Is the age of discounts over?

[ShinHakkaider]

A couple of points in favor of the FLGS:

1. A FLGS provides a place for gamers to meet and play, encouraging long-term involvement in the game. Whether it is the MOST common place for gamers to play or not, it does provide increased opportunity.

No, SOME FLGS provide a place for gamers to meet and play. There are quite a few game stores here in NYC that I know of that don't. Even Neutral Ground, which HEAVILY promotes Card and miniatures gamers while giving RPGr's a hard time about taking up tables that can be otherwise used for card gaming...

. A person with no prior RPG experience who learns the game or becomes interested in it is likely to teach his friends, creating a ripple effect. So that just one person learning the game at the FLGS can draw in potentially dozens.

Once again, that may be your experience but my experience has been most of the people that I have introduced RPG's got introduced to them while I was in the Hosptial, or in school or in another enclosed environment. Those people then bought other friends in to learn or tought them themselves and so on and so on. Most of those people didnt set foot in a gaming store until well after they were playing for a while.

I learned when I was visiting a friends house and saw his older brothers mangled copy of B2 on the floor and asked if I could read it. He told me I could have it and I tried to figure out the rules from the module alone. It wasnt until a month later I was able to scrounge up enough money to purchase the red box from Toys R' US that I learned to play. I didnt even set foot in an actual gaming store until 5-6 years later...

. Ryan Dancey makes his living by knowing the RPG market. I tend to think he has a better grasp on the market than either you or I, thus I'm more inclined to believe his assertions than I am to believe your or my own assumptions.

Maybe he has a better grasp on the market as a whole, but they don't trump my experiences when it comes to how many people I've introduced to the hobby and how many of those people got their exposure to gaming from a gaming store. As many gamers as I've known through the years alot of them were introduced to the game by friends and family members or saw the books in a Toys R' Us or a chain bookstore. There was a guy I knew from JHS who bought the FASERIP marvel box from B Daltons and was reading it at lunch completely oblivious that my friends and I were actually running a Marvel game in that same lunch period.

Ah, lunch period gaming...those were the days.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

No. I've never seen Borders (b&m, not their online store) offer even the slightest discount from MSRP on RPG books.

What I'm saying is that contractually forcing Borders to sell RPG books at MSRP will have absolutely no impact on the fact that I pay MSRP-30% when I buy RPG books at Borders because said books have *always* been priced at MSRP and would continue to be priced at MSRP regardless of the outcome of this ruling.

I buy my WOTC books from Borders at a discount when I joined their discount membership club thing. It cost me nothing but the time to fill out the application. They send me a 20% - 40% coupon at least once a week. I use that coupon to buy either trade paperbacks or gaming books. I don't feel bad about that fact that I walk right past the Gaming store on my way to Borders in order to buy my books.

If my GS had a program like that I'd be giving THEM my money as opposed to giving it to Borders and Amazon. When those discounts go away, I'll be spending my money on something other than gaming books, maybe I'll just buy PDF's exclusively. It's pretty close to that right now. The discounts allow me to spend a little more money in order to get two books as opposed to spending MSRP to get just one. Probably just as well, I'm just about running out of physical space to store these bloody books anyway

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

It seems to me that WotC has been setting price points in mind with where they end up after the online discounts.

They know where the break point is (lost customers) and have raised prices to where the street price is close to their optimal price (with SRP likely bordering on break price).

That's how it looks to me.

Wizards prices their products to allow online AND brick/mortar stores to offer discounts. However, the brick/mortar stores rarely do this. That's why they're losing out on part of the market.

Why pay full price, gas and parking (sometimes) to buy a book in a store when you can get it online cheaper, with free shipping and without sales tax? To support a small business that pays its employees minimum wage and offers no health benefits? To make a charitable contribution to a store that operates on a for profit model? To game somewhere that smells like garbage, and to have your games constantly interrupted? To endure the snotty attitude of an employee who thinks s/he's better than you?

I like my FLGStores, but it's a really hard sell to anyone who isn't a hardcore dork like myself.

 

[Alan Shutko]

I love FLGSes. Of the many LGSes I've been in over the last decade, few of them have been FLGSes. The current one (glad that I have it!) is a half hour away. It's selection is decent, but it often doesn't have what I'm looking for. I could order it from them, but since they go through distributors it'll take a week or two, and then I have to drive out of my way to pick it up. To a limited extent, I can browse purchases, but a lot of the stuff I'd like to look at is shrink-wrapped, so that's not possible. I think they might have in-store RPGs, but I've never seen them... I've only seen people playing CCGs.

On the other hand, there's Amazon. I have Amazon Prime since I buy lots from them, so I can have the same book in my hands two days later without paying for shipping. They have a huge selection. Even if they weren't cheaper, I'd buy most stuff from them. Amazon's here to stay.

And since they're here to stay... and have lots and lots of customers, they're probably going to be able to negotiate better prices regardless of the ruling. If they can't, Walmart can. I'm not sure this is going to change the RPG industry, since I don't think the larger companies want to face losing the giant retailers.

 

[Felix]

No. I've never seen Borders (b&m, not their online store) offer even the slightest discount from MSRP on RPG books.

Which is why I was surprised that you responded as you did; simply because this change in the law will not affect you does not mean that it will not change the buying habits or the contract structure of the market; you don't get affected. The post you responded to asked why someone wouldn't patronize a LGS when they admitted they would spend less money on the same product elsewhere. Were you looking to counter his argument in some other way?

