Steve Jackson Games Releases Stakeholder Report for 2023

Steve Jackson Games released their annual Stakeholder Report for 2023. As is is privately owned by Steve Jackson, the company report to shareholders as a corporation would but still releases the annual report to the public as they consider their employees, business partners, and customers to all have a stake in the company.

In summary, Steve Jackson games had gross revenue of $3.5 million and posted a loss for the year. The company’s TTRPG offerings GURPS and The Fantasy Trip both fell under the “Ehhh” category for products with GURPS having no physical releases for the year and The Fantasy Trip still underperforming in sales. The big sellers for the company were Car Wars and Munchkin Digital. The only failure listed for the company involved delays on an unannounced product.

Big perfomers for the year were the board game Car Wars 6th Edition and the digital version of Munchkin from Dire Wolf Digital. Both the company’s big tabletop RPG lines were listed under “Ehhh”, with GURPS having no physical releases and only PDF and POD offerings while The Fantasy Trip not catching on in the wider market despite continuing to “please its fans”.

Staffing changes also impacted the company with new CEO, Managing Editor, and Marketing Directors joining the company and some key personnel leaving such as ex-CEO Phil Reed and ex-Chief Creative Officer Sam Mitschke. At the year end, the company had “30+ full-time staff including contractors, plus a few part-timers”.

The report also comments on the state of the industry, calling it a “golden age for gamers, with more variety and sheer volume than ever before”. This comes with challenges as distribution issues continue despite lowered shipping costs as printing and shipping costs haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. Distribution issues meant schedules slipping with Q3 2023 releases not shipping until 2024 and retailers expressing difficulty getting product from distributors.

In summary, 2023 was a rebuilding year for Steve Jackson Games. Priorities for 2024 include ensuring the release schedule is met and “don’t get crazy about adding other things just because they would be neat”, designing a strong 2025 release schedule for new Munchkin products, and for the “Seekret Projekt” mentioned earlier as a “failure” for the company to be in shape for an announcement (not a release, just an announcement) by the end of the year.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Well, not good news but not terrible. Interesting window into the scale of business they're doing. Admit I'm surprised Car Wars is doing as well as it is for them, it hasn't caught locally at all and is up against a major thematic rival in the form of Gaslands. I'm an old fan myself but still didn't find 6th edition appealing, nostalgia only going so far.

Distribution issues meant schedules slipping with Q3 2023 releases not shipping until 2024 and retailers expressing difficulty getting product from distributors.

That is a massive understatement, and has been an increasingly serious issue since COVID. The existing distribution system is simply failing stores at this point, with overly conservative purchasing and stocking decisions leading to more and more lost sales to customers buying online, often direct from the manufacturer. It's always a struggle to convince people to buy in-store at this point to start with, but the distributors are making things so much worse. Easy to tell retailers they can just set up direct accounts with publishers for high-demand items, but the realities of shipping costs and juggling dozens of different accounts really don't make that a very viable approach to working around the big distributors' failings.

 

[EthanSental]

Glad they released the information. Being familiar with our company (600k employees) and the average cost of salary and benefits in the USA, that 31 employee base and just a rough average on the low side (for a U.S. company) of 100k for salary and benefits, they are already at 3M for employee costs alone. I doubt we’d see the actual line items like a yearly report since this was just a summary on their website but it’s interesting to see. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Von Ether]

Well, not good news but not terrible. Interesting window into the scale of business they're doing. Admit I'm surprised Car Wars is doing as well as it is for them, it hasn't caught locally at all and is up against a major thematic rival in the form of Gaslands. I'm an old fan myself but still didn't find 6th edition appealing, nostalgia only going so far.


That is a massive understatement, and has been an increasingly serious issue since COVID. The existing distribution system is simply failing stores at this point, with overly conservative purchasing and stocking decisions leading to more and more lost sales to customers buying online, often direct from the manufacturer. It's always a struggle to convince people to buy in-store at this point to start with, but the distributors are making things so much worse. Easy to tell retailers they can just set up direct accounts with publishers for high-demand items, but the realities of shipping costs and juggling dozens of different accounts really don't make that a very viable approach to working around the big distributors' failings.

