Which game types sell best?

The games that sell best are the ones that get into the big stores (ToysRUs and WalMart). Those are either kids games - Candyland, Ludo, Snakes and Ladders etc. - or the "classics" - Monopoly, Risk, Clue(do) etc.
The other ones that sell well are tie-in games, although they are mostly the usual suspects as well: Star Wars Monopoly, Lord of the Rings Risk, Harry Potter Clue(do) etc.
Cranium did well because they hit upon a unique marketing strategy, which was to sell through a different outlet.

In the US (and the UK), "games" are played within families, mostly at holiday times. No-one wants an intellectual exercise so they stick to what they know or can easily handle. Thus party games are big sellers at holiday time but generall very ephemeral, with only a few reliable "brands" surviving each year. New spins on classic games appear each year but generally don't get reprinted. Apples to Apples may break this pattern if it is lucky.

In Europe (and Germany especially), gaming is slightly more popular as an entertainment form (although still not as huge as you think.) Thus the mainstream shops stock Settlers and Carcassonne as well as Monopoly and Risk. This helps their sales but still only to a limited extent.

So the basic answer to your question is that no games sell well apart from Monopoly et al. Some party games sell exceptionally well but usually through fluke (Trivial Pursuit) or clever marketing (Cranium). Strategy games will never sell hugely: it's a specialist hobby, which is why you have to go to a specialist shop to buy them :)

The reason we all talk about strategy games, however, is that there are things to talk about! There are mechanical structures, rules of play, interaction concepts, production elements etc just in the design process, and then there are the actual strategy and tactics of play to be discussed too. You simply can't do that with a party game.

Americans are slowly breaking out of their shells, but it isn't really the game business that is the problem, but the fact that Americans on the average are getting more and more use to doing things on their own, or instead of using their imagination, they prefer for others to do that for them (i.e. watching movies.)

I believe I heard that Monopoly is mostly bought as a gift, so I wonder if people still play it. A couple months ago, I bought a monopoly party game for my gamecube, which allows all players to take their turns at the same time. I actually like this game a lot, because on the average games take anywhere from 30 mins to an hour to play. It would be interesting to see other games get made like this. However I'll probably never play the actually board game for Monopoly again.

I think the mainstream market for strategy games is untapped. I can see strategy games in Wal-Mart someday. Hopefully by the end of the decade. Even if it's just one or two, it could open the door to the others.

-Steve

However, as a basic design exercise to see if there's any mileage in the above idea, take the board layout and roll and move aspect of Snakes & Ladders and add a layer of strategy, e.g. a set of action cards (Torres, Basari) or action points (Torres, Tikal).

Maybe that has to be the first step, to design a roll and move but strategy game, to get Walmart to sell it. But, probably more than anything, you need name recognition. Or if there is no name recognition the theme is the next thing people are going to look at. It won't matter how good a game is, if it is based on chemistry or something complex. The public want something they know and something easy. Unfortunely, most of them realize that there is better games besides monopoly which not only are funner, but are a lot shorter (does monopoly or risk ever last shorter than 2 to 3 hrs?)

And I think that is the problem. If people knew about the games that are being produced and that they are easier to learn than monopoly, play faster, and are funner, I think they would be bought much much more. Advertising is everything. Unfortunely none of companies have the money to advertise the games enough to let America know that they exist.

Hasbro has something to do with that too. Sometimes I wonder if they purposely try to suppress the newer games so that they can fill their pockets from the older ones.

Grendel makes some interesting points about Walmart. In fact over the past couple months I've been contemplating whether if and when the time comes, would I choose to put my game on the shelves of Walmart, Target, Kmart, or other discount merchants. At the moment I'm actually inclined to say that I wouldn't. Obviously the shear volume of games that could be pushed through Walmart is what makes it appealing, but as Grendel astutely points out, you'll choke the independents that got you going in the first place. What happens when you introduce another game that isn't immediately picked up by Walmart? Will local game stores across the country be real enthused to promote your game if they think they're going to get hosed again in the long run?

One of the big issues in the toy industry at the moment is the brand dilution created by Walmart in particular, but others such as Target as well. It's been written about quite a bit in industry pubs over the past year or so. The presence of product on Walmart shelves, although appealing to manufacturers in the short term because of the volume of product moved, and appealing to consumers because of reduced prices, actually cheapens product brands in the long run. Nerf, Monopoly, HotWheels, Cranium are all affected. The name has less meaning, less value in the long run and won't likely command a premium price for new introductions no matter how good. Prices drop (and in some cases quality drops, both physical and intellectual) and strength of brand goes with it. Perceived value in the short run perhaps goes up a bit because price drops fairly significantly. But in the long run, the quality of the brand goes down. Everyone can now have these product, whether they get played with or not.

Chip

for my part i wasn't talking about walmart or any other particular retailer... i personally HATE walmart and their horridly evil business practices...

i was talking about the larger publishers and the public at large no matter where they buy their games...

i'm sure there is somewhat of a connection between these things and the retailers but that's not what i'm talking about.