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It feels to me like Hasbro has lit a fire under Wizards of the Coast, and given them


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What exactly is Amazon.com doing for you?Smeelbo
Abuser of EZCodes

While I find most of your points in this thread not only anecdotal but pretty much BS as any sort of market indication, you touch here on a point very near and dear to me. Too many people these days only equate value with price. I know of people that only go to the game store to see what's available and peruse it, go to game days and such, then order from Amazon for price.

In the 'keeping up with the Joneses' and 'gotta have it all' mentality, I feel too many lose focus on service. If we do it for too long, we lose it. I've already seen what that festering craphole WalMart has done to my hometown with hardware stores, grocery stores and the like disappearing with their services to the community and knowledge.

Are there some bad game stores out there? Most definitely, just like any other business type. But there's also a seemingly pervasive attitude that too many gamers (and people in general) feel like they're "owed" everything for engaging in a hobby. It makes me sad to think how so many people have seemingly stopped caring about service and maybe even convenience in the name of saving a buck.

Check out the 3/50 trends and you'll see that it can even make a difference in your community.
 

While I find most of your points in this thread not only anecdotal but pretty much BS as any sort of market indication, you touch here on a point very near and dear to me. Too many people these days only equate value with price. I know of people that only go to the game store to see what's available and peruse it, go to game days and such, then order from Amazon for price.

In the 'keeping up with the Joneses' and 'gotta have it all' mentality, I feel too many lose focus on service. If we do it for too long, we lose it. I've already seen what that festering craphole WalMart has done to my hometown with hardware stores, grocery stores and the like disappearing with their services to the community and knowledge.

Are there some bad game stores out there? Most definitely, just like any other business type. But there's also a seemingly pervasive attitude that too many gamers (and people in general) feel like they're "owed" everything for engaging in a hobby. It makes me sad to think how so many people have seemingly stopped caring about service and maybe even convenience in the name of saving a buck.

Check out the 3/50 trends and you'll see that it can even make a difference in your community.

The game store that was down the street from me always had surly staff and never had anything (other than a lot of d20 glut books) in stock. Of course, they went out of business pretty quickly. The next nearest game store is a 30 minute drive away. If I lived on the other side of town, I probably would use his store for all my purchases, primarily because I would attend his in store events.

But there's also a seemingly pervasive attitude that too many gamers (and people in general) feel like they're "owed" everything for engaging in a hobby.
And how does this not also apply to game store owners who feel that because they've opened a game store all gamers should pay them for being a middleman?
 

Isn't the first 3 levels of the character builder free?

That 5 Reknown points seems like the easiest 5 points to get....

Again, I'm kinda confused and need to restate my question since i think it was ignored...

Isn't the character builder 1st 3 levels FREE?

How are those 5 renown points hard to come by?
 

But there's also a seemingly pervasive attitude that too many gamers (and people in general) feel like they're "owed" everything for engaging in a hobby. It makes me sad to think how so many people have seemingly stopped caring about service and maybe even convenience in the name of saving a buck.

I buy everything online. I don't own retailers anything and I'm not going to suffer through a sub-par buying experience just because there's the incorrect idea out there that game stores are necessary and should be supported.

When I shop for game stuff, everything is in stock. I get it cheaper and nine times out of ten I get it within 3 days of ordering it.

Additionally I'm buying more products which is resulting in more sales to the publisher. Buying from a game store means your money doesn't go as far and supports the wrong end of the chain.

Others may feel that they owe the game store, that's fine, but don't ask me to subsidize your use of a retail store.
 

I wonder how much of the negative FLGS experience comes about because of the separation of ownership and management. Smeelbo obviously puts a lot of work into his store. Whenever I have dealt with the owner of a store, things have been pretty great. Whenever I deal with the employees, the experience is not great, and often bad.

It's a classic principal-agent problem. The employees don't care about service nearly as much as the management, but management obviously cannot be around all the time.

Also, perhaps we should start referring to gaming stores as UnFLGS ? :devil:
 

Regarding Hasbro and WotC's relationship, Wizards is mentioned 9 times in the annual report, but only one seems to indicating anything other than typical financial transactions:

"The increase in gross profit in dollars [from the prior year] was more than offset by increased product development and sales and marketing expenses related to investments the Company made in both core brands and its digital initiative related to its Wizards of the Coast subsidiary."

So DDI was a significant investment of working capital for WotC, significant enough to get mentioned in the annual report.
 


Regarding Hasbro and WotC's relationship, Wizards is mentioned 9 times in the annual report, but only one seems to indicating anything other than typical financial transactions:

"The increase in gross profit in dollars [from the prior year] was more than offset by increased product development and sales and marketing expenses related to investments the Company made in both core brands and its digital initiative related to its Wizards of the Coast subsidiary."

So DDI was a significant investment of working capital for WotC, significant enough to get mentioned in the annual report.

Again...I hate to point out...aren't we forgetting M:TG?

MTGonline is run inhouse IIRC and as well, isn't MTG coming out with ANOTHER electronic game this time with Sony?

(Duels of the planeswalkers apparently did very well on xbox live and Sony wants a piece of that action now...)
 


Into the Woods

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