Is the Gaming Industry something to invest in?

[Astromancer]

Can I buy stocks in gaming? Would it be a good idea?

I really don't know. Please tell me.

[RogerBW]

The private equity firm that rolled up large chunks of boardgaming under Asmodée has now sold it, which suggests that investing is not a good way to make huge profits.

While there are certainly exceptions, the people I know in the gaming industry do it because they love it, in a much greater proportion than say people in computer games. Boardgames are only marginally profitable a lot of the time (and as people around the world feel poorer, and shipping gets more expensive, crowdfunding physical objects looks as though it's due for a major hit). RPGs are even less profitable, unless you're D&D.

And of course a lot of game companies are too small or too private to have tradable stock anyway.

[Anthony]

The common way of investing in RPGs is to outright buy a struggling property; very few game companies are publicly traded (some exceptions: Hasbro, Games Workshop).

[Kromm]

Any games company big enough to be publicly traded is about as good or as bad a risk as any other company of its size. Once you get away from outfits that deal in commodities (petroleum, minerals, agricultural products, lumber, etc.) and into producers of finished goods (soda pop, electric cars, trousers, self-sealing stem bolts, and yes, games), direction and management can be more important than sector, unless the sector is dying. Games aren't dying, just moving away from paper and toward digital. So, if you find a publicly traded games company, look at its executive and managerial track record rather than its popularity among gamers, and make sure that digital games are among the company's product offerings. Exclusively pen-and-paper games companies might be poor investments, but you'll discover that they aren't traded; the ones that trade all have some digital games in their lineup, meaning that what matters is who's running them and how they do business.