Forked Thread: Why is WotC trying to kill my FLGS?

[Asmor]

I don't really think this is worthy of its own thread so much as I didn't want to continue polluting that thread with this tangent. So, that disclaimer said...

Forked from: Why is WotC trying to kill my FLGS?

They probably shouldn't set a price floor though. Mayfair Games did, and its been a minor public relations nightmare for them. Everyone who likes paying less for games has been raging about it for some time, and making all kinds of wild accusations. Mayfair seems to think the overall benefit of stopping online discounters from undercutting local stores is worth the cost, but I'm not so sure. Their games are more expensive now, so they probably sell less, and local gaming stores seem perfectly capable of going out of business on their own without any help from online discounters discounting Mayfair products.

Man, that's stupid... IME, there are far fewer brick and mortar retailers for boardgames than there are for RPGs, and that's saying something. Those that do carry boardgames also can't carry as wide a stock, since by their nature they're large and take up a lot of room, so unless you're lucky or the game you're looking for is both recent and popular, you'll probably never find it on a store shelf without special ordering it...

This is 180 degrees removed from my experience. Of all the retailers I know of (in Houston, Winnipeg, Minneapolis and Edmonton, so by no means every big market, but a pretty decent sampling I should hope), I can only think of two that sell RPGs without also having a substantial amount of space devoted to boardgames, in many cases ranging from ancient Avalon Hill ones to the latest German stuff. One is pretty clearly a labour of love for those who run it, and the other is part of a big chain that specializes in other things entirely (magazines, first and foremost), such that it's the RPG selection they carry that's the surprise.

Compare that to the number of retailers that sell boardgames but not RPGs - namely, every toy store there is, including huge international chains like Toys R' Us (and those guys do carry at least a little of the more hobbyist-oriented stuff), and I think it's safe to say there are substantially more boardgame than RPG retailers. And that's ignoring things like Jogo stores and an increasing number of FLGS' that carry both, but with a decidedly heavier emphasis on boardgames.

And boardgames taking up more display space than RPGs? Not if you're doing RPGs right, they don't. Consider the number of supplements even a middling RPG like Mongoose's Babylon 5 one supports, and you quickly realize that RPGs are about as space-consuming even if you display spine-out by default, and vastly moreso if you're displaying the covers of even a significant minority of your stock.

A couple things...

1: There's a difference between board games and board games. Yes, it's elitist. So sue me. But, while there is the rare gem like Heroscape available at Target or Toys 'r' Us, "real" board games are only available at niche stores. To be fair, though, I have seen some of the more popular ones gaining a bit more traction, e.g. I saw Settlers of Catan at a Barnes & Nobles a couple weeks ago.

So all that is to say that, in my mind, saying board games are widely available based on Monopoly, Sorry, etc, is like saying RPGs are widely available based on the fact that you can walk into any department store or GameStop and pick up Final Fantasy N+1.

2. Sadly, I don't have any FLGS. Best I've got are a comic store, a smoke shop, and a bookstore which all stock both boardgames and RPGs. However, I can find recent RPG releases at Waldenbooks, Borders and Barnes & Nobles, hence my assertion that in my experience brick and mortar stores with RPG products outnumber those with gaming products.

3. A shelf full of RPG products will have several dozen books. A shelf full of board games will have maybe a dozen, if they're all small. So while RPG products required to support a particular game do outnumber those for boardgames, they also take up significantly less shelf space.

 

[Cadfan]

This is basically correct. There are store with board games, and then there are board game stores. I know six in-business gaming stores that sell board games. Only one is a board game store.

 

[jeffh]

... in my mind, saying board games are widely available based on Monopoly, Sorry, etc, is like saying RPGs are widely available based on the fact that you can walk into any department store or GameStop and pick up Final Fantasy N+1.

Which is why I made a point of not doing that; I confined myself to places where at least some hobbyist-type boardgames could be found.

I did neglect RPGs appearing at major book chains, but in at least some of the cities I mentioned that's a somewhat new and inconsistent phenomenon anyway. (And anyway, if those count, then certainly so does the fact that Settlers and Heroscape can consistently be found at toystores; at a typical Borders in the US or Chapters in Canada, I can find recent WotC and White Wolf stuff and very little else.) Keeping those in mind, I'd still say it's roughly a draw; certainly nothing that qualifies as there being "far fewer" of one than the other.

 

[jeffh]

This is basically correct. There are store with board games, and then there are board game stores. I know six in-business gaming stores that sell board games. Only one is a board game store.

Good thing I never made any such distinction, then, or even said anything to which it was relevant.

But if I had, I'd have pointed out that very few of them could reasonably be called "RPG stores" nowadays either. Most of them do more business with miniatures and CCGs than with either.

I've also had the owners of two different longstanding, formerly RPG-centric gaming stores (Pendragon in Winnipeg, Nan's in Houston) tell me they now do substantially more business in boardgames as in RPGs. And both cities also have dedicated boardgame stores, so it's not like there's no other game in town (no pun intended).

 

[WizarDru]

Some things to keep in mind:

1. I suspect when you refer to board games, what you really mean are Euro Board Games or Hobbyist Board Games. These are, in North America, considered less mainstream and generally more complex than the traditional board game, thought this is hardly universally true.

2. Euro games have gained much deeper penetration in the US in recent years, though rarely in mass-market toy stores. Book stores, by comparison, feature them fairly prominently. My local Barnes and Nobles carries a wide variety on a couple of large displays in the store, one located directly in front of the kids section.

3. Unlike RPGs, board games have a much longer shelf life. A 1999 copy of Settlers of Catan is just as usable (rules versions aside) NOW as it was when it first was printed...and equally or more desirable. As the early d20 glut, 2e fallout and now post-4e release environments all show, some games immediately lose their market value and sellability. 3e rules supplements from 2002, especially from non-Wotc sources, are not selling. Supplements for old versions of Star Wars rule sets might sell to one or two completists, but the general demand is long gone. A copy of Puerto Rico from 2004, however, has retained its value (and perhaps even increased it). The Compleat Strategist near me, for example, has games that are out-of-print that online retailers don't stock. Unlike those old RPG supplements, they retain more of their value.

4. One reason that WotC's stores failed was that they were fighting a two-level battle...trying to sell to retailers without undercutting them in their own stores. My local WotC store was undercut by the game store in the same mall, because otherwise they'd stop buying WotC product. The same applies to Amazon, but on a greater scale. Board Games are just as vulnerable to this: Thoughthammer.com undercuts brick-and-mortar sellers...but neither amazon nor thoughthammer can compete with the impulse sale. Sometimes you want to just go to a store and buy a thing and have it right then.

5. I used to have a FLGS. I special ordered the first OOTS game through them. But then they decided they didn't want to sell the product I wanted, so amazon and thoughthammer benefited. Personal customer service can often trump low prices. But thoughthammer has often given me better customer service and suggestions than most LGS ever have.

6. Board games are self-contained and thus prone to impulse purchases. No one picks up a supplement on the Camilla unless they play WoD....but they might pick-up Knights of Charlemagne purely based on the box.