Quote from: KrakaJak;320270I'm not using a single Borders, but the numbers of regional return pulls for soCA, AZ, NM, and NV. If it's indicative of nationwide returns we're talking near ten thousand books or more.

Isn't that the region that the old TSR surveys found were LEAST representative of the US interest in D&D? I thought concentrations were in the middle of the country and ranging east.  Which was one of the reasons for GenCon being based in Wisconsin and then Indiana, and another reasons why GenCon SoCal did awful (among other reasons).

Quote from: KrakaJak;320270I'm not using a single Borders, but the numbers of regional return pulls for soCA, AZ, NM, and NV. If it's indicative of nationwide returns we're talking near ten thousand books or more.

Is that 1% of total sales? 10%? 50%? How does that ratio compare to other books? I mean, ten thousand sounds like a lot, especially when you consider that most other RPGs don't have print runs that size, but intellectual rigor demands a bit of context.

Quote from: KrakaJak;320270I'm not using a single Borders, but the numbers of regional return pulls for soCA, AZ, NM, and NV. If it's indicative of nationwide returns we're talking near ten thousand books or more.

That's what I meant.  

Area, region, pretty much the same thing.  I'll admit that I was thinking it was more localized than that.  Still, not a great sample size.  I'd be interested to see if a place like Amazon.com had the situation a few of you are describing.

It makes more sense that a business is trying to cash in.  Just trying to firesale stock of something that is a guaranteed seller, not to mention the flagship book of the game, make more sense.  Part cash in, part marketing = good move for Hasbro/WotC.

Quote from: KrakaJak;320250we just went from having 12 copies on the shelf, to having 3. It's across the board at all stores though. Stores with 20 copies now have 5, stores with 8 copies now have 1.

Counting up the number of Borders stores in CA, NV, NM, and AZ as listed on borders.com, a rough count is around 100 locations (excluding Borders Express, Waldenbooks, etc ...).  Using the above return numbers of 7 to 15 copies of PHB1 returned from an individual Borders store, a total in the range from 700 to 1500 copies of PHB1 have been returned to the distributors or eventually to WotC.  A rough minimum of around 700 copies of PHB1 sitting around in a warehouse collecting dust.

Perhaps WotC can sell at least 700 copies of PHB1 with the Gencon $5 offer for PHB1 along with the purchase of another D&D rulebook.

(Wonder if the return numbers are similar for Barnes & Noble.  A rough count of "big box" CA, NV, NM, and AZ stores on bn.com, is around 100-110 locations).

Quote from: KrakaJak;320211Many of the books sell well on decently on release at my store, and then drop off the map completely.

Most RPG products make the majority of their money in the first few months.

That aside, I wouldn't be surprised if WotC has a larger stock of PHBs than they want. Underestimating demand can easily lead to overestimating it in the next go-around.

Seanchai

Quote from: KrakaJak;320250Who the fuck attending GenCon doesn't already have the 4e PHB? Who attending GenCon interested in buying another D&D 4e book doesn't already have the 4e PHB?

"So the real story behind promotion for $5PHBs is to give DMs and their groups some extra copies of the PHB and for players to get an extra copy for themsleves or a pass-along copy into the hands of a friend who is not currently playing."

Seanchai

Paizo is offering a PDF of Pathfinder for the discounted rate of $5 with every purchase of the hardback version of Pathfinder at GenCon.

Let the praise and justification for hypocrisy commence! I see excuses in the future

Quote from: Mistwell;320526Paizo is offering a PDF of Pathfinder for the discounted rate of $5 with every purchase of the hardback version of Pathfinder at GenCon.

Let the praise and justification for hypocrisy commence! I see excuses in the future

Seriously?

Well, I can't say with absolute certainty that WoTC is trying to compete with Paizo, but I can say, without a doubt, that Paizo is trying to compete with WoTC. And that in and of itself is significant.  
They don't want to just be the next SJG or Palladium, they want to be the ones to try to topple the big guy, they want to be the next White Wolf.
They'll have quite a battle ahead of them.

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