Decline of RPG sales

[Pielorinho]

It is good to know what this is really about, though: political agendas with no place in this forum (like the pro-corporate propaganda espoused as "knowledge" earlier) and a burning esire to believe that, no matter what, RPGs are doing great.

These kinds of views are, like other articles of faith, not amenable to reasonable discussion, so I see no reason to talk about them further.

Moderator's Notes:
Eyebeams, you're out of line here, and you've been warned recently. I am giving you a three-day suspension. If you find that you cannot discuss a subject without getting snarky, you need to walk away from the subject.

Daniel

 

[SteveC]

Well, I obviously agree, because that was my interpretation of the numbers that we have up in post #327. I used the example of Green Ronin for a company that struggles because of their difficulties to get seen in book chains or on amazon. And Patrick Lawinger said basically the same before me.

Yes, you're the person that put it in perspective for me, actually.

Living in Madison puts me in a different position than a lot of people: I have a distributor in the same city with me. As a result, I don't really see a lot of the problems that many of you do: my FLGS can literally get anything that they have in stock the same day. That has really insulated me from the question of how different distributions methods distinguish a line of product.

What it sounds like is that this is a relatively new issue, and one that is getting worse. Am I correct here, or is it just something I never saw before?

It seems to me, if all of this is true, that in order for a gaming company to be truly successful, they have to break into that traditional market, then. The ability to do that, or lack thereof, may determine the results for many on the border companies. I would imagine that getting into the more traditional distribution systems would be quite difficult to do, which is a real shame, since some of the companies who aren't there now are producing some of my favorite stuff. I wonder if there is anything we (as gaming consumers) can do to change this, aside from buying lots of product, that is...

 

[Vocenoctum]

On question 4:

Any company that increases its availability to consumers increases its odds of success. That's business 101.

If your normal distribution channels are not providing sufficient income for you to succeed, you need to improve/expand your distribution and/or examine the viability of your product. That's business 102.

For a variety of reasons, traditional distribution channels for RPGs are not cutting it anymore for many RPG companies.

RPG companies must adapt or die.

I think a part of it, is the rising prices of RPG books. RPG companies have to make a higher per book amount, so they charge more. The higher price drives more people to duscount online shops, hurting RPG stores. I cant' say whether overall sales have suffered, but I think the sales are moving from comic stores to discount stores.
It's all kind of interrelated. It's a shame there's not some system where the product could be sold to RPG shops at a price lower than to book dealers and such.

 

[SteveC]

On question 4:

Any company that increases its availability to consumers increases its odds of success. That's business 101.

If your normal distribution channels are not providing sufficient income for you to succeed, you need to improve/expand your distribution and/or examine the viability of your product. That's business 102.

For a variety of reasons, traditional distribution channels for RPGs are not cutting it anymore for many RPG companies.

RPG companies must adapt or die.

Sure, that all makes sense. The question is: how long has the traditional gaming distribution method not been working? I've seen threads where companies have said "the traditional system is failing us because distributor X won't stock our stuff. We have a plan to get around them and get our product into the market."

This is usually followed by one of the distributors saying: good luck. I haven't seen any real success stories on doing this, outside of the largest gaming companies that use traditional book channels. I wonder if anyone who actually knows what the deal is with the distribution system would be willing to make a comment on the subject, or any of the publishers who've been trying to move to another kind of system.

Color me confused on the whole subject but wanting to learn more .

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I won't name names, but some of the distribution companies are ridiculously incompetent. There have been times when I have a book in my hand for weeks in Dallas before my buddy in Boston sees it in a store. Result: he makes a lot of purchases online or when he visits.

This caused a lot of problems before the advent of internet shopping, and internet shopping has only made the problems more pronounced.

In the meantime, many books are being sold online at prices below the costs FRPGS are paying.

At least part of that is because the big online discount houses have the purchasing power to buy in bulk, earning discounts, which they pass along to the consumers.

HOWEVER...

There are allegations that those same discount resellers are engaged in predatory pricing- selling certain products below costs (usually while cross subsidizing with slightly higher prices on other products) in order to drive certain competitors out of business.

