Best 3.5 pre-order prices: $17.62 each at Walmart ($52.86 + $5.88 S&H = $58.74)

[Bran Blackbyrd]

look at the shrinking of video game boxes over the last year or two as an example. Did any of the manufacturers push for half-sized boxes? No, it's all Wal-Mart and their interest in shelf space.

Actually, people have been pushing for smaller video game boxes for years. I recall one computer magazine made their point in an article by stacking game boxes and then taking a blowtorch to them. Those gigantic boxes were ridiculous and wasteful. The new ones use less paper, less plastic, less machining, less ink, less space on MY shelf if I choose to keep the box and there's less room for the jewel case to slide around getting crushed in. The manuals for most games didn't get any smaller than they were before. That's without even mentioning the reduced impact on the environment.

I won't buy music from Wal Mart because of their practice of censoring whatever they don't like. Wal Mart is 10 minute away from me, the next closest place to buy music was closer to an hour away. It was a pain, but I'm not in the habit of buying a butchered version of anything.

I want to know if any inherent discounts will be included with the 3.5e boxed set, since you are buying all three books at once.


EDIT: It's funny really. I was going on about how much I love the idea of the small boxes when I picked up Vice City a little over a week ago. Am I that much of a geek? Yup. I really did go on about how cool they are.

 

[WizarDru]

Must... Not... Rant... Lights... Dimming... Sparks... In front... Of my... Eyes....


I'm a *real* gaming store and I'm selling them for as low as 25% off plus 4.95 shipping. That's basically 67.38 plus shipping. If you order over 100 bucks worth of stuff in the same order that's going to be *FREE* shipping.

www.taloncomics.com/dndrevisedcorebooks.html

I sell dice! I sell other books! I even know that RANGERS GOT THE SHAFT!

And now you get the chance to earn and keep my business. WotC's retail chain clearly doesn't want it, and my poor experiences with the Compleat Strategist, time and again, mean that they clearly don't, either.

My pre-order is in, Derek. You may not be my Local shop, but you could be my Favorite.

Oh, and btw, as far as Walmart's moral stance is concerned....if you take a look, that stance tends to get relaxed if something sells in large numbers. More than once, they've ended up selling something they refused to at release time, when it became obvious that it was costing them money to do otherwise. It's something of a fair-weather moral stance, really.

 

[drothgery]

If you dont care if those stores die (and you may not), then consider giving someplace connected with ENWorld a try; Talon has offered a big discount and (I think?) so had RPGNow. If you are glad that the word "Devil" is back after the 2E censorship fiasco you might want to consider supporting someone who isn't going to be pressuring Hasbro to go back to "Tanar'ri".

I consider it vitally important that there be a friendly online mega-bookstore. I hate going to real stores; I'd buy groceries online if not for the $10 delivery charge (which is significant at single-guy living alone volumes of groceries). I buy almost all of my fiction, computer books, video games, movies, and gaming books from Amazon.

The one time I really wanted something on/near the release date, I pre-ordered it from Derek, and I may do that again at some point. But usually waiting a week or two for a gaming book has very little downside.

 

[Rel]

Well, early on page 1, I lamented that the thread really hadn't generated the promised flame war. I was just kidding about that, guys.

Actually I still haven't decided where I'm going to get my 3.5 books from. If Wal-Mart is going to carry them in-store then there's a good chance I'll buy them there. If they are only going to be available through Wal-Mart online, I may well buy them from the FLGS. That's because when I decide to buy them, I'll probably want to buy them that day.

One thing that I just don't get in this discussion is the charge of "censorship" against Wal-Mart because they don't carry certain books, movies or music. I don't believe the word "censorship" has anything to do with whether a particular retailer will or won't carry your product. Censorship is strictly a matter of whether you are prevented from producing the product in the first place.

I think that Wal-Mart is engaged in more of a boycott of material that they deem inappropriate for their store. If you don't want to shop there because of that practice, I fully support your right to go that route. I don't happen to share that idea though.

If I go to a wine shop and ask for a bottle of Pepsi, they'll probably tell me that they don't carry it. They'll tell me that, while they do sell various types of beverages, Pepsi is not an appropriate product for their store. It may be because they find Pepsi not to their taste or because it is not what their average customer is looking for and therefore doesn't need to be taking up valuable shelf space. Whatever the reason, at no point did the owner of the wine shop attempt to stop the Pepsi factory from making Pepsi. And there are plenty of other places to buy Pepsi that aren't the wine shop. I'll probably still go to the wine shop to buy my wine.

As to the matter of the survival of the FLGS, I have a certain nostalgia associated with such places as I'm sure many of the other folks here do. In fact, I'm probably going to drop by my FLGS this afternoon and browse around for a bit and maybe chat with the owner. But I do think that it is his responsibility to react to the current market conditions as best as he is able in order to stay competitive. If he can't do that then I suppose he goes out of business.

I submit that if him going out of business is a tremendous blow to the gaming community then he won't go out of business in the first place because the patrons of his business will have been supporting him with their dollars (or whatever unit of currency is in vogue in his country). If they haven't been supporting him with their dollars but have simply been using his store as a place to hang out, meet other gamers or play on his tables then he should have been charging admission.

