So there *was* a thread at EN World on this topic, that closed just before I hit the submit button after wasting a lot of time making a reply.  

Basically this store in Georgia required $20 or greater purchase for people to be allowed to participate in D&D Game Day there.  Apparently, it was the only store in America to do this, as everyone else in the thread said their FLGS, and even a big box book store did it for free.

Now I understand that the store owners have a right to run their business however they want.  They also have the right to ride a pogo stick to a funeral dressed up in a tutu, but I wouldn't recommend it.  

So the question isn't *could* they do this- the question is *should* the store owner be charging money for D&D game day?

I think posting the store's name & phone number may have been out of order, though- simply because that store is going to probably be getting a lot of angry rant/prank calls from total strangers who otherwise would never have heard of them.  

What do you guys think?

No.

 They should not have charged any admission fee, especially for the Game Day just past.

 If you saw the other thread you know why.


- Ed C.

No.

Charging for a Game Day just defeats its purpose.

Nope. Bad move on their part. The money they got for it isn't worth the good will (and good publicity) they squandered.

I'm curious if Wizards know about this. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't WotC send stores all of this promotional material for free? Isn't there some fine print somewhere saying that you can't turn around and sell it to customers or charge for running it?

Sure the owner has every right to charge admission or require purchases for people to play games in his store in general, but I doubt Wizards is cool with him doing that with their free promo stuff.

They claim there Rep knew of their plans, and several people claim to have contacted Wizards. I doubt we will ever find out more than that.

Charging for game day would be assinine.

I'll agree that charging for game day is dumb. Kind of helps to defeat the purpose of it. But what I'm curious to know is this. It would seem multiple people have contacted WotC about this. If they take an offense to this. If they will deny them the next game day materials. Or if they even give a shit.

I chose other.

It seems to me that they didn't actually charge for D&D game day, since the people were buying actual non-game-day product. The D&D game day was just used as a carrot, so to speak. Since a business has no obligation to even host a game day in the first place, requiring a purchase before allowing people to loiter on one's premises is perfectly fine. Anyone who doesn't want to pay . . . well, they can take their business(or in this case, lack thereof) elsewhere. That's capitalism.

I also don't like the loaded question. The word "should" implies that they made a moral error. I can see people not liking this, and can understand arguments for it not being practical in the business sense, stuff like that . . . but no moral error was committed. That would require some sort of obligation on the store's part, which there wasn't any.

You commie bitches!

In capitalism, the store owner can charge whatever he wants.

And customers have the choice to avoid that store.

Quote from: Spinachcat;333249You commie bitches!

In capitalism, the store owner can charge whatever he wants.

And customers have the choice to avoid that store.

I don't know about current regime, but I do know that, in the past, the solicitation specifically forbade charging for entry into Retail Play events or materials, since my FLGS got in trouble for selling used-by-the-store Retail Play modules.

I wonder if they still do prohibit charging to play. But the store got around that by making you purchase product instead?

Under the RPGA Retail play, that was specifically included as a form of "pay to play"...

Quote from: Spinachcat;333249You commie bitches!

In capitalism, the store owner can charge whatever he wants.

And customers have the choice to avoid that store.

Exactly right. The question was whether stores should charge. I said "no," predicated on the notion that we were discussing what was best for the store. If the store wants to build customer loyalty, then no, they shouldn't.

I'll be interested in seeing how this story pans out, keep us updated if you can, as to whether this store gets any kind of sanction from WoTC.

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