Quote from: Aos;271291How are they tangibly beneficial in the long term, or any term, really?

If a publisher only sells through B&M stores, then in the short term the price of the product to the consumer is X, of which maybe .6x goes to the publisher and the remainder to the B&M store.

If the publisher sells through Amazon, the price to the consumer is maybe .65X, of which .6x goes to the publisher, and the remainder to Amazon. Amazon is happy to take a lower per-unit portion of the revenue because their per-unit costs are lower due to low overhead and high volume.

Assuming more people will buy the product if they can get it at a lower price, the portion of the audience who can get it through Amazon (meaning they have the skills and disposition to do so) will buy more copies than they would if they couldn't get it through Amazon.

Ergo overall sales are higher, but fewer sales go to the B&M stores than would be the case if Amazon wasn't available.*

Since the publisher makes the same amount on a sale via Amazon as they do via the B&M store, they're better off in the short term.

However, in the long term, the publisher may be worse off because the B&M stores are providing more than just distribution: they're also advertising by making it easy for people to view and handle merchandise before buying it.

*ON THE OTHER HAND, because of the network effect of RPGs, B&M stores may benefit from Amazon. In other words, it's conceivable that the increased ubiquity of RPG-playing, due to the availability of cheap games through Amazon, effectively increases the value of RPGs to the end-user. Then you would get a "rising tide lifts all boats" effect. Put simply, if Johnny gets D&D through Amazon, then Johnny's friends will want to play the game, too, and they might buy it from a B&M. Whereas if Johnny had never gotten the game because it was too expensive compared to Halo XVIII, his friends wouldn't have even heard of it.

I remain unconvinced. These are all intangibles. Possibilities. Maybes. They are nothing that can be planned for, and are as likely as not, in any given case, a poor investment.  Making acts of faith is the opposite of a sound business pan. Furthermore, according to what's been said upthread 4e isn't doing well in the LGs  Why would they want to invest in a losing game? The internet and the sales these publishers make on it are real not vague possiblities.  
I returned to RPGS roughly three years ago after a long hiatus. I knew I'd like to try something new. I did all my research online. I was able to read tons of reviews on many different games.  All the games I bought as a result were not available at the game store near my house- none. They offered to order them, but under their plan I would have to wait longer and pay more than ordering direct from Amazon. Thanks, but no thanks. Why would I want to pay more for less? I contend that anyone who has access to the intenret has access to an immense resource in this regard, and most people know it. After all, this isn't 1996.

And I see that I got Aos's question sort of backward, but I probably answered as well as I could anyway.

Yes, the argument for helping B&Ms, from the producer's point of view, depends on intangibles like the unpaid promotion and customer relations work that B&Ms do.

What games stores offer- well, in my opinion, the ONLY thing they really offer- is providing a public place to meet, hold events, and play. If a game store doesn't do that, I suspect they won't be around for long.

I go to my local store (Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie, MD) weekly because it's a convenient central public location with a huge room upstairs that we have been welcomed to use for events that have ranged in size from 4 players to 75+. I've met most of the 4e players I know right there at the store, where I have either been running a game or playing in one since the release.

I fully admit to being a cheap bastard who previously got most of his books via Amazon (or more often than not, free for DMing at RPGA events), but lately I actually buy them from the local place just because they have been cool there.

Quote from: Seanchai;270940Where is this mythical "younger gaming crowd"? Or, maybe, a better question is: What do you consider to be a young gamer? Because I have yet to encounter or play with any.

Seanchai

Hi. 21. Started in high school around the 3e/3.5 transition. There was a big crowd. I DM now and again. Still a pretty big crowd where I live now. Youngest in my most recent group was 16.

I spent high school in Delaware during the peak of the 3.5 thing... "completes" "races of" and environment books galore, plus eberron. Everyone was deep into it. Both players and DMs had ridiculous book collections, folks minmaxed, and uber-geeky stat jokes ensued concerning how to play as a sandwich or create vorpal pillows or nuke a city with a divination spell. Oh, and everyone who played DMed at least a little. I was a little of an exception, having fewer books and never really DMing. We've scattered to the four winds, but most of us run games wherever we are... or if we can't in person we run games online.

Here in Atlanta, everybody plays too, but it's more casual I guess. Most people only have only the player's handbook and maybe a couple of others. There are three or four gamers my age who own all the books and run all the games for the high school crowd. A few others my age who went out of state and are still running.

All that said, conversion to 4e has been the exception and not the rule for those I've known. Veterans from the DE crowd don't like the idea of invalidating their massive collections. And somehow it just hasn't caught on here either... of course it may have to do with the DMs preferring a game they already know how to run and everybody else playing whatever we run.

Just my experience though, and I've seen some counter-indications. I've actually seen folks on the subway toting 4e books.

As for production values... I've never met anyone that cared much how the books looked. Amateurish looking stuff might bother me but I don't know that production values is what I'm after. I loved the black and white illos in the old 3e paperback splats myself.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;271320....................  The last time I bought something at an FLGS (Ed's store, actually) one of the employees (not Ed, btw) was in a deep discussion with a family about RPGs:  how they work, their appeal, the various RPGs available, what you need to play with, and all sorts of other discussion points.  It was respectfully done without snide or snarky comments or geeky in-jokes.  While I left before the employee closed the sale, the way the interaction was conducted demonstrated to me the best aspect of an FLGS at work.  If members of that family get involved in RPGs, they'll not only have that FLGS to thank for it, but the FLGS will have ensured the loyalty of potentially several customers.  It's hard to imagine that sort of interaction happening at any of the online deep discounters because that's not their strong suit.

