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The market for board games is booming. And four St. Gallen player-inventors are hoping for their second hit.
Stefan Weisskopf, Fabian Engeler, Pascal Frick and Pierre Lippuner are the people behind «Frantic». The card game from St. Gallen appeared in 2015 and was a surprise success. The rules of the game are reminiscent of the world bestseller “Uno”. It’s also about getting rid of your cards as quickly as possible. But there are various special cards with which the players can make life difficult. Small deviousnesses are the hallmark of the game.
Legend:
Stefan Weisskopf (left), Fabian Engeler (center) and Pascal Frick (right) play a round.
SRF / Mario Pavlik
More than 100,000 copies have already been sold in Switzerland and around 200,000 worldwide, the player finders explain. At the largest Swiss online retailer Digitec Galaxus, “Frantic” is currently at the top of the list of the most popular games, ahead of “Uno”.
“Nevertheless,” says Pascal Frick, “you can’t make a living from it, but it’s enough that we all now work 10 percent in our company and can pay ourselves a small wage.”
In the games market, the numbers are pointing steeply upwards. Alex Hämmerli, spokesman for Digitec Galaxus, describes the growth in sales of board games in 2020 as “unprecedented.” It was up to 270 percent for them. This year the increase is currently 23 percent.
Switzerland-wide trend
This trend can also be observed at the Swiss Toy Association. Last year, total sales in the Swiss toy market climbed to a record level of 515 million francs. Dolls, action figures, toy blocks, but also board games and puzzles were very popular.
Legend:
Gaming is in, as can be seen in the sales over the past few years.
SRF / Silvio Liechti
“The group of games and puzzles make up 15 percent of sales,” says Sandro Küng from the Swiss Toy Association. For this year too, he expects significantly more sales. “The games and puzzles category has grown the most so far.” In the first three quarters this category grew by almost 33 percent. “That is enormous,” says Küng.
The games and puzzles category has shown the strongest growth so far.
The pandemic certainly played a role. Less traveling, less going to events, more being at home. “Being at home with the family has a new value, consuming entertainment, but not watching TV or gaming,” that is probably the explanation for the boom.
Development could also have fueled demand
The «Frantic» inventors have also given some thought to why games are so popular. Stefan Weisskopf suspects that it has to do with a counter-movement to video games. Instead of sitting alone in front of the computer, many would like to be together again on site. “Analog games are very useful here,” believes Weisskopf.
Pascal Frick thinks that board games complement computer games. But the gaming culture was not as recognized in the past as it is today. “At the same time, the game market has developed, there are a lot of games for very different target groups.”
Legend:
“Frantic” is the most popular game at the largest Swiss online retailer.
SRF / Mario Pavlik
The four game developers recently released their third game. With “Jetriko” they now want to build on the success of “Frantic”.
Even if the game market is growing, no one paid attention to the publication of the latest work, says Pascal Frick. Take time to play a new game until it works and is good. “It’s not that it has to be published now just because games are selling well,” says Frick, that is not her goal.