I agree. Pre-pandemic, I was used to giving a small store an order for a product and getting it in my hands by next week . Now I hang around a bigger store and everything takes at least two weeks now. And in a hobby where impulse buy is king, that can be a killer.

I backed the Car War Kickstarter and for a while it seemed like its late delivery killed it as a retail item. But as I brought it to the game store and people saw it being played, it got attention. It didn't hurt the game store owner was also a KS supporter. Now everyone wants me to organize events. Sadly I don't have time as I run two ttrpgs and have a life.

Different drummers, different beats. I enjoy the new game quite a bit, as well as Gaslands (though the game does not run as quickly as you think it does.) And I remember my tiny black boxes back in the day and ran a massive Midville game with the huge map taped down on the floor.

You can't be more 80s than imagining the origin story to your Car Wars driver while listening to Genesis' "In the Air Tonight."

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I agree as I was used to giving a small store to request a produce and it getting filled the next week pre-pandemic. Now I hang around a bigger store and everything takes at least two weeks now. And in a hobby where impulse buy is king, that can be a killer.

That's if the store can get it at all. I've repeatedly run into absurd situations where the distributors will claim things are unreleased or out of print to cover the fact that they didn't bother to order an item at all in the first place, or refuse to restock no matter how many retailers are asking. Being blithely told that Masks is out of print or that Pelgrane Press doesn't ship to the US anymore when thirty seconds online shows up the lie is beyond infuriating, and that's just two examples.

Glad to know someone's doing well with Car Wars, but it's a shame it didn't happen around here.

 

[Abstruse]

Glad they released the information. Being fast Ila it with our company (600k employees) and the average cost of salary and benefits in the USA, that 31 employee base and just a rough average on the low side (for a U.S. company) of 100k for salary and benefits, they are already at 3M for employee costs alone. I doubt we’d see the actual line items like a yearly report since this was just a summary on their website but it’s interesting to see. Thanks for sharing!

This isn't a formal report like the ones required by publicly traded companies. This is just Steve Jackson deciding on his own to share company financial information so that people who rely on the company to continue to exist - the employees who work for it, the stores and distributors who sell their products, and the customers who purchase the products and back the crowdfunding campaigns.

So you're not going to get a full budget or breakdown or anything like when Hasbro releases quarterly or annual reports unless the company wants to release that info. The only other company I'm aware of that voluntarily releases info like this was Evil Hat, who used to do it quarterly but hasn't since last year.

 

[michaeljpastor]

This, along with Mongoose's "State of.." reports are great to have. It really helps those who are looking at the state of the industry. Do any other companies do this, even if they don't have to?

 

[michaeljpastor]

This comes with challenges as distribution issues continue despite lowered shipping costs as printing and shipping costs haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. Distribution issues meant schedules slipping with Q3 2023 releases not shipping until 2024 and retailers expressing difficulty getting product from distributors.​

Not having a real clue about printing and distribution on the publisher level, but between covid snags, blocked canals and regional conflicts and the high costs and lags incurred with international shipping even without all that, I'm wondering if the RPG industry could investigate adopting a "go glocal" movement. Contracting with regional printers (North America, Europe, Asia, whatever) to print and distribute their books. No clue what size print runs it would take to make it a viable model, but at least it cuts on time and the environmental footprint.

Just an idea.

 

[Paragon Lost]

In my opinion SJG just doesn't know what to do or where to go and how to market it and it's felt that way since the mid to late 1990s. I also felt it was an error on Steve's part to pass on the Fallout crpg using GURPs. Ah well, I dislike seeing them do poorly.

 

[MGibster]

In my opinion SJG just doesn't know what to do or where to go and how to market it and it's felt that way since the mid to late 1990s. I also felt it was an error on Steve's part to pass on the Fallout crpg using GURPs. Ah well, I dislike seeing them do poorly.

SJG pivoted away from RPGS and leaned heavily into table top games like Munchkin, Zombie Dice, Frag, Chez Geek, etc., etc. which I think was a wise move on their part. Even if 2023 was a bad year, they're still making games.