Death of the LGS

I'm a gaming retailer.

Most of my revenue comes from Magic: The Gathering (roughly 40%) with a smaller (20-25%) amount coming from D&D and D&D Minis.

Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Borders, and the other deep-discount big box stores are killing my desire to support D&D slowly.

Think of them as Wal-Mart, only worse. Buying your stuff at WalMart certainly saves you money, and may put local retailers out of business but they provide very little other than product (and tax base for your community, but few people apparently care about that).

On the other hand, your FLGS--me, people like me--are the cradle of the gaming population. It is through us, and the locations we provide for players to come and play--valuable retail space we pay rent on and which could easily be retasked for more retail space--that provides the continuing growth of new D&D players and roleplayers in general. I often find myself migrating Magic players and boardgame players on to D&D as a fun and exciting new game, and in order to do this, I run demo games for them and provide them a place to play.

But the sales of the books decrease every time someone decides that they prefer the discount from a website or big box store. I've resorted to sending people out to the local BB stores to put my business cards in their copies of 4.0 books and elsewhere as advertising.

When the sales of the books decrease, I get more and more tempted to convert all that nice gaming space into space for more retail products. Spending the space to display my D&D books in an attractive manner rather than spine-out like the big box stores do becomes less attractive, too, which would continue to lower my sales.

So I put it to you: Support your LGS. It's the birthplace of the next generation of gamers, unless you really WANT 5.0 and 6.0 to become *completely* focused on duplicating MMORPGS because the only market left becomes people who play online.

Scott

As long as I'm comfortable adding an F in front of LGS then I'll buy 90% of my books there. The onus is just as much on you guys though to make your into a place where gamers feel it's worthwhile to pay the markup. Turn your store into a community for gamers, not just a store. Make sure your staff are friendly, knowledgeable and attentive. Give players gaming space. Host events. All sorts of stuff like that.

That's the only way you'll get the customers you want.

Unfortunately, my LGS isn't all that F. And they can't compete with the deep discounts Amazon is able to offer. While I don't buy any RPG books from my LGS, I do buy the occasional mini, board game, and card game there. They do get some of my gaming budget, but not all of it. I save money where I can, and that means going to Amazon and other discount retailers for products my LGS charges full price for.

Speaking as a customer, and not a store owner, you may be looking at the situation backwards, Gamersgambit.

The gaming space you provide, the demos you run, the shelf layout that showcases cool stuff better than the Big Box stores do...that's the stuff that keeps your customers coming to you in the first place. You don't want to say "I'm losing out on retail space, and can't afford to do this stuff"...you can't afford NOT to do that stuff, or what reason to gamers have to come in and support you?

It sounds like you run a great place, and I wish there was one like yours near me. My own FLGS closed up shop when they raised the rent on them (by an obscene amount), and they couldn't keep up. Now my options are a 15-20 minute drive to one of several comic shops with crummy RPG selection, Borders, or Amazon.com. So, now I go with whatever's cheapest, but it's a sad loss.

Is there any way to make your gaming space help to pay for itself? Maybe some spiffy pre-gridded, whiteboard-topped game tables, maybe with internet access to get to DDI/whatever, or a projector for maps...get a really great game table set-up, and then charge an hourly fee to use it? Would that work at all, do you think, or would people just ignore it?

My LGS went out of business. After 4th ed was annouced the sell of 3.5 books declined to the point that my LGS was closed by Christmas.

I buy everything I can get at my FLGS. I want to support it as much as possible because it's the only game store within about 40 minutes of my town.

I admit that I was an Amazon/Wal-Mart buyer for 3.0 and 3.5. My FLGS didn't exist yet, and I really did not have the money to drive to the other stores and pay full retail. Books had just gotten too expensive for me. Since then I've been promoted and can afford more gaming related purchases. Trust me, I'll do all I can to preserve my FLGS as long as they continue to care about me as a gamer and a customer.

gamersgambit said:

On the other hand, your FLGS--me, people like me--are the cradle of the gaming population.

Click to expand...

I'm really not trying to be mean, GG, but this isn't true for me or the people I game with. It would be more accurate to say the ENWorld and places like it are the 'cradle of gaming' (outside of actual families). It's here that I found a whole host of good people to game with in my area, people who became real friends over the years. Game stores simply don't factor into our social network (at least, anymore).

I don't think my experiences are uncommon.

I just wish I had an FLGS. I've got an LGS, but it is far from friendly and I will never darken it's door again!

I bought my books from GameOn. Closest thing to a LGS for me. I even canceled my Amazon order to do so.

gg: Long post warning. A bit rantish, but not really... and I wish you all the best in your business endeavors.

The hobby is in a weird place right now. When I got into gaming, D&D was sold at Toys 'R Us. That's a place where kids (at the time, anyway... I don't know what they're like anymore) used to browse for cool stuff. Or I did anyway. And I got into gaming through my friends of similar age. Although I didn't really read comics (except Star Wars sometimes), comics were sold at the gas station. If there were comic/game stores, I didn't even know they existed. I did learn of them eventually, however.

Now, you do at least have D&D stuff sold at the local corporate book store, but I don't see kids browsing in those aisles. Just other people about my age (mid 30s).

So how do the next generation of gamers learn about D&D? And if they do learn about it, they certainly can't start with the materials available now. I started with the Moldvay box. That book was only 64 pages and that's still a bit tough even on a precocious 8 year old. The new ones? Forget it.

And, no offense OP, but you say that if we support the FLGS, somehow that will stop 5E and 6E from being total crapola? I don't see that making any difference. D&D is no longer in the hands of gamers. We're back to a Lorraine Williams scenario. Supporting (or not) the FLGS won't make any difference.

Also, many LGSs are not the Friendly, or if they are friendly, they're not that smart. I remember going in to the largest, most storied FLGS in my town asking about H1 (KoTS) before it came out. This was like a few weeks or a month before release. And they didn't know what I was talking about. Many of these places are circling the drain of customer service in one way or another. That suggests to me that the whole 'industry' of the LGS is falling apart.

Beyond that... how can you compete with the online boys? They give 40% or 45% off most stuff and they bring it to your house. The latter is an added bonus because it probably costs me $4+ to take a trip to the LGS. So just add 5 bucks to the price of everything. And since most trips there are wasted anyway... see above.

The bottom line is, without a viable business model you're bascially asking for charity. You're saying that if consumers artifically pump up your business by paying more than they otherwise would, you'll stay in business and certain intangibles will accrue to the hobby as a whole. Even if that's true (and it may not be... I might just lay out extra cash so that when you do go under you have a softer cushion), I personally don't get a lot out of it, as I'll explain.

See, nowadays I have to ask: what is the hobby "industry" to me? I like OD&D, Classic Traveller, a few other odds and ends (maybe some T&T, some CoC, some Encounter Critical). What do I need from the "industry"? For WOTC to sell me a version of D&D that's not as good as the stuff I've already got? For Mungoose to sell me a munged and goosed version of Traveller when I already have the golden classics? I can get along fine without the industry.

Maybe it will all fall apart and game design will go back to the garage. Fine by me. S. John Ross could have produced Encounter Critical in his garage (God bless him!) and my print copy is from Lulu. OD&D, the single best role playing game product ever, is quite obviously a garage product. Why should I support the "industry", the FLGS or any of the slick, modern husks of games that go with them? What have they done for me? Maybe if it goes back to the garage (or the internet), the current high-entry cost, glossy, over produced products will go away and we'll be back to cheap, quirky fan efforts that might just charm their way back to popularity.