How long until game stores are gone?

[kitsune9]

I for one have no doubt game stores are going away.

Its not that I want them too, I just think its all part of how our world, at least in the US, is changing.

I don't know how much any of you have noticed, but music stores have pretty much disappeared. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are disappearing. Bookstores are disappearing.

I think this is a trend that is only still starting. I think over the next 10 to 20 years we are going to see many more store fronts disappearing. Some slowly, some rapidly.

I think this has to do with many factors, but the biggest is simply the internet. It is getting easier and easier to access. It is getting easier and easier to navigate. Probably most importantly it gives us the power to find things we want for as cheap a price as possible AND have it shipped to our door in a reasonable amount of time.

This will become even more critical when the US economy "rebounds" and gas approaches $5 a gallon again. When that happens people will continue to feel the need to buy as cheaply as possible in order to make ends meet. Plus it will probably become cheaper to have things shipped rather than drive 10 to 15 minutes, one way, to get it.

So to sum up, I see LGS' going away simply because they are becoming an out moded way to buy gaming materials due to changes in our economy and the internet. Along with many other store fronts.

So assuming you can agree with my "theory", how long do you think it will take for the last LGS to disappear?

I'll guess 12 years.

I couldn't even hazard a guess though I think they'll still be here to some degree at least 5-10 years, but yeah, I agree with your post in that energy prices will play some role in killing not only game stores, but a boatload of other small businesses that can be replicated on the Internet.

 

[maddman75]

The game stores in my town are doing just fine, as noted by diversifying. One does a lot of online anime sales, as well as having the shop full of RPGs, card games, and board games. They host a lot of events such as RPGs, board game nights, and miniatures wargames. The other is primarily a 40k store, with some RPGs and again, space for playing.

They both realized that nerd interests tend to overlap. If someone comes in to buy anime and they see Exalted, they might pick it up. If they're a D&D player, all those 40k armies might start looking pretty cool. My own meetup group gathers in one of the shops, and every time someone buys something, even if just a set of dice or a few sodas.

I do buy a lot at Barnes and Noble as well. Much as I love the game shops, they just don't have the same selection.

 

[Treebore]

Most of the local FLGS and ones in nearby towns don't rely solely on rpgs as their main source of revenue. Most typically had something else like comic books, manga, and other various toys as their main business. RPGs were typically several shelves or an aisle in the store.

Though if sales of their other line of products are going downhill simultaneously with rpg sales, then FLGS may possibly end up with the same fate as music stores.

I agree, that is why I give them 12 years. Like my kids read comic books on line now, they don't even want me to bother with print. They read all the free comics and I subscribe to Marvel on line for them.

So I think as the price of gas, and the need to simply save money where possible, becomes more and more important, the number of people who continue to buy online instead of in stores will continue to grow. To the point where many store fronts will fail.

I agree that diversifying your product lines will help with survivability, but eventually only stores like Super Wal-marts will be common. Stores dedicated to clothing, books, electronics, etc... are phasing out.

Comic book sales are flat. Apparently the hit Iron Man and Batman movies did nothing for the comics sales long term.

So being the classic "RPG/Comic store" is stagnating across the board. I think being an internet cafe is also just a stop gap measure, since my T-mobile Blackberry Pearl with unlimited internet hooks my laptop up to the internet where ever I have cell signal. Apparently all G1 phones do the same thing too.

So there are a lot of challenges, ever changing challenges, that LGS' will have to continually adapt to overcome, at an increasingly smaller profit margin, that eventually they will all go away, or turn into such a diversified store, that they certainly will not be recognizable as our current LGS' are.

They will be your local drug/milk/food/rpg store.

On line sales may keep a store alive, but if all your profit comes from being on line sooner or later they will cut costs to increase profit, and shut down the store.

 

[SteveC]

I've said this before: if you're in retail, and what you buy can easily be researched and bought online, you had better come up with a new business model to account for it or you won't be around in ten years time.

For a game store, there has to be something these stores do to keep people coming in any buying from them. In the case of my FLGS, they have CCG events almost every day of the week, and have a separate play space to put the games in. The draw is that parents drop off their kids for the evening, give 'em $20 to buy cards and snacks, and get a night out. I support my FLGS, but I know that the card games give them at least an order of magnitude more income that RPGs.

If a game store can't come up with a strategy to draw people in, I don't think it can really survive. I wish it were otherwise, frankly.

--Steve

 

[Mistwell]

Comic book sales are flat. Apparently the hit Iron Man and Batman movies did nothing for the comics sales long term.

They are flat at a time when the sales of most things are rapidly decreasing. This is a sign of success, not failure.

So being the classic "RPG/Comic store" is stagnating across the board.

Again, "stagnant" in this economy is the equivalent of fantastic. I think you're trying to spin things and pretending the context isn't "during a deep recession".

Comics and gaming seem to be, from everything I am hearing (as chief counsel to the leading comics news company), doing fairly well relative to other niche products, during this recession. And "fairly well" means in this context "flat", at a time when most companies are down 20-30%.

