Ghostwind
First Post
Fighter1 said:
Why is it such a hard stretch to ask that the game retailer know his product? Walk into any other type of retail business and you have a certain expectation that the employees and people who manage the store know their product enough to sell it to you. However, walk into a game store and ask the person behind the counter about an RPG or other game and you'll either get a "deer in the headlights look" or some lame BS about it that shows the person hasn't even tried to understand what he or she is selling.
Let me be clear. I work in a gaming store. I am responsible for the games that are ordered and the games that are played. I make it a point to do everything I can to educate all other employees about games and gaming so they can at least make a somewhat informed opinion on the subject and not just say, "You'll have to ask Steve. He works Friday nights and all day Saturdays. Try then." (Which still happens, but not to the degree it did 2 years ago.)
As a retail buyer, I expect my distributor to have at least a passing familiarity with the products they offer. Do you know that almost no one in the sales staff for the largest US games distributor plays games at all? Wouldn't you think that as a company that specializes in selling games, you would require your employees to become knowledgable on the subject? Guess what? It is actively discouraged there. I know because I have several friends who work there and have been told point blank that knowing the games are not important, rather taking orders is. Order takers and not salesmen. It's all about the short term money and not a long term investment that will lead to more money. Now to be fair, I wouldn't expect my salesman to know everything about every game, but I do expect that he will be up to speed on the more popular games like Warmachine, Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic, Warhammer, and D&D. And all too often that is not the case.
A significant percentage of gaming shops in the U.S. are owned by the hobby enthusiast, not the individual who is out to run the store like a business. The hobbyist stocks his favorite games and uses the store as a means to get his personal gaming stuff at retail cost (usually between 45-50% MSRP). When he places an order for product with his distributor, most likely he grabs his copy of GameTrade Magazine and orders directly from it, buying whatever looks good and relying that his sales rep will guide him on the hot ticket items. The sales rep isn't really a sales rep though. He's an order taker. He is relying that the retailer already knows the product and is ordering exactly what he needs to be successful and pay his bills. Whereas the individual who runs the store like a business looks at market research, his current budget, makes informed decisions, and orders based on what sells in his store. He already knows that it is his responsibility to know his product and his customers so he doesn't rely upon his sales rep to pad his order. He already has everything covered. He is also a very rare commodity in the world of retail gaming.
This is one reason why I have been a vocal proponent for the average gamer to be more active with their LGS and tell them specifically what products they want to see on their shelves and then follow through by making those purchases at the store. The decline in sales of RPGs isn't because gamers aren't buying. If that were the case, Gen Con would have been a miserable year instead of most manufacturers having stellar sales. The problem lies in a breakdown somewhere in the distribution to retail side of things.
One last thing, if Hasbro were to sell the D&D brand, it would be sold for no less than $30 million dollars (that figure comes from more than one persons who used to work for Wotc and were in positions to know and understand how much it would take). There are few companies that can bankroll that kind of money that would be able to effectively manage the brand and not cause more damage than has already been done. When I look at gaming companies that could even remotely do it based on sales trends and past history of growth, the only gaming company that could even be considered might be Mongoose (in about 5-10 years) assuming their rate of growth remains a constant upward curve. All others would fall way short of the mark.
