It feels to me like Hasbro has lit a fire under Wizards of the Coast, and given them

[MerricB]

So your FLGS has already established events on Wednesdays? That's fine, put aside at least one table for D&D Encounters and continue your regularly scheduled events. If Encounters is anywhere as successful as FNM, it's going to be nothing but a win for participating stores.

No, they're not open Wednesday evening.

There is a key difference between D&D Encounters and FNM: In FNM, each player purchases new Magic product on the day*, giving the store profit every session. In D&D Encounters, the D&D players just need to turn up.

(* Assuming Draft or Sealed Deck; even in Constructed, there may likely be a prize pack pool which players contribute money towards buying).

Not to mention that Wednesday is a much more difficult proposition for working adults and studying students. Friday Night is the lead-in for the weekend. Wednesday isn't.

I've already read some blog posts about stores running Encounters events on Wednesdays, and then following up with more sessions later in the week for those who missed out. Not sure if that's against the rules or not,

It is against the rules.

 

[billd91]

Good for them. Pity then the stores that can't run a session on Wednesday due to a number of extremely valid reasons:

* They don't normally open late, so opening for D&D Encounters adds too much expense to run economically
* If run after 6pm, the schoolchildren who otherwise would be interested (if it was on Friday or Saturday) need to do schoolwork and can't attend
* If run before 5pm, you get the schoolchildren, but the adults (who might actually include the only possible DM) can't attend.

I'm sure you can think of more.

Well, Wednesday is probably the best night to set up an event here in the US because you're less likely to conflict with school sports and other school events. Of course, that's because the schools are generally scheduling around the other main Wednesday night conflict - mid-week church services and events.

Honestly, a bit of flexibility in the schedule would have been more ideal.

 

[darjr]

Promotion is a hard problem. Just this Sunday a gentleman walked right into our RPGA day and was shocked. He had no idea that right under his nose, every other Sunday, three tables of gamers plus were playing D&D. He immediately got a character, he didn't care what it was at the time, and dived in just as we were starting.

So I get it.

I wish they had picked a different day. I can't make Wednesdays. Around here it is a success, and I'm a bit jealous of those that can make it to the event.

 

[MerricB]

Well, Wednesday is probably the best night to set up an event here in the US because you're less likely to conflict with school sports and other school events. Of course, that's because the schools are generally scheduling around the other main Wednesday night conflict - mid-week church services and events.

And this thing is for a global audience? Really?

 

[Jhaelen]

And this thing is for a global audience? Really?

Indeed!

 

[Herschel]

1. Giving it a quick preview test drive via a download. Yes pirating bad, smack Yeti's wrist. But guess what I'm one of the few ones that if I like it, I actually hunt down a physical copy of the book. Those methods have saved me quite a few bucks on not buying products I didn't like.

2. I think what is failed to realize on all parties, it is not a Gamer's responsibility to keep a store open. And it is not WotC's responsibility either. It is the responsibility of the that store's owner.

1. Pirating is essentially the same thing except without the physical store. You still want some place to preview stuff. The store is the legal outlet. And pirating is bad unless you buy everything you pirate (which at least you do when you like a product. Gray area maybe, but it's a positive IMO.)

2. It's a symbiotic relationship between gaming companies, stores and gamers. The store owners compete by offering service because there's no way they can compete on price with big, online retailers. Some stores don't deliver, but many do and still get bypassed due to price alone. It's a short-term gain without looking to the long-term.

And it happens elsewhere in the game market too. Under the skirmish game there were some players on the boards always talking about the next online pre-order time and the price they got for buying online instead of at the store they played tournaments at. Then, when the store didn't turn in their paperwork on time to get a reginal qualifier and ran other games the same day they complained to high heaven about how the store gave them bad service. Why should the store spend money on prizes and space when the players don't buy their product from the store?

A different example: I was out-of-town for a funeral for a couple of days in a smaller town. The wake was Sunday Night. We were hungry afterwards and went to a restaurant that was closing in 15 minutes. Two of our party showed up right at (or a bit after) closing time and there were only five of us. We were the only people in the place. They stayed open, gave great service and I bumped the tip accordingly (I picked up the tab). We could have hit the drive-through and still gotten food, and much cheaper, or we could have given a standard tip, but service is something not to be taken too lightly lest it isn't offered again. I've only been to this restaurant a few times (due to the nature of my visits to the town) but each time I'm treated very well even though we rarely can get there much before closing.

 

[TheYeti1775]

Gray area

No I don't even claim it as a gray area. It's a tool I use. While not legal in every location in the world. It's available. Much like a knife over 3" is illegal in many locations without a CCW permit. I can bet many of us have one in a bag or on our person somewhere without even realizing it.
But lets not turn this thread over to that.
Would rather try to help solve the issue at hand than to beat the dead horse a few more times.

2. It's a symbiotic relationship between gaming companies, stores and gamers. The store owners compete by offering service because there's no way they can compete on price with big, online retailers. Some stores don't deliver, but many do and still get bypassed due to price alone. It's a short-term gain without looking to the long-term.

I understand about the relationship.
But from my prespective you have to remember the following:
1. I frequent LGS once a quarter at best. And than it is usually for about $5 worth of sales. Unless there is a good impulse buy for me.

2. I've never in my 20+yrs of gaming played in a store based game. Most of the store hours don't conduct themselves well with my play times. I do weeknight gaming as my weekends are spent out and about with the family.

3. Last time I used a LGS for finding a game/players, I was a teenager without a car or a computer. Nowadays, I use EnWorld & Pen and Paper for finding fellow gamers in my area. Heck my first 3E group my wife met them in a movie line because the one girl was reading a Forgotten Realms novel.

4. Last time I used a LGS with any great frequency for buying my books. 2005 or so. That was because it was about a mile from me and carried comics (for my son) and had a D20 selection to go along with the WotC books to further my impulse buying.

And it happens elsewhere in the game market too. Under the skirmish game there were some players on the boards always talking about the next online pre-order time and the price they got for buying online instead of at the store they played tournaments at. Then, when the store didn't turn in their paperwork on time to get a reginal qualifier and ran other games the same day they complained to high heaven about how the store gave them bad service. Why should the store spend money on prizes and space when the players don't buy their product from the store?

Its a dang good question, would you force them to have store product only to play? I can tell you that would be a deathblow for a store.
There are plenty of ideas that a LGS can use in this case though.
1. Rent the tables - give a %% off of a single purchase for every table rental. If you rent the table for $5, and give a 10% off a purchase (say one $40 book) the discount is only $4, and you still made a $1 of off the purchase/table combination.

A different example: I was out-of-town for a funeral for a couple of days in a smaller town. The wake was Sunday Night. We were hungry afterwards and went to a restaurant that was closing in 15 minutes. Two of our party showed up right at (or a bit after) closing time and there were only five of us. We were the only people in the place. They stayed open, gave great service and I bumped the tip accordingly (I picked up the tab). We could have hit the drive-through and still gotten food, and much cheaper, or we could have given a standard tip, but service is something not to be taken too lightly lest it isn't offered again. I've only been to this restaurant a few times (due to