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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 1468055" data-attributes="member: 151">Well, maybe yours did...but I think that says more about your local gaming stores than WotC.  WotC is closing it's retail stores because they were a bad idea, poorly conceived and poorly managed.  Our local WotC store opened, and it was cool, but not profitable.  They had a section for LAN gaming, but at prices that precluded them making any money.  They tried to sell video and computer games, but at much higher prices than any other store, such as Electronics Boutique, Game Stop, Babbages and every major department or toy store except Kay-B (and you saw what happened to them).  They had a reasonable selection of stuff, but they had to sell at full retail, as opposed to the nearby comic shop and the hobby store that had already been in the mall for 2 decades, and already had a loyal base. After the fiasco over Sword & Fist, the WotC stores were some of the last to receive WotC product, and the first to be shorted when print runs ran low.  More than once, I went to WotC first, found they DIDN'T HAVE A WOTC PRODUCT, and then walked across the mall to the hobby store to buy it there.  In the rush to prevent the alienating their retailers, WotC took away their stores greatest strength.  They hired two kinds of employees, that I could tell: gamers who didn't work and workers who didn't game.   After they yanked out the LAN equipment, much of their RPG section and divested themselves, eventually, of all their overpriced videogames...they became another Spencers, with more parlor games.  And all of this ignores the really terrible economy and changing market dynamics of the last four years, not the least of which has been three successive waves of layoffs at WotC itself.  Is it any wonder that WotC has been closing the stores down? In short, the WotC stores failure has nothing to do with how much people buy online, IMHO; any more than they indicate the failure of video games to sell in the retail channel or LAN gaming facilities.  It shows that WotC had no idea how to run a chain of game stores, and probably should never have entered into them in the first place. Now, that doesn't mean that more and more folks aren't buying their books online.  They surely are.  But many FLGS offer discounts to their better customers that match online purchases, with no delivery hassle or shipping costs.  Purchasing a book at a FLGS isn't always just throwing money down a hole. That said, I think the online purchase method is only going to gain in strength, but it will never fully replace the bookstore.  Those stores that recognize that service is what keeps me coming in will keep my business.  Amazon and gameoutfitters are swell, but they don't recommend things to me, or have browsing space that's organized...and they don't sell minis or other supplies, either.</blockquote>

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