D&D General Why Were the Dragon and Dungeon Magazines Discontinued?

[Micah Sweet]

I think I understand, but there are some issues with this sentence that are confusing me. Regarding Beyond, it can only do stuff for you if you allow it.

Me too, but eventually I found Beyond so much easier to use I find myself buying less and less PDFs because I simple archive them and hardly ever use them. However, I use Beyond all the time when creating custom content for my games and for fun.

I write custom content in Word files that I then convert to pdfs and distribute to my players.

 

[dave2008]

I write custom content in Word files that I then convert to pdfs and distribute to my players.

I use homebrewery mostly now to write, add graphics, and make PDFs (if needed). However, I use Beyond to copy/paste and for super quick rules references when I am creating.

 

[Starmaster]

Sure, but being at FLGS and not Kroger or even Barnes & Novle or Target demonstrates the problem.

I never saw Dragon or Dungeon issues at supermarkets or Target stores even when they were going strong.

My local Books-A-Million carried all the Pathfinder adventure path issues (along with a selection of other Pathfinder Products). However, they stocked the AP periodicals in the RPG section, whereas they used to stock Dragon & Dungeon periodicals on the magazine racks. At least they carried them up until a store reset that occurred a just a few months ago. After that, the section shrank way down. Now I think the RPG section is pretty much all D&D. Maybe that reflects a general decrease in demand for RPGs.

 

[Parmandur]

I never saw Dragon or Dungeon issues at supermarkets or Target stores even when they were going strong.

My local Books-A-Million carried all the Pathfinder adventure path issues (along with a selection of other Pathfinder Products). However, they stocked the AP periodicals in the RPG section, whereas they used to stock Dragon & Dungeon periodicals on the magazine racks. At least they carried them up until a store reset that occurred a just a few months ago. After that, the section shrank way down. Now I think the RPG section is pretty much all D&D. Maybe that reflects a general decrease in demand for RPGs.

I saw them in supermarkets in the 90s, and I wasn't even lookong for them.

 

[Umbran]

Maybe that reflects a general decrease in demand for RPGs.

Not necessarily. Remember that these stores are trying to get the most bang for their buck out of shelf space. If the non-D&D portion of the hobby has become fragmented, then there may not be enough business from the smaller games to justify Big Box store shelf-space.

The demand can be high, with folks going more directly to publishers for the goods.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I saw them in supermarkets in the 90s, and I wasn't even lookong for them.

There are a handful of causal factors that contributed to me getting back into gaming in the early 00s. The Fellowship of the Ring movie was one of them. Another was picking up this Dragon magazine from the shelves of a grocery store:

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I never saw Dragon or Dungeon issues at supermarkets or Target stores even when they were going strong.

My local Barnes & Noble had them right up to the very end, in their surprisingly robust magazine section (even to this day).

 

[Clint_L]

I loved Dragon and White Dwarf, especially when I was a kid. Just like I loved browsing the comics rack at my local convenience store. But this is just one of those situations where there's no one really to blame, except "the Internet." Digital publishing, especially of periodicals, has erased the already thin profit margins of the vast majority of serial publications. There's just not enough money in it.

 

[Starmaster]

My local Barnes & Noble had them right up to the very end, in their surprisingly robust magazine section (even to this day).

Yes, although they didn't carry them in my local supermarkets, I got my copies at my FLGS or at one of the local bookstores (Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks, B-Dalton, or Brentano's) rather than by subscription since there was no telling what kind of condition they would arrive in if sent through the mail. The exception to this was when they started adding an extra signature of pages in the subscription copies that was not in the retail copies. That's when I subscribed so I could get the extra pages.

 

[wicked cool]

I remember getting that last magazine in the mail. Was a sad day. I miss the comics and I miss the ads for ral partha etc