 

[Glyfair]

I could order it from them, but since they go through distributors it'll take a week or two, and then I have to drive out of my way to pick it up.

Is this supposition or experience?

I know that if I order something from either of my gaming stores I often have it two days later, and occasionally the next day (assuming the distributor has it).

I know that some game stores only get shipments once a week, to save on shipping costs. However, both of my stores place orders at least twice a week (and sometimes 3 times a week).

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Is this supposition or experience?

I know that if I order something from either of my gaming stores I often have it two days later, and often the next day (assuming the distributor has it).

I know that some game stores only get shipments once a week, to save on shipping costs. However, both of my stores place orders at least twice a week (and sometimes 3 times a week).

I used to try to give my LGS business with special orders, C&C stuff from TLG for examples it was a nightmare. I would order, they would tell me they had no idea when it would be in, hopefully next week. I would call back 2-3 weeks later and ask if they had gotten my book and just forgotten to call me. IF they even remembered sending the order in they would have no way of telling me when it was coming in, so they would say lets order it again and maybe this time it will come in. As you can guess I quit ordering anything from them at that point, and since I could get anything they had on the shelf at a 30% discount from Amazon I quit buying anything from them at all outside of paints and Reaper minis, though I sometimes bought them through rpgshop as well.

There aren't any FLGS in St. Louis anymore. There is one chain of stores and while they don't suck, they are just LGS's and they offer no advantages at all to buying online. If they go out of business its just the way things go when a type of business cannot compete anymore. I will shed no tears for them.

 

[Jeysie]

Mmm. I'm of a few minds on this.

On the one hand, I support the idea of mom & pop stores. A mom & pop store done right is a fabulous thing to shop at, and, being a full-blooded USer, I like the notion of reaping success from hard work and ingenuity.

On the other hand... and in true octopus fashion, there's a few other hands...

1. For every one mom & pop store done right, there's at least ten done wrong. I've seen... and worked at, for that matter... far too many privately-owned businesses and franchises that were run poorly from a business perspective compared to their chain store counterparts (which I've also worked at).

2. I'm usually an efficient, "Go in, go to the shelf, go to the register, go home" sort of shopper. If I need "expert advice" on something, I generally ask my friends from the comfiness of my own home, where I can know they're not trying to give me an upsell pitch disguised as advice. (I've worked in retail more than long enough to know all the little tricks.)

Mom & pops *are* good for indie and special-order stuff, but usually if you have to special-order it, it's too out of my budget anyway. Plus, many mom and pop stores - around here, at least - are also in an out-of-the-way spot, so it's more convenient to just try to special-order stuff myself... especially if you can get it straight from the publisher/manufacturer.

As for FLGSs in specific... chalk me up as another person who learned the hobby through friends and never played in a store. In fact, when I went up to the LGS to see if there was an opportunity to try some face-to-face RP, turns out all they had on their schedule was stuff like DDM and Magic tourneys.

3. Geek hobby stuff is already too highly priced, IMHO. It's hard to justify dropping $60 for a game you'll likely play once or twice for 10-15 hours, tops... $30 for a CD you'll like half the songs on if you're lucky... even paperbacks are starting to get up there in silliness, and I never buy hardcovers if I can help it. And what would otherwise be a crazy love of comics was lost long ago to my reading speed vs. price.

Core RPG books would actually be a good investment at twice the price, IMHO, but supplements aren't worth it for me. My group will usually use a base class or two and maybe a couple feats or spells, and that's it.

So discounts just serve to knock stuff down to a price closer to being actually worth the money to me... and even then I have to ration my rather limited budget. This will push my already rare purchases of new geek hobby stuff down even further.

Of course, personally I'm even more worried about how this will affect the stuff you *can't* get away with doing without. As much as I loathe shopping in the likes of K-Mart and WalMart, they *are* a necessary evil for those of us who don't make that much money.

Peace & Luv, Liz

 

[Alan Shutko]

Flexor's got it right from my experience. The ST. Charles branch of the LGS is most Friendly, but mostly for board games and CCGs... less so for RPGs. The other branches in the STL area are pretty weak, have few events to speak of, and have a really, really low inventory. Ordering from them will only get 2-day turnaround if the item is in inventory at another store... the last time i tried ordering something which was at a distributor, they said check back in a week or so.

Whenever I happen to be in there, especially if I'm in there for an event, I drop money there, but they're not worth visiting on a frequent basis. To their credit, they bought into Free RPG day, but they didn't advertise it at all, and while they had a board game day, they didn't even announce the RPG stuff... just left it on a table to pick up.

 

[Sigdel]

I think this is at the heart of the issue.

Their is one camp who have a FLGS. Like me they feel lucky, and will do what they can to support them. Even more so since the FLGS that is by me offers a 20% discount off the cover price of all RPGs. But thats just one of the two by me. The other is not so pretty. Has a crap selection. But still offers a 25% discount. Both have cool staff.

But that only the people that are lucky like me. You know what I am talking about. It's those LGS that look and smell like holes in the wall. Have snotty staff. And is run like your money is just not good enough for them. These are the store that we would not miss if the got burned down by the all seeing angry one, Steve Perry.

So all this speculation, quoting of unreliable data and what-not is entirely situational. My situation with my FLGS is good, wait no, it's great. Your experience may vary.