Concerning buying D&D 4th Edition

[Ghaerdon Fain]

I remember using a dial to call out. Then push buttons on my "princess phone", now I use a piece of glass and mettle thats smaller than my wallet with no buttons at all.... anywhere I like. Walmart has changed small town business. I hate what Walmart represents, yet even when I try I do end up there, but less often as the Internet has further changed the retail market. Not so fast but as the "pump" goes up I have less "fun money"... I want the cheapest, even if I have to wait.

Things change people. The local hobby story is becoming a thing of the past... sad, very very sad, but true: one word, dodo. Kindof like AD&D, 2E and 3x ... even games change. Yet at least we can still play all the previous editions... I can't go to my old bankrupt FLGS.

Sorry business owners but the way we as consumers buy things are changing... fast. At least the majority are not downloading the torrent off of piratebay and WANT to buy. Good news for WotC/hasbro, bad news for the FLGS.

 

[phil500]

If i spent an additional 40 dollars to support my local store, sure it would help them stay in business and I approve of that.

But i wont. if my 40 dollars were the make or break i would. But it wont be.

Editing out political reference --Dinkeldog/Moderator

 

[RandomCitizenX]

FLGS are a myth in my area. If want to go to a gaming store I need to either drive an hour into N.O. or 3 hours to Lafayette. The N.O. store is friendly but is predominately a wargame and ccg place (which is why I buy my WarMachine there). The one store that once existed in town was a comic and card shop with about a dozen random rpg books. It was not always the friendliest of stores and the owner was a bit pretentious.

 

[phil500]

If i spent an additional 40 dollars to support my local store, sure it would help them stay in business and I approve of that.

But i wont. if my 40 dollars were the make or break i would. But it wont be.



magic and other CCGs are where their profits lie these days.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I might consider buying from a local game store for my RPG purchases, but for 2 factors.

2 of the three places that carry games only carry Card and Mini games. Nary an RPG to be found. They know nothing of RPGs and don't support them, ergo I don't support that store.

The other store carries RPGs. I used to use them, but I special ordered a book. They never heard of it, I got the ISBN from the publisher. They ordered it. I checked "It hasn't come out yet" I know from being on a mailing list that it has... but hey even after 3 weeks, it still might have hit their distributors, so I give them the benefit of the doubt. So I check again in two weeks "It's not out yet". I stop in a week or so later, and the book is sitting on the shelf - I never got a call. I talk to the owner, and he said "You never special ordered that item" - I had him look through their little box of special order cards, and lo and behold there it was.
He blamed it on his employees. Did not apologize for the error, did not try to do any positive customer service.


Any wonder I go online?

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

It's not just games shops that are in difficulty. Any product where 'sight unseen' isn't much of an issue, means that bricks & mortar shops are facing increasingly dire straights. They cannot compete on price, and few can have the added value necessary to overcome people's price sensitivity, especially when you live in a culture where you are encouraged to be considered a "fool" for paying more than necessary and "clever" for getting at the cheapest (financial) price.

Hence our towns are increasingly filled with restaurants, coffee shops, super cheap "£1 stores" and the like, that the internet has (as yet) difficulty in approaching.

Bill gates got a few things wrong when predicting the infuence of the world wide web (i.e. no one would take notice of it), but once he changed his mind, one of the things he said that easily may come true is that the only winners in all of this are the content creators, not the middlemen. WotC wins, not the FLGS.

Like new tabletop roleplayers, games shops will become an ever rarer sight unless something proactive is done.

 

[dagger]

No tax and free shipping......

 

[Bold or Stupid]

I support my FLGS despite working in a bookshop where I get a 33% discount. Why? Because I like to support local business and think most capitalistic ideas are a crock of something brown. I've found online retailers to lack any real customer service skills, beyond hey we messed you around heres a £3 voucher with us! When it takes me all of five minutes to track down an alternate edition at work I wonder at Amazon taking 6 months to declare it unavailable...

Support local shops and they might make enough to eat the small loss of selling gateway products at a discount.

 

[pogminky]

Like new tabletop roleplayers, games shops will become an ever rarer sight unless something proactive is done.

I wonder if RPGs will exist in a decade's time - or if it'll be just loads of MMOs???

 

[greatamericanfolkher]

It must suck not having an awesome FLGS nearby. (Nearby is a relative term, the store I consider my FLGS is a forty minute drive for me. That fact alone should tell you how I feel about the store.)