Board Game Arena boost has helped Splendor games surge to three million sales
Splendor, the gem collecting engine builder celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, has soared to three million sales across its various versions thanks to a hefty boost from its digital counterparts.
The Marc André-designed title was an instant hit on its release a decade ago, picking up a horde of nominations for awards including the Spiel des Jahres and As d’Or, and triumphing as Golden Geek board game of the year for 2014.
Those plaudits translated into 100,000 sales within the first year, according to data provided to BoardGameWire by publisher Asmodee and Lab4Games – the umbrella studio which comprises Splendor publisher Space Cowboys as well as Days of Wonder, Libellud and Repos Production – and sales of the base game had grown to one million units by 2020.
But those sales figures have doubled to two million since on the back of the game’s launch on BoardGameArena, which came two months after Asmodee bought the online board gaming platform in February 2021.
More than 6.4 million games of Splendor and Splendor Duel, released in 2022, have been played on BGA since, at a consistent average of 5,000 to 6,000 completed games per day, Lab4Games data shows.
Asmodee said those online games had “significantly contributed to game recognition” and helped boost overall sales – particularly for Splendor Duel, despite the digital implentation only arriving on BGA in February this year.
Splendor has now sold three million copies across the base game, expansions, and variants such as Duel and its reskinned Marvel and Pokémon editions – and those numbers are expected to keep growing, with the upcoming release of the expansions onto BGA likely to drive further sales of those physical products.
For context, runaway success Wingspan had sold about 1.9 million copies across its base game and expansions by the start of this year, having been initially release in 2019.
Asmodee is preparing for rising interest in the Splendor expansions by reintroducing them to the market in two separate boxes, rather than their previous incarnation as a single box of four expansions called Cities of Splendor.
The US market is unsurprisingly the largest individual source of sales for Splendor, at 43%, with France on 13% and South Korea – where Asmodee said the game had become something of a “social phenomenon”, and more well-known locally than popular games such as Uno – on 10%.
Asmodee said sales of the base game solely in the US are expected to reach one million copies after this year’s holiday season.
BoardGameArena surged past 10 million registered accounts last month following several years of rapid growth.
The online service’s operation has swelled since joining the Asmodee stable, going from about 250 available games in 2021 to more than 900 this year.
Thomas Kœgler, Asmodee’s former deputy COO who took over as CEO of the company earlier this month, oversaw the acquisition of BGA in 2021.
Asmodee is currently preparing to spin-off as an independent entity from owner Embracer Group, with the split planned to take place by April next year.
Last month Asmodee posted net sales of more than SEK3bn ($288.5m) for Q1 of the 2024/25 financial year, a 5% year-on-year drop, with Embracer blaming the lower performance of distributed games in Central Europe and the UK.