 

[Intense_Interest]

You're just tad bit absolutely ignorant of the details in your examples here.

music stores have pretty much disappeared. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are disappearing. Bookstores are disappearing

Blockbuster/Hollywood Video type stores are Sprawlfront properties, being developed next to pop-art fronted nail stores, Radio Shacks, and Subway franchises. They aren't "magnet businesses"- they have the symbiote's relationship with the Grocer-Department stores like Walmart and Fred Meyer. These are the stores that die when gas gets to be a $5 a gallon.

Bookstores and music stores are not only competing with the internet (obsoletely so, in the case of music) but with the "Big Barn" style entertainment Barnes & Nobles of the world, that offer just as much selection for the same price. Thriving & Surviving stores of either genre dependablely offer better selection and more professional service than those stores, and a more immediate sale than the internet.

The LGS, on the other hand, has better qualities than either case. Most of this has to do with the fact that a LGS is a niche industry, to the point of cannibalization of an entire "geek" niche, with the comic/wargame/miniature/RPG/CCG store being more successful over-all.

1- Storefront/"Magnet" business. As other businesses fail in down-town commerical districts because of effects like the internet and suburban spawl, the likelyhood of rising rents forcing them out drop. Because of the high rention rates of "geek" hobbies, walk-up business is often more profitable than, say, a bead store or a shoe store. Placing a business in a high-density commerical core is actually a better investment than trying to "out sprawl" a business by trying to reach the suburban commuter.

2- Big Barn/Internet competition is lacking certain central provisions- such as personalized service, water-hole/cultural hotspot, and "gaming space". CCG-centric stores commonly have twice-a-week tournaments that throw together a mass of eyeballs to provide side-business and bring in friends.

Essentially, in citys that aren't built to fail already (Sprawl without a downtown core transit, towns without a centric institution to provide jobs), there will always be a FLGS unless a non-present gamechanger comes to alter this.

 

[Treebore]

They are flat at a time when the sales of most things are rapidly decreasing. This is a sign of success, not failure.



Again, "stagnant" in this economy is the equivalent of fantastic. I think you're trying to spin things and pretending the context isn't "during a deep recession".

Comics and gaming seem to be, from everything I am hearing (as chief counsel to the leading comics news company), doing fairly well relative to other niche products, during this recession. And "fairly well" means in this context "flat", at a time when most companies are down 20-30%.

Well, having ran a successful business for 8 years, I can tell you "flat" doesn't help you pay increasing rent, utilities, and product costs. You need your product profits to grow with, preferably out pace, your rising business costs, not stay "flat".

 

[Mistwell]

Well, having ran a successful business for 8 years, I can tell you "flat" doesn't help you pay increasing rent, utilities, and product costs.

Inflation is also flat right now, and we've even seen a tad bit of deflation. Rent has tended to go down for example. In fact last month, we had -1.28% inflation, which is deflation. If you made the same as you did in May 2008, you were up 1.28%. Of course it does help pay for those things.

You need your product profits to grow with, preferably out pace, your rising business costs, not stay "flat".

During a recession when most companies are seeing profits dip 20-30%, staying flat is a good thing. That's not really a matter of opinion. Can we at least get past that contention?

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

Alas, it's already happened where I live. There are no local game stores anymore. There is a local internet one, but that makes no odds. No shop front presence.

Having worked in highschools & colleges in the UK in IT support, from my experience the people coming through the system have little (or much less) interest in printed materials - to the point that concerns have been raised in the House of Lords - but try and prise them away from the internet and that's a different matter. As soon as those "digital natives" get hold of credit/debit cards I suspect it will only accelerate.

 

[Dausuul]

As it becomes easier and easier to deliver high-quality digital content over the Internet, it will become harder and harder to make a living providing old-fashioned dead-tree content.

You can see it already with the DDI. I went into my FLGS t'other day to pick up a Monster Manual 2. While I was there, I leafed through the Eberron Player's Guide, and I thought, "Hmm. I'm not a fan of Eberron, and I don't like artificers at all, but some of these races are really neat. Maybe I should pick this up."

And then I thought, "But why would I do that when I have a DDI subscription and the character builder? Heck, I could probably skip buying the MM2 as well, if it weren't for sometimes needing to whip up an encounter on the fly."

Bang. There went a lost sale for my FLGS, because I very likely would have bought the Player's Guide otherwise. But I no longer need to get hard-copy books in order to cherry-pick feats and classes and races that I like.

So the FLGS, to survive, must find products or services to offer that cannot be digitally duplicated. CCGs are one answer; while there are of course such games as Magic Online, those of us who play with physical cards have a substantial barrier to entry (the money we've already invested in paper), which prevents us making the jump as easily as D&D players can jump to DDI.

But I suspect CCGs will ultimately follow the same path. In 2007, WotC's brand manager said in an interview that MTG Online was "30 to 50 percent" of the total Magic business. I expect that number will grow; paper MTG will ultimately become a dead-end hobby, dominated by people with troves of expensive old cards who can remember buying Antiquities booster packs for $2.00.

In the end, the Internet and big-box retail stores will kill the FLGS and take its stuff. Big-box retailers will take over the job of selling what dead-tree products remain, while the Internet will become the place where gamers meet and hang out.