I can already hear certain folks out there saying, "There's no way in hell I'd pay admission to go in the local game store." Fine. We can then conclude that you place no value on being able to simply go hang out, meet other gamers or use his tables. If your response to that is, "But I do place value on those things." then my response is, "Of course you don't. Otherwise you would have been willing to pay for them."

 

[Gizzard]

It's funny really. I was going on about how much I love the idea of the small boxes when I picked up Vice City a little over a week ago. Am I that much of a geek? Yup. I really did go on about how cool they are.

I didn't mean to imply that there's anything inherently horrible about the small boxes (unless you like PC stragegy games with big manuals, which is another story.) But no one in the industry was willing to go to them; you get slaughtered marketing-wise if you are the only one on the shelf with a tiny box. "Why does Game A catch my eye? Could it be the box that's 4 times the volume of Game B?" AFAIK, the only reason that everyone moved to small boxes at the same time is because of pressure from the big retailers like Wal-Mart.

Maybe they used their mighty Wal-Mart power for good in this case. Maybe I just am bitter because I liked big old wasteful boxes and manuals that are more than 16 pages. But it's an example of how they can make a whole industry jump to their tune, which is the trend I was trying to point out.

If I go to a wine shop and ask for a bottle of Pepsi, they'll probably tell me that they don't carry it.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. I think a closer analogy is that you go to your theoretical wine shop and find that suddenly they are only stocking row after row of heavily discounted Gallo wine-in-a-box. "The box stuff sells better than the bottles, OK. How 'bout a nice box of Merlot?"

I consider it vitally important that there be a friendly online mega-bookstore.

I don't mean to come across as a FLGS zealot. I like having Amazon around; I think that the competition it provides means there's a healthier marketplace for the consumer. But I have no illusions about what would happen if Amazon were the only place I could get my gaming supplies. "Um, we can't stock Chaos Rising. But disappointed shoppers who could not buy this product instead choose: Dragonlance Novel #193."

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I think most people in this thread are over estimating the importance of RPGs to gaming stores. The ones around here(just because I don't like the people doesn't mean I have't been there ) have only a small amount of shelf space devoted to RPGs. Everything else is lined with old Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels, and tons and tons of comics. People, the heart of these gaming stores isn't the games at all. They're COMIC shops.
Though I think I may pass up the Walmart price to buy from Talon Comics...even though I may disagree with some things, I like the set up. So, if I stop being indecisive, expect a pre-order from me.

 

[Mark Chance]

I'm amazed!

Not too long ago, I was accused of all sorts of horrible things, from being a bald-faced liar to Destroyer of Small Businesses, for admitting that I buy game books on line from discounters.

And yet here people are actually cordial.

Bravo!

 

[Dark Psion]

I go out of my way to avoid talking to salespeople, regardless of the store I'm in. Salespeople get on my nerves. "Can I help you?" over and over. No, if I wanted help, I'd ask for it. Get off my back. Really, if I want to know about a product, I'll come here.

First where in Oklahoma are you and if you are close enough can you come and talk to my boss?

He is always on my case for NOT asking that over and over.

Regardless of where you purchase your D&D books, one thing about Wal Mart concerns me more than the economics involved. Wal mart has made manufacturers censor their products or they don't carry them.

Hate to break it to you but EVERY store "censors" the products on its shelves. There is only so much space, you look at what sells and what does not and yes, sometimes you look at who is making the product and just say NO on that alone.

The only difference is that Mom & Pop stores don't advertise this to the world and if they did, no one would care because they are a Mom & Pop store.

I had a customer this year ask for Oleander plants. For those of you who are not Druids, Oleanders are Poisonous, very poisonous. Plant them around a stable and they will kill your horses.

This lady would not take No! for an answer. "Other places sell them. Mr So & So has them and no one has died. This store has always provided me good service till now." Eventually she went to one of my bosses to taddle and threaten to never shop here again. When my boss tried to get me to order tham I just told her that none of my regular nursuries carry them for fear of lawsuits (a fear she has as well) and that was finally the end of that. Now she will probably find a store that doesn't care what it sells, plant them and hope that no one will die, but until that happens I'm sure she is somewhere telling people what horrible service my store has. (Along with the lady who thought her wooden drawer was still growing and the lady who mulched her flowers with 34-0-0 lawn fertilzer. I swear I heard those plants scream)

Make a customer happy and they will tell two people, make a customer mad and they will tell two hundred people.

 

[boschdevil]

For the absolute cheapest prices, I recommend sneaking into Piratecat's house and stealing them when he's asleep. If you need his address, drop me an e-mail.

Thanks for the address, Eric.

Hmmm, let's see. It sure is interesting that Piratecat has bags of rock salt on the front porch. I wonder why he bought so much. He must be planning for snow.

At any rate, I can pry open this window. Wait! What was that! I could have sworn it was a pump action. Nah! Must have been the wind.

I'll let you know how it turns out later. (By the way, why would he have high-voltage capacitors hooked up to a metallic window? And I don't understand why there's only a water puddle under the window entrance...)

 

[Taladas]

Walmart doesn't sell Book of Vile Darkness?

BoVD

Are you sure?