--Mike L.

That day it might not have been me or my shift - but I have had similiar discussions with other browsers/customers at the store....if I dfescribed all of them that might become another version of a 'Tales From The Gamestore' thead.

Truthfully, each of us at the store has a slightly different syle , but the scene Mike describes could have been any of the 4 of us that work there.

- Ed C.

Quote from: Aos;271225@Ed, it's not so much that folks are being cheap or greedy when they buy online, though, for me it's the difference between getting a game and not getting a game. Period.

I didn't see this part til someone else quoted it - probably because I was working at the store since my last post on here.  (And my new possibly significant other has been taking up my time)

The big difference OUR store has vs. an online source to buy games is that we have tables in the store where people can PLAY the games or see them being played. Also , as Mike pinted out , there are people at the store that can tell the customers the facts and fiction about various RPGs.


- Ed C.

I just placed my wish list with mom-in-law.  Four 4ed supps, all 1/2 price with free shipping through Amazon, all for slightly less than 100 bucks.  Adventurers Vault, Martial Power, Draconomicon, and Manual of the Planes.  Thats good value right there.  Any idea how much those books would run in a game store in Canadian bucks?  They were 21 bucks a pop (28 for Draco)
FLGS just can't compete with Amazon.  Its sad, but man is it true.  Especially where I am living off the Halifax peninsula, and all the game stores are on the downtown peninsula, and parking down there around christmas is ridiculously hard.  I'd love to give Strange Adventures or Big Dick's Monster Comic Lounge my money (thats not its official name - the city wouldn't let him, but dammit, its a great name), but its too much of a hassle to get down, and I can get more bang for my buck online if I'm not impatient to get it.

Koltar, I tried to give your store here some love on black friday because they were running a 30% off sale, but they had absolutely no Mongoose Trav stuff in stock, so no sale.  And why the hell don't they ever get enough copies of KoDT that I can get one?  These are the kinds of reasons beyond price that is driving me to shopping only online.

Quote from: beejazz;271578I spent high school in Delaware during the peak of the 3.5 thing...

Cool.

But what about 4e? The claim is that 4e was marketed to younger gamers. We know a huge number of 4e rulebooks were sold. If younger gamers did pick them up instead of older gamers, then we should see a huge influx of younger gamers.

Your story is interesting, but it's just one response...in a number of days.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;272419Cool.

But what about 4e? The claim is that 4e was marketed to younger gamers. We know a huge number of 4e rulebooks were sold. If younger gamers did pick them up instead of older gamers, then we should see a huge influx of younger gamers.

Your story is interesting, but it's just one response...in a number of days.

Seanchai

I suppose one could take a 4e PHB, tie it to a string, go to the mall, and see if anyone takes the bait...

Quote from: jgants;272423I suppose one could take a 4e PHB, tie it to a string, go to the mall, and see if anyone takes the bait...

Can I cheat by bundling it with a copy of Twilight?

Seanchai

Quote from: Ian Absentia;270731Isn't that the sort of complaint that's made every decade or so, though?  The core market is lost to another medium and the industry limps along by selling and re-selling to the same old hobbyist diehards.  Sooner or later, someone (maybe WotC) will come out with a gaming product that will reinvigorate the hobby, probably coinciding with an upturn in the general worldwide economic forecast, and a new standard will be set for sales numbers.  4e just wasn't the blockbuster it was hoped to be, for a variety of factors.

!i!

Agreed. Does anyone remember what gaming life was like before White Wolf? What the industry needs is another company to come in catch a niche genre and brilliantly market a snappy new game system.

I doubt very seriously it will be WOTC. BUT Hasbro may very well buy them!

Quote from: Seanchai;272419Cool.

But what about 4e? The claim is that 4e was marketed to younger gamers. We know a huge number of 4e rulebooks were sold. If younger gamers did pick them up instead of older gamers, then we should see a huge influx of younger gamers.

Your story is interesting, but it's just one response...in a number of days.

Seanchai

As I said, younger gamers in my area play what I and a few other GMs run. Which means 3.5 hereabouts. It reflects neither poorly nor well on 4e's direct appeal to younger gamers. The only trend I've noticed is that the community spreads starting with a few veterans. In DE it was another high schooler who had played 2E in middle school. Here it's been a few GMs just entering college who play with old friends from high school (students tend to stay in state here thanks to the hope scholarship = free college mentailty). The only thing I read from that is that 3.0 nabbed 2E fans where 4e failed to nab the 3.5ers. It could be just local or I could just be wrong. It is strictly anecdotal evidence, for all that's worth.

Quote from: Koltar;271596The big difference OUR store has vs. an online source to buy games is that we have tables in the store where people can PLAY the games or see them being played. Also , as Mike pinted out , there are people at the store that can tell the customers the facts and fiction about various RPGs.


- Ed C.

Can you really? I don't wish to attack you, but if I come into the store and say "hey, I need some fiends for my werewolf game -something animistic would be great, you know like the red angel or bullhammer from book of spirits- should I buy predators or antagonists?" could you answer on the spot? Or "my girlfriend loves Qin to bits. I'd like to get her something. She has been learning the frenchmen's language for a decade now. Can she read the french supplements or should I wait for the english ones? And what is good?".

You can probably not. RPGs are a highly specialized hobby and no employee could adequately inform himself about everything that is going on. I get more accurate information online and can even order at the same time for a discount.
Plus I think most gaming groups play at home and not at stores.