Digital Board Games boost Sales of Physical Games

Two months ago we wrote about some of the fantastic family board games that have been made available in digital form for mobile devices like iPads, iPhones, and Androids. And one of our favorites to make the jump is Ticket to Ride by Days of Wonder.

One of the issues we talked about at the end of the article is whether digital board games would make their physical board game version obsolete. Our thoughts were that they wouldn’t replace the physical versions at all.

We don’t think that digital incarnations of great board games will kill the physical board game version at all. The big draw for physical board games and card games is the socialization. Getting together with friends and family is what it’s about. Grab a game off the shelf, sit down at the table and have a great time together pushing bits, shuffling cards, and rolling dice.

Well, now we’ve heard direct from the source what the digital version of board games have done for sales of the physical version. Eric Hautemont, the founder and CEO of Days of Wonder recently revealed the results for an article in The Penny Arcade Report.

We’ve loved reading about his perspective on why certain board games endure – like Monopoly. The simple reason is that people are familiar with it. They’ve been taught the rules by others and so it’s easy to pull out and play. And we’ve seen that a lot in our family and with others we play games with. The games they enjoy playing are ones that their either already familiar with or are taught how to play them by their friends. (Of course, it also has to be a great game.)

When the iPad first game out, Days of Wonder was the first game publisher ready with a digital version of their board game – SmallWorld. And it launched at the same time as the iPad did. And the results show a huge success. Not only was it extremely well received, but sales of the physical version of SmallWorld also increased 40%!

And with Ticket to Ride, the success has come again. When Ticket to Ride released on the iPad, sales of the physical version of the board game jumped 30%. Then when it released for the iPhone, sales of the iPad version shot up 400% and led to a 70% increase in sales of the physical version.

So what’s the trick? It was so affordable and convenient for people to purchase and play, that it was hard to pass up. And once people became familiar with the rules from playing on their device they were anxious to get the physical version to play with their family and friends.

Publishers have found that when people buy a game they love, they’ll buy it multiple times. And that seems to be true because we’ve done the same thing. We don’t have multiple versions of Monopoly like many families do (in fact we don’t have a single copy), but we do have expansions for many board games that we love – like Ticket to Ride and Smallworld.

And we know we’re not alone. When we wrote our article a couple months ago, we asked people if they also play digital versions of board games and an overwhelming 85% said Yes.

If you haven’t yet tried Ticket to Ride (in any incarnation), we’d highly suggest you don’t wait any longer – it’s one of the best family board games!