Borders of Destruction
As you have no doubt heard already, the US big box chain Borders, unable to find bidders, has announced plans to liquidate. To compare the scale of the 11,000 jobs lost, the US economy added only 18,000 jobs last month. As the creative destruction from the final collapse of an unsustainable business structure ripples outwards, the rest of publishing will take a big hit. Publishers will be left holding unpaid invoices. Competing retailers will experience a slump as buyers divert their book dollars to liquidated product. This in turn will lead to other unpaid invoices, and so on. The book sector operates on thin margins and under shudders under the stress from systemic changes. These range from the rise of Amazon to the consumer adoption of e-readers.
To the extent that the hobby game business is a niche product sold through niche venues, it should remain largely insulated from the aftershock. The caveat lies in publishers’ exposure to Borders in particular and the mainstream channel in general. The bigger you are, the better your big box presence, the harder this will hurt.
However, all of hobby gaming remains vulnerable to the aforementioned liquidation effect, where money that would have gone to retailers and direct sales is instead spent scooping up books sold off by closing Borders locations.