"It’s hard to imagine one of these companies doing $300,000 sales in a year this year. But, then again, I might be mistaken."
Do you mean it's hard to imagine either Strat or APBA doing *only* $300K in sales? Or does that figure seem high to you? How many 'Strat Black' sets did they print? I think it was 300 sets at $200 each. That's $60K that sold out pretty quickly, and all Strat had to do was reprint an existing card set.
Based on just a sample of online folks, I'd bet that the "regular" 2023 season outsold the "Strat Black" version by at least 10-to-1. And historical seasons from the 70s/80s are much more popular than 2023. So I'd guess Strat's historical reprints are selling even better than the most recent season. That gets you well above $300K just from baseball. Add the other sports, computer games, 365 and Strat Max —and $300K starts looking like a REALLY low estimate.
As for APBA, I think Kurt Bergland said the asking price for the company was "astronomical". That would seem to support that idea that there's a revenue stream there. (Unless there isn't, and they aren't seriously trying to sell the company.)
I think this is something we lose sight of in our online communities: for every person talking about Strat or ABPA on Facebook or Delphi, there's probably 100 people out there just buying the cards and playing the games without participating in any sort of online forum.
On the one hand, I know that the Strat-O-Matic fanbase is a lot larger than we see. I think there are almost 10,000 members of the community on Facebook, for example.
On the other hand, I also know that APBA has had major financial problems over the years. APBA went bankrupt twice in the 1990s, as I recall — and Fritz Light decided to allow the company to be taken over by MMI not long after J. Richard Seitz passed away.
Robert Henry mentioned in another post that I didn't quote here that he had heard from multiple sources (including Glen Guzzo) that Strat-O-Matic was dependent on its computer product to stay in the black. That might have changed recently, though. Limited edition products like Strat-O-Matic Black and the reprinting of the Founders Edition have been very popular. It's sort of like Wizards of the Coast putting an emphasis on the Secret Lair products. It gets the attention of both the core fanbase and the speculators.
APBA's finally wised up and has done somewhat well by reprinting some of its original single column sets. Having said that, I really wish John Herson would hire additional employees instead of trying to do everything himself. APBA's biggest problems have been nonresponsive customer service and a completely nonexistent social media presence — which is the exact opposite of, I don't know, Season Ticket Baseball :-D
By the way — I think the "astronomical" asking price for APBA (probably low 7 figures) is in large part because of the brand recognition. I'm pretty sure that's diminished over time. Back in the mid-1990s, when Baseball for Windows was selling in retail stores, APBA was a somewhat well established brand. These days Strat-O-Matic has a lot more name recognition.
Glen Guzzo stated several years ago that Strat-o-matic’s card formula did not quite compute walks correctly. I agree with this having played many replays over the years. Walks seem on average to be a little low. I still enjoy playing the game and overall think it is pretty accurate.
I was not aware of the other problems mentioned in your article about the card formula such as the Babe Ruth cards of the 20’s. I’m not a math person that could look at the card and see the issue. I hope they made some adjustments to correct them. However the statement made by Mr. Guzzo was maybe 10 years ago when he was doing a monthly question and answer series for their website. It did not sound like they would or maybe even could change their formula. Not aware if there are any other problems they had or still have. Still enjoy the game.
"It’s hard to imagine one of these companies doing $300,000 sales in a year this year. But, then again, I might be mistaken."
Do you mean it's hard to imagine either Strat or APBA doing *only* $300K in sales? Or does that figure seem high to you? How many 'Strat Black' sets did they print? I think it was 300 sets at $200 each. That's $60K that sold out pretty quickly, and all Strat had to do was reprint an existing card set.
Based on just a sample of online folks, I'd bet that the "regular" 2023 season outsold the "Strat Black" version by at least 10-to-1. And historical seasons from the 70s/80s are much more popular than 2023. So I'd guess Strat's historical reprints are selling even better than the most recent season. That gets you well above $300K just from baseball. Add the other sports, computer games, 365 and Strat Max —and $300K starts looking like a REALLY low estimate.
As for APBA, I think Kurt Bergland said the asking price for the company was "astronomical". That would seem to support that idea that there's a revenue stream there. (Unless there isn't, and they aren't seriously trying to sell the company.)
I think this is something we lose sight of in our online communities: for every person talking about Strat or ABPA on Facebook or Delphi, there's probably 100 people out there just buying the cards and playing the games without participating in any sort of online forum.
That's actually a really good point.
On the one hand, I know that the Strat-O-Matic fanbase is a lot larger than we see. I think there are almost 10,000 members of the community on Facebook, for example.
On the other hand, I also know that APBA has had major financial problems over the years. APBA went bankrupt twice in the 1990s, as I recall — and Fritz Light decided to allow the company to be taken over by MMI not long after J. Richard Seitz passed away.
Robert Henry mentioned in another post that I didn't quote here that he had heard from multiple sources (including Glen Guzzo) that Strat-O-Matic was dependent on its computer product to stay in the black. That might have changed recently, though. Limited edition products like Strat-O-Matic Black and the reprinting of the Founders Edition have been very popular. It's sort of like Wizards of the Coast putting an emphasis on the Secret Lair products. It gets the attention of both the core fanbase and the speculators.
APBA's finally wised up and has done somewhat well by reprinting some of its original single column sets. Having said that, I really wish John Herson would hire additional employees instead of trying to do everything himself. APBA's biggest problems have been nonresponsive customer service and a completely nonexistent social media presence — which is the exact opposite of, I don't know, Season Ticket Baseball :-D
By the way — I think the "astronomical" asking price for APBA (probably low 7 figures) is in large part because of the brand recognition. I'm pretty sure that's diminished over time. Back in the mid-1990s, when Baseball for Windows was selling in retail stores, APBA was a somewhat well established brand. These days Strat-O-Matic has a lot more name recognition.
Glen Guzzo stated several years ago that Strat-o-matic’s card formula did not quite compute walks correctly. I agree with this having played many replays over the years. Walks seem on average to be a little low. I still enjoy playing the game and overall think it is pretty accurate.
Do you know if this is still true — or have they made changes to fix some of these problems?
I was not aware of the other problems mentioned in your article about the card formula such as the Babe Ruth cards of the 20’s. I’m not a math person that could look at the card and see the issue. I hope they made some adjustments to correct them. However the statement made by Mr. Guzzo was maybe 10 years ago when he was doing a monthly question and answer series for their website. It did not sound like they would or maybe even could change their formula. Not aware if there are any other problems they had or still have. Still enjoy the game.