GeraldIf you’ve ever wonder how big (and the growth) of the board game market worldwide, a peek at Kicktraq might provide a good glimpse into the industry.
Board games have been enjoying a steady growth ever since the advent of Kickstarter and one of the biggest beneficiaries of the surge has to be Cool Mini or Not, or CMON, as they are more popularly known these days.
If you’re outside of the community, you’ve probably not heard of them but might have heard of their biggest title – Zombicide.
Tucked in a suburb just outside the city centre, the new CMON Play Singapore store is the company’s very first physical store in the world.
One would think the store would only sell CMON titles but this couldn’t be further from the truth. While a good amount of games sold are products from CMON, there are quite a handful of other board games from other publishers to be found here.
Despite the variety, there was only one thing on the minds of the folks who travelled all the way down on the opening day. A good amount of gamers were walking out with A Song of Ice & Fire: Tabletop Miniatures possibly buoyed by the success from Game of Thrones.
A large number of folks who checked out of the CMON Play Singapore store with full armies meant that the community is probably going to see a nice upsurge in the following weeks.
Quite a large number of patrons pretty much had a shopping list of products to grab and it was a good opportunity for everyone to pick up some exclusives along the way. Out of all the games, it would appear that apart from A Song of Ice & Fire, Rum & Bones together with Arcadia Quest also saw quite a fair bit of interest as well.
While most might be familiar with playing games on a regular table, it was awesome to see dioramas of CMON’s trending titles.
We wouldn’t say they setup is entirely practical, but one cannot deny how cool the Rum & Bones looks when two pirate factions are battling each other side by side.
The same could be said about Arcadia Quest as well. One cannot deny how cool it is to have proper structures and landscapes to bring those battles from your imagination into real life!
No proper board game store would be complete without awesome tables to game on. CMON Play Singapore has two floors of tables available for folks to gather friends and spend an entire day (and night) gaming.
With CMON’s physical presence locked down, a community member asked if there would be proper game nights and kits available soon for fans. After all, such exclusives are what most board gamers look out for these days. The ability to get hold of unique cards, miniatures, or even game components not available from retail is a big appeal to the community.
Without skipping a beat, David Doust, who will be leading CMON’s push into Asia, said, “Game nights and community kits are something that we will be promoting in the months to come and we do hope to have everyone in the community to join us.”
Clearly, this was something many in the store was hoping in hear as David’s remarks were met with resounding applause.
Boardgaming is by far one of the most affordable hobbies out there but prices have a large influence especially with price sensitive Singaporeans.
Unsurprisingly, with the presence of retail, comes the effect of showrooming. Having spoken to David prior to the opening event, he mentioned that he would be happy to match prices on any CMON product in the store. With such a policy in place, it does make good sense of customers to make a trip down to the store to pick up the latest games and, at the same time, make friends from the same community.
Given CMON’s popularity on Kickstarter, we wouldn’t be surprised if the CMON Play store would eventually be a place for backers to pick up their games right after release. We won’
With so many avenues for gamers to trudge down to the store, there are plenty of upsides for CMON to continually grow the community in Singapore and we certainly wish for the momentum to never wane for tabletop gaming!
CMON Play Singapore
201 Henderson Road, #09-23, Singapore 159545
Gerald currently straddles between his love of video games and board gaming. There’s nothing that interests him more than trying out the newest and fanciest gadget in town as well. He dreams of publishing a board game sometime in the future!
Trinity Sun
Si Jia
