Hiring someone to drive across the continent and visit every one of 2000 WPN gaming stores - to say nothing of other game stores, chain book stores, etc - sounds super expensive. More than enough to wipe out profits from cheap gaming products.
Huh. Guess their advertising to fill at least one of those positions on Wizards.com is a fluke, then.
That's sarcastic, but it's true: There's a store rep job open now in Germany.
Plus, it generally requires stores to buy new shelving. Which is expensive. It's easier for stores to just not order the product.
Not at the stores I've been to in the past two years. They've got plenty of configurable shelf space, as well as the human assets to rearrange product. It requires the stores to not deliberately screw up their feng shui, and instead learn how to actually conduct a retail store instead of a tarted-up spot where they can play Warcraft.
Especially if they also sell comics!
What you've got there is a lame excuse, not a reason. That's not to say stores won't use it. But that's what it is.
At the end of the day, WotC has no control over the stores. Only their own books. They can recommend and advise on displays until their faces are blue but it's no guarantee of action. It's gambling sales.
Of course they have no control over the stores. No manufacturer does. It's always gambling sales. That's why you fight for prime shelf space, with shelf-talkers, end-cap space, and all that. Hasbro knows all about it.
There are LOTS of excellent non-WotC adventures on the Guild. The MT Black stuff is outselling the gunslinger now.
I never said there wasn't. I said there are no Wizards-generated modules like Ye Olde Tymes.
Is Starfinder from Paizo going to scratch that itch? Or is it 5e D&D in space that's required?
I don't play Pathfinder if I can help it. Not because it's a bad game, nor am I judging anyone who does like it; I just prefer my RPGs less complicated. I've been pondering taking a stab at porting the old Spelljammer stuff I have on the shelf for 5e, but that's daunting for the amateur.
As a differing view I find them lacking in almost every area: they are not published (PDF only), they have poor production values (no color, poor quality maps), they are often poorly edited, tested and weighed down by the convention format that needs to account for every type of player and party, and with strict time-limits that simply doesn't exist in home play - most consist of mediocre encounters strung along with the barest of attempts at plot and coherency, with no breadth or depth to speak of. I rarely found them worth my while even back when they did not cost actual money.
In my opinion they are poor replacements for the adventure modules or supplements of AD&D and 3rd Edition.
I don't disagree. The AL stuff certainly isn't the AD&D module in terms of quality; I ought to know, as I both participate in AL and produce conversions for
Classic Modules Today. They're also download-only, which I've already pointed out is a strike against them for some consumers.
But the AL modules
are the only short-form D&D content Wizards is producing where they still conform to the AD&D/3E production model of "pay freelancer, play-test, edit, lay out, publish as Official Product." Some people, here on Enworld and elsewhere, don't trust the 3rd-party efforts of DM's Guild. I can't say I blame them much, because there's so much dreck on that site.* There's very little assurance beyond an author's word that the content is play-tested and worth buying and the time to play it. In the days of the printed module, you may not have liked it much, but you could be assured that TSR wouldn't bother to put out something that wasn't even proof-read, not even in Dungeon magazine.
Cheers,
Bob
* And that's speaking as someone who sells adventures on DM's Guild!