Why would an online seller want to go after the FRPGS? FRPGS have a particularly good relationship with those companies that sell certain heavily marketed IPs- MOVIES. They generally have a better selection of collectibles related to sci-fi/fantasy type films than other stores. You want Star Wars or LoTR memorabilia or collectibles? Generally, you're going to a FRPG or similar store.

And if THOSE are gone, you're going to Amazon & Ebay, etc.

 

[Turjan]

What it sounds like is that this is a relatively new issue, and one that is getting worse. Am I correct here, or is it just something I never saw before?

The following is just the gist of many similar threads, so bear with me :

Well, I heard it was starting around the release of D&D 3.5. Game shops couldn't sell D&D 3.0 stuff anymore. Without money from sales, they didn't order new stuff or only very small numbers. Many game shops died, and if I remember correctly, alone during the last year, one third of all game shops vanished (that's how I remember it; someone with exact numbers may correct me). This means that the number of sales points for RPGs that are dependent on game shops decreased dramatically.

Most customers who go to a shop in order to find a product do that exactly once. If the product isn't there, they go somewhere else. With less copies ordered, even product that would normally sell did not have any customers, because the latter used other channels to get it. This means: no reorders. Distributors didn't get rid of the stuff and didn't want to order much from RPG companies anymore. The main distributor of a big number of small to medium companies finally got bankrupt, not paying said RPG companies. For many RPG companies, this was the end.

Distributors also start with the "lean management" model. They keep only a very small number of product in stock. If the product unexpectedly sells well, they cannot fulfill reorders in a timely manner. This means more lost customers.

Companies like amazon don't like product that is not available from distributors in a timely manner. Amazon has small profit margins, but if customers complain about overdue deliveries, they usually hand out $5 compensations. Guess whose product will get penalized by surcharges, no discounts and, as final measure, be kicked out of the catalogue.


EDIT: As I wrote it, it looks as if I made 3.5 responsible for the game shop death; in reality, this was only one small aspect among others, like a decline in the important card sales.

 

[philreed]

I won't name names, but some of the distribution companies are ridiculously incompetent. There have been times when I have a book in my hand for weeks in Dallas before my buddy in Boston sees it in a store. Result: he makes a lot of purchases online or when he visits.

And this doesn't even address the problem of some distributors not paying on time. It makes it increasingly more difficult for a publisher to release new products when they haven't been paid for the last batch.

Something to stick in your mind: Remember all of the delayed products in this industry? Some of those delays come about because the publisher hasn't been paid for earlier releases and now doesn't have the money to print the new stuff -- stuff that's done and waiting on cash before it can be printed.

 

[BryonD]

These kinds of views are, like other articles of faith, not amenable to reasonable discussion, so I see no reason to talk about them further.

EDIT: now seeing that I'm responding to a comment that got you temp banned, I'll remove my reply.

Though I'll retain a general objection to your parsing of your own words while substituting straw men for mine. Oh well.

 

[BryonD]

And this doesn't even address the problem of some distributors not paying on time. It makes it increasingly more difficult for a publisher to release new products when they haven't been paid for the last batch.

Something to stick in your mind: Remember all of the delayed products in this industry? Some of those delays come about because the publisher hasn't been paid for earlier releases and now doesn't have the money to print the new stuff -- stuff that's done and waiting on cash before it can be printed.

Is this an result of problems within the gaming industry, or is it an outside factor that is a source cause of some of the problems?

 

[philreed]

Is this an result of problems within the gaming industry, or is it an outside factor that is a source cause of some of the problems?

This doesn't apply to all distributors but what happens sometimes is that a big, hot collectible product releases so the money goes to buying more from the publisher of the newest CCG, CMG, whatever is hottest, instead of paying the smaller publishers. It's actually a form of speculation in a much larger scale than single gamers take part in. (Think of it as: "If I take the $1,000 I owe this publisher and buy more of X then I'll be able to pay the original publisher his $1,000 in a few weeks and have more profits from X then if I hadn't done this.")