One of the potentially most interesting and useful pieces of information for a game collector/accumulator also happens to be one of the most ephemeral and challenging to pin down with any degree of accuracy: the actual number of published units of a particular game title.

And even if some information is found, there is likely to be considerable doubt and confusion about its validity. Jim Dunnigan of SPI was the only mainstream publisher who freely and openly discussed game production data. For almost all other companies, this kind of information is usually discovered in passing, almost by accident.

In an effort to remedy this state of affairs, Simulacrum will periodically publish a list of games for which production figures are known with some degree of accuracy. The information presented here comes from several sources, some presumably more reliable than others. For example, data for Simulations Canada games comes directly from Stephen Newberg and should be absolutely accurate. On the other hand, data for SPI games represents the print run of the S&T magazines in which these games first appeared, and so in cases where separate editions were printed later, clearly understates the actual totals.

In the final analysis, the figures listed here are purported to represent the total number of games printed. This is not necessarily the same figure as the total number of games that were sold. Copies might have been given away to reviewers, copies might have been faulty and returned for replacement, and copies might simply have sat in storage until they were finally remaindered or sent to the dump.

And yet, despite these failings, the figures presented here do have some worth. If nothing else, they provide an order-of-magnitude sense of the relative scarcity of certain game titles.

Shiloh	BattleFlag	1971	75
Destruction of SPI Center	Costikyan	1977	100
Last Raid	BSO	-	100
Civil Power	SGS	1996	125
Shining Path	SGS	1997	125
Tupamaro	SGS	1996	125
Las Batallas de los Gringos	BSO	-	150
Devil's Horsemen, the	BSO	1999	200
Hell's Foxes	SGS	1991	200
Nebula 19	Mishler	1971	200
Tatchanka	Bumpas	1977	200
Kingdom for a Horse, a	BSO	1999	250
Operation Greif	Hendrix	1990	250
Trafalgar	Cormier	1968	450
Raketny Kreyser	SimCan	1977	550
War in the Pacific	Tsukuda	1989	800
Anvil-Dragoon	JagdPanther	1976	1,000
Battle Stations!	SimCan	1984	1,000
Battleship	SimCan	1987	1,000
D.A.K.	SimCan	1982	1,000
Hannibal	SimCan	1983	1,000
I Will Fight No More Forever	SimCan	1979	1,000
Inchon	SimCan	1981	1,000
La Regia Marina	SimCan	1983	1,000
Le Grand Empire	SimCan	1978	1,000
Lebensraum!	SimCan	1984	1,000
Lee at the Crossroads	SimCan	1980	1,000
Line of Battle	SimCan	1986	1,000
Man of War	SimCan	1983	1,000
Napoleon's Last Triumph	SimCan	1982	1,000
Norsemen!	SimCan	1985	1,000
One World, the	SimCan	1984	1,000
Ortona	SimCan	1983	1,000
Power and Resolution	SimCan	1984	1,000
Quebec Libre	SimCan	1978	1,000
Schnellboote	SimCan	1984	1,000
Scourge of God	SimCan	1982	1,000
Seapower & the State	SimCan	1982	1,000
Valley of Hell, 1971	Swedish	1986	1,000
Warring States	SimCan	1979	1,000
West Front	SimCan	1985	1,000
Wilderness, the	SimCan	1983	1,000
With Fire & Sword	SimCan	1983	1,000
Bastogne/Anzio Beachhead	SPI	1970	1,200
Rommel in the Desert	Game Prsrv	1982	1,200
Fields of Glory	MiH	1996	1,256
Seven Days Battles	Battleline	1973	1,300
Renaissance of Infantry	SPI	1970	1,428
I.J.N.	SimCan	1978	1,500
Jihad!	SimCan	1981	1,500
Rockets Red Glare	SimCan	1981	1,500
T-34	SPI	1970	1,522
Dieppe	SimCan	1977	1,550
Peloponnesian War, the	SimCan	1977	1,550
Moscow, Battle of	SPI	1970	1,607
Famous Victory, a	MiH	1995	1,842
Alien Armada	Centurion	1983	2,000
Assault on Tobruk	SimCan	1980	2,000
Bar-Lev	Conflict	1974	2,000
Crisis in the Ukraine	Centurion	1983	2,000
Dark Stars	SimCan	1980	2,000
Destroyer Captain	Quarterdeck	1982	2,000
Divine Wind	SimCan	1981	2,000
Fallschirmjaeger	The Gamers	2001	2,000
Gela Beachhead	Centurion	1983	2,000
Kriegsmarine	SimCan	1980	2,000
Silo 14	Centurion	1983	2,000
Source of the Nile	Discovery	1978	2,000
Torpedo!	SimCan	1979	2,000
SF3D II Original	Tsukuda	1984	2,040
SF3D Original	Tsukuda	1984	2,040
Fall of France	SPI	1971	2,100
Bastogne or Bust	Terran	1994	2,500
Lost Battles	SPI	1971	2,500
Squad Leader	AH	1977	2,500
1862	SDI	1990	3,000
Dead of Winter	SDI	1990	3,000
First Blood	SDI	1990	3,000
Guns of Cedar Creek, the	SDI	1989	3,000
Successors	AH	1997	3,764
Far Seas, the	3W	1989	4,613
Rommel in the Desert	Columbia	1984	5,000
StarForce Alpha Centauri	SPI	1974	5,000
Geronimo	AH	1995	5,131
Tigers are Burning, the	3W	1988	5,571
Combat Command	SPI	1972	6,000
Atlanta Campaign, the	Decision	1994	6,048
Reinforce the Right	Decision	1996	6,451
Remember the Maine!	TSR	1986	11,507
13: Colonies in Revolt	TSR	1985	13,000
Thunder at Luetzen	TSR	1985	14,000
Trail of the Fox	TSR	1984	15,000
Winter War	SPI	1972	15,000
Armageddon	SPI	1972	15,100
Britain, Battle of	Renwal	1969	16,000
Soldiers of the Queen	TSR	1984	16,000
Year of the Rat	SPI	1972	16,500
Nordkapp	TSR	1983	17,000
American Civil War	TSR	1983	18,000
Blackbeard	AH	1991	20,499
Destruction of Army	SPI	1973	21,000
Group Center Iwo Jima	TSR	1983	22,000
Scrimmage	SPI	1973	24,100
CA	SPI	1973	24,400
RDF	TSR	1983	25,000
Fall of Rome	SPI	1973	25,100
Kampfpanzer	SPI	1973	26,100
PanzerArmee Afrika	SPI	1973	26,100
East is Red, the	SPI	1974	27,200
American Civil War	SPI	1974	27,600
Combined Arms	SPI	1974	28,100
Operation Olympic	SPI	1974	28,100
Tank!	SPI	1974	28,100
Wolfpack	SPI	1974	28,100
Sixth Fleet	SPI	1975	29,900
Frederick the Great	SPI	1975	30,200
Breitenfeld	SPI	1976	31,500
Conquistador	SPI	1976	31,500
Dixie	SPI	1976	31,500
Germany, Battle for	SPI	1975	31,500
October War	SPI	1977	31,500
Oil War	SPI	1975	31,500
Panzergruppe Guderian	SPI	1976	31,500
Plot to Assassinate Hitler	SPI	1976	31,500
Punic Wars	SPI	1975	31,500
Revolt in the East	SPI	1976	31,500
Road to Richmond	SPI	1977	31,500
South Africa	SPI	1977	31,500
World War I	SPI	1975	31,500
BAOR	SPI	1981	32,000
Sicily	SPI	1981	32,000
Cobra	SPI	1977	34,000
Raid!	SPI	1977	34,000
VeraCruz	SPI	1977	34,000
Siege of Constantinople	SPI	1978	34,500
Kharkov	SPI	1978	36,000
Stonewall	SPI	1978	36,000
Cassino, Battle for	SPI	1978	36,300
Crusades, the	SPI	1978	36,300
Armada	SPI	1979	36,500
Berlin '85	SPI	1980	36,500
Cedar Mountain	SPI	1981	36,500
China War, the	SPI	1979	36,500
Desert Fox	SPI	1981	36,500
Fifth Corps	SPI	1980	36,500
Fighting Sail	SPI	1981	36,500
Kaiser's Battle, the	SPI	1980	36,500
Napoleon's Art of War	SPI	1979	36,500
Ney vs. Wellington	SPI	1979	36,500
Operation Grenade	SPI	1981	36,500
Panzer Battles	SPI	1979	36,500
Paratroop	SPI	1979	36,500
Patton's Third Army	SPI	1980	36,500
Tannenberg II	SPI	1978	36,500
Tito	SPI	1980	36,500
Wilson's Creek	SPI	1980	36,500
Midway	AH	1964	160,000
Squad Leader	AH	-	197,500
PanzerBlitz	AH	1970	250,000

The 158 titles listed represent about four percent of the total board wargames published since the beginning of recorded time as established by Jeff Pimper.

This list is not a representative sample of the total by any means. For example, it contains all of SimCan’s games and most of SPI’s games, but very few of Avalon Hill’s games, or any other manufacturer for that matter. So since it’s not a valid sample, it would be meaningless to generalize from the arithmetic mean of 15,762 or the median of 3,764.

Perhaps more telling are the following arithmetic means, based on the decade of the titles’ publication:

1960’s 58,817
1970’s 19,841
1980’s 10,448
1990’s 3,209
2000’s 2,000

No doubt most grognards are familiar with this downward spiral as it relates to board wargaming. Undoubtedly some of this may be due to the fact that the more recent games have been on the market for less time, but I wouldn’t push that one too hard.