ASHWAUBENON, Wis. — One of the bigger sellers at Gnome Games near Green Bay has been Sky Team.
It’s a tabletop game that sees players landing an airplane at some of the major airports around the world.
“It’s a fairly complex game. It involves all the different aeronautical decisions that pilots have to make and the communication they need to communicate with the tower to land safely,” said Pat Fuge, the self-described head gnome. “Think EAA on the tabletop. You have to get your plane down through the other planes and communicate with the tower and land it safely.”
Gnome Games has four locations: two in the Green Bay area, one in Appleton and another in Sturgeon Bay.
While the collectibles market has softened, Fuge said games continue to be good sellers.
“It’s indicative of a trend in the gaming world and what people are purchasing for the holidays. They’re looking for a higher-quality experience they can play over and over again,” he said. “It’s a shift from what we saw last year and the year before, which was really heavily in the collectible world with Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic and this year with Disney Lorcana.”
Despite some wider economic uncertainties and variables, the National Retail Federation still expects to see consumer spending grow this year between 3% and 4%.
Total sales are expected to reach between $957 and $966 billion.
Trent Sinclair at Jim’s Music in Green Bay said they’ll see many shoppers who started looking at gifts in the fall return in early December.
“It’s the second weekend, the weekend immediately after Black Friday, when things just explode,” he said. “That’s when people have hit the Black Friday deals at the mall and the larger department stores and they’ll start shopping in earnest and start hitting the smaller places. That’s usually when our season erupts.”
For Jim’s and others, the last few weeks of the year are an important part of the calendar.
“The fourth quarter is always the cherry on the cake. A cherry on top of the sundae,” Sinclair said. “It’s the season where everybody comes in and they will spend a lot of money and they’re not as concerned about the amount they will spend, but they want something nice that they can put under the tree at that time.”
Fuge said he suspects holiday sales may be up a little this year over 2022. He’s already noted a change in what people are looking for this season.
“They’re looking more for that experience as a family at the table that they can play over and over again. Something we call re-playability,” he said. “They’re looking at their holiday purchases more as an investment than a throwaway gift. We call the games that last past January 1. That’s important.”
