d20 Print Publishers scrambling?

[Mark]

Are d20 Print Publishers scrambling to sell off stock of material compatible with the current SRD in anticipation of the new edition release? If so, how are sales going along those lines? Are retailers slowing orders of print material in anticipation of this? Are consumers taking advantage of special offers and sales of that stock, if any?

 

[MEG Hal]

Are d20 Print Publishers scrambling to sell off stock of material compatible with the current SRD in anticipation of the new edition release? If so, how are sales going along those lines? Are retailers slowing orders of print material in anticipation of this? Are consumers taking advantage of special offers and sales of that stock, if any?

Nope all the stuff can work with 3.5, there may be some slight differences skills and ranks for some classes etc...but most of the stuff should have very little extra work in order for it to be 3.5'd .

We will try and do some errata for our newer stuff I do not have any titles or dates for this, it really is not that impactful (in the big picture)

 

[JohnNephew]

Are d20 Print Publishers scrambling to sell off stock of material compatible with the current SRD in anticipation of the new edition release? If so, how are sales going along those lines? Are retailers slowing orders of print material in anticipation of this? Are consumers taking advantage of special offers and sales of that stock, if any?

I think there are a couple of different things going on here.

We're doing one of those "sales," in the form of the Penumbra Classic Adventure Bundle, which ships to distributors this week. It has four adventures (Three Days to Kill, In the Belly of the Beast, The Tide of Years and Maiden Voyage) bundled together for $19.95 (versus $38.80 if bought separately -- almost 50% off).

It's not because of 3.5, though -- it's just the natural product life cycle. All of these adventures are 2-3 years old. All of them have made a profit, but their ongoing rate of sales is not very high. A lot of retailers don't want to devote shelf space to reordering old adventures like this, considering there's a flood of new releases every month, and we need the warehouse space for our own upcoming products. So we offer this bundle as a kind of "buy two, get two free" inventory reduction sale. It seems like a better option than just hauling most of the inventory to the recycling center to free up space. We hope it will lure in some people who may have missed the books when they were new in stores, and maybe get some stores to restock the titles that they may not have had on their shelves for a year or two.

With respect to retailer and distributor orders, it does look to me like there's some conservative ordering right now. I don't know how much of it is that they are worried about 3.5 compatibility (probably not a very big deal) -- a bigger concern is probably cash flow. All the core rulebooks and a huge flood of new releases at the same time is going to suck dry the retailer pocketbook. They are probably trying to cut ordering to the bone in advance to hoard up cash for the big outlay needed to bring in the new version and the third-party material being released at the same time.

 

[JohnNephew]

BTW, here's a link to the info on the Penumbra bundle: http://www.warehouse23.com/item.cgi?AG3224 (this is Warehouse 23, which handles our mail order, but I'm sure it will also be available through the ENWorld shop and other online outlets).

 

[Mark]

I suppose to a certain degree retailer orders slow a bit just before the main convention season and the big releases regardless of "new editions" and that sort of thing. Thanks John and Hal for the quick responses.

 

[Mystic Eye]

Re: Re: d20 Print Publishers scrambling?

Nope all the stuff can work with 3.5, there may be some slight differences skills and ranks for some classes etc...but most of the stuff should have very little extra work in order for it to be 3.5'd .

We will try and do some errata for our newer stuff I do not have any titles or dates for this, it really is not that impactful (in the big picture)

Hal is right in regards to us at MEG. Our stuff may need a little conversion eratta but a lot of the newers items won't need anything at all for the most part.

 

[spacecrime.com]

Are retailers slowing orders of print material in anticipation of this?

Not per se, no.

I am trimming inventory and am -- as John has observed of other retailers -- ordering fairly conservatively, but that's storewide. (Actually more than storewide, since I can see that a number of the larger information-entertainment retailers in the area are trimming stock too.) The local economy is not fantastic at the moment, and even though we're still up a bit over last year I want to stay light on inventory and keep a little more cash in the bank than usual.

cheers,