Game Stores, d20, and stupidity...

[trancejeremy]

Today I went to my local(ish) game store (its actually about 40 miles away, but it's the closest to where I live), looking for the first Dragonstar book, or if they didn't have it, some Deadlands d20 books, or Weird Wars d20 stuff.

They didn't have any of that.

But they did have at least 12 copies of Chaosium's d20 adventure, Slaves of Fate. Maybe more. There were that many on the 'New' shelf.

The same store has at least 2 of every Elric! & 1990s Stormbringer supplement from Chaosium, just sitting on the shelf, gathering dust.

Why on Earth would they buy so many copies of one module? One that is (no offense to any of the authors) pretty lame looking, since the PCs start as prisoners on a ship (why would anyone want to play a campaign like that, is beyond me).

And why don't they carry more WW d20 or Deadlands d20 stuff? Both of those appear to be selling well for Pinnacle. And Dragonstar appears to be selling well for FFG.

Anyway, I was mildly annoyed. But it turned out well, because instead of buying d20 stuff, I went to Best Buy and found a song by the Space Brothers I was looking for on a compilation. Unmixed, too.

 

[Crothian]

I can't offer any insight into the buying practices of your local gaming store. But you should have asked them. Maybe they were sold out of what you wanted. Perhaps, they were given to much of other product or recieved it instead and the distributor refused to take it back.

 

[NLP]

Why on Earth would they buy so many copies of one module? One that is (no offense to any of the authors) pretty lame looking, since the PCs start as prisoners on a ship (why would anyone want to play a campaign like that, is beyond me).

Many times a company buys a "name" product because they believe it will sell because of the name recognition. Sometimes this works (especially if it's a good product) and sometimes it flops. When it flops, you see those companies selling the material on ebay, trying to recoup their costs.

And why don't they carry more WW d20 or Deadlands d20 stuff? Both of those appear to be selling well for Pinnacle. And Dragonstar appears to be selling well for FFG.

What might be selling like hotcakes in Los Angeles, could be a slow seller in Chicago, and a dead fish in Topeka. That doesn't mean that the product you were looking for wouldn't be a good seller, but most game stores can only afford to carry so much product inventory. Money costs rule all industries, and a dead product is just a loss of money. Because of this, many smaller game stores are afraid to take a chance. It doesn't take losing money on a lot of $20.00 products for a game store to get gunshy.

Anyway, I was mildly annoyed. But it turned out well, because instead of buying d20 stuff, I went to Best Buy and found a song by the Space Brothers I was looking for on a compilation. Unmixed, too.

Well, I'm glad you got something that you wanted, but what I would have done was placed an order with the game store owner for product that you wanted. That way, the next time you made that 40 mile drive, it would have been waiting for you. And you never know, the owner might have ordered a couple of other new things too.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I rarely go to my "Local" game store anymore. When they get the new stuff in, it's on a thursday. They'll hold it for you until...Friday mnrning.

I'm not off until Sunday, and the really new stuff is never left by then, since they also never order enough. I cannot prepay, since they're "not set up" for that.

Their shop layout is ludicrous, with book shelves that place the bottom shelf an inch above the floor, and the product is set back about a foot, so it's not visible unless you're also on the floor...

I get most of my stuff online, but was also running into a problem of finding a place that got all the stuff I wanted. I prefer Green Ronin, Mongoose and Fantasy Flight, as well as Wizards, but Wizard's Attic doesn't carry all that.

I'll most likely be using the EN/RPGshop store unless something goes horribly wrong

 

[Horacio]

My local store receives the new stuff a month after the release date. It's really annoying. So now I buy everything in internet (talon comics and orcsnest), but the shipping cost are killing my wallet

 

[Mindcrime]

The manager at the game store I frequent has flat out told me that he won't order any more d20 product unless a) it comes from one of the Big Four as he calls them (WoTC, Atlas, S&S and Troll Lord) because none of it moves. He says a lot of distributors have even cut back on ordering d20 cuz they have so much of it their warehouses that they can't get rid of. Oh, he did say if he gets three or more people asking about a single product, he'll order 1 copy. If that sells, he'll maybe order 3 more. This happened with Dragonstar. Otherwise, in the last 2 months I've only seen Kevin Kulp's S&S adventure, the S&S DM's screen, Wheel of Time and Song & Silence come out. Everything else just misses us.

As for ordering online, that's nice and convenient but for most of these products I won't buy it without seeing it first, without being able to thumb through it for interesting stuff. Especially with d20, since so much of the quality is highly variable (even the stuff produced by WotC.)

Chris

 

[Heretic Apostate]

My local store receives the new stuff a month after the release date. It's really annoying. So now I buy everything in internet (talon comics and orcsnest), but the shipping cost are killing my wallet

Buy $250 of product from TalonComics, and shipping is free. I always stretch a little bit to get that _last_ few bucks, but I'd rather spend money on product than on shipping. (Sorry, Derek....)

 

[Horacio]

Buy $250 of product from TalonComics, and shipping is free. I always stretch a little bit to get that _last_ few bucks, but I'd rather spend money on product than on shipping. (Sorry, Derek....)

Even for Europe? Derek, is that true?

$250 is quite a bunch of money, but maybe it could be a good idea

(rolls Will save against DC15, gets a 18)

But my wife would kill me...

 

[Ashy]

Maybe not, Horacio - figure up how much you spend on shipping costs in a year and see if it is cost effective. Now, you might have to wait several weeks before getting a "new" product, but that might be better than paying for shipping... (shrugs - maybe)

 

[bitterman]

Hey i work in a game store and my boss is a bit like that about ordering stuff but i tell him what will go because i can sell good stuff its just the trash he buys in when i'm not looking and all i get off him is "it wasn't like this in the old day with tsr" no boss it was crap and i hated them...lol well theres my 2 bits.