Amazon.com no more for game purchases: Hypothetical...

[Master of the Game]

Hmm, it's kind of funny. Lately I've been thinking of shopping at Amazon more. I do about 90% of my shopping at the FLGS. They've always treated me well, and back in the days before the internet they used to go out of their way to find old and OOP books for me, and for that I give them my business. I pay for customer service. Of the other 10%, I'd say it was nearly evenly split between buying old stuff at Half Price Books, and PDFs. I say nearly even, because I'll give the slight nod to PDFs and put a small amount into online sales since I do shop at Amazon once or twice a year. Personally I like being able to go in and look through a book before I buy it, and it's worth a bit more to me to have a decent place to do that.

That said, my local FLGS, Dragon's Lair, seems to be concentrating a lot more on minis and comics these days, and gives very little thought to new game releases. The last several books that I tried to get there, including one special order, were not available on their release dates. In fact, I finally gave up on getting Runners Havens (my special order) and got it on Amazon after they still didn't have it at their main store three weeks after it was released. After that I've prety much given up. If they don't have Tome of Battle and RuneQuest on time I'm just not going to bother any more.

 

[Bagpuss]

I already spend more time on eBay than is healthy, but that's only for obscure, second hand or out of print items. I prefer to buy new items, especially WotC stuff, via my FLGS.

That's great for folks with a FLGS, but for some of us Amazon.co.uk is as close as we get to a FLGS.

 

[Baron Opal]

I don't think I have ever ordered a gaming book from Amazon, and precious few of any others. Being able to actually hold the book and look through it is worth something to me, and once I have determined to purchase a book, it is worth it to me to have it immediatly rather than put it back on the shelf and wait a week.

 

[philreed]

That said, my local FLGS, Dragon's Lair, seems to be concentrating a lot more on minis and comics these days, and gives very little thought to new game releases.

That's the store I was talking about (they really don't serve my needs these days). I suspect that they just can't afford to stock anything but the "mainstream" releases but by cutting back (or cutting off, in many cases) on all smaller releases they've basically convinced me that I'm better off just ordering online and saving some money.

Tome of Battle was there on Saturday. I considered picking it up along with the gargantuan dragon but decided I may as well just go home and order online.

 

[JediSoth]

I like shopping at my FLGS and do so at Amazon because of the price. If Amazon stopped selling game material, I would switch all my business back to the FLGS.

That being said, they'd get more of my business now if they'd stock a greater variety of publishers. You can get WotC there, Steve Jackson Games, and stuff put out through White Wolf. Some of the other "big" publishers are hit and miss and anything else is non-existant. You can get a bunch of Magic: tG, though.

I understand supply and demand and all that, and I know they don't stock stuff that doesn't sell well. I've had no trouble special ordering books from them, and in fact, I didn't stop buying most of my books there until I had a nice collection of 3.0 stuff and WotC released 3.5. It was just too expensive to upgrade at full price.

I still buy miniatures, game aids, and board games there, though. They make more of a profit on those things anyway, I'll bet.

JediSoth

 

[Enforcer]

If a book isn't offered at Amazon, where I have Amazon Prime and therefore free two-day shipping, it'd have to be VERY desirable to make me pay full price. Things like A Game of Thrones RPG (which turned out great, but with a broken promise of a GM Screen and adventure) or if White Wolf comes out with a really cool limited edition Exalted 2e book.

Anything else? Discount or bust. Ptolus? Not interested, certainly not interested like I was for A Game of Thrones. If I were to pick it up, it'd be on Amazon (assuming they can get it), if not available, oh well for Monte.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

So RAR and Ptlous aren't going through Amazon.com and presumably Buy.com and other online bits.

What if other books went that rotue and even the standards like the Book of Eldritch Might, etc... were no longer being sold by Amazon.com or other online discounters. Or being sold, but with no discount?

Would you pay full price for RPGs?

Would you start hunting down e-bay more?

Yeah, you know what? I usually don't buy big purchases through my LGS. I'm actually going to get RAR and Ptolus from my LGS.

But after that I'm done.

If companies are going to do the whole LGS only thing then they've effectively lost my dollar. I've explained this before and got jumped on for it, but I'll do it again. I try to make my gaming budget stretch. So If I can get two items for a little over the price that I pay for one that's a good thing. Paying full price for big ticket items is not a good thing for me at least. With Monte and Necromancer Games going that route they've effectively lost a customer (after RAR and Ptolus). The WOTC books I can get at Amazon and will continue to do so. My LGS does nothing for me but sell me stuff. They do nothing for me outside of that so I feel no particular loyalty to them. I like some of the guys who work there but not enough to pay full price for stuff that I can get somewhere else cheaper and they know and understand that.

If worse comes to worse I'll go PDF only for the stuff I want I'm darn near close tp that as it is.

My RPG dollar will go toward other stuff that I like, like DVD's and miniature games.

 

[tensen]

Amazon.co.uk only offers a fraction of the roleplaying items on Amazon.com, and in some cases these are sourced directly from Amazon.com but with the US dollar to sterling conversion based on the list price rather than the Amazon.com price.

Yeah, I was annoyed yesterday when I tried to order something on Amazon.co.uk that was available on the amazon.com site and I wanted to send it to the UK (so figured I'd order on that side.) The weird thing is... the product was from Mongoose. You'd think a UK company would be listed on the UK side.

 

[drothgery]

I shop almost exclusively at amazon for RPGs (and other books) more for convenience and reliability than for cost. If I couldn't get them there, I'd buy them at whatever online store they were available at.

 

[Scribble]

Eh. When I buy a physical book, I normally try to buy it from a FLG... I like, probably most importantly, being able to glance through the book before I buy it. And I tend to buy things in a somewhat impatient way All the sudden I'll decide I want it, and then I need to have it NOW! Mail order bugs me.

Also, I really do believe the FLG is a good thing for the hobby. They offer in store gaming, and tend to offer a wider variety of product which shows people that there are other options in addition to WOTC...

Shrug, maybe message boards are replacing FLG as a community meeting spot though...