monpoc, but it's not really that popular and a very specific (again, older generation) fanbase.


*I do not consider Forge World fans to add into this number because it is basically just a luxury line for GW. Anyone who's a fan of Forge World is likely to also be a fan of GW. I think most hobbyists will still consider the 'company' a separate entity, despite its acquisition by GW.

[eldargal]

It gets really complicated when you start saying well such such a company has 20% of the fanbase of GW because GW have dozens and dozens of FB sites and PP has one, so there may be plenty of people who have liked their local stores page but not their national page, or they liked their national page but not their local page etc. Likewise it could also mean a lot of the GW likes are from the same people, we just don't know. It is why i'm not comfortable in saying things like 'PP are doing better than we think because of the number of likes!' or 'Mantic is doing worse because they only have a few thousand likes!' and whatnot.:)

Likewise with FW, there are plenty of people who buy only FW armies and not GW armies for various reasons. It is almost cheaper for an Australian to buy a Krieg army than a regular plastic Ig army for example, and then there are people like the chap in my games club who has 20,000pts of Krieg but never buys GW products (except throgh FW). How many of those votes double up, we just don't know.

[DarkLink]

It has been my experience in my local meta that the older generation of gamers have tended to flock towards Warmachine/Hordes, while the younger crowd generally plays 40k.

Disposable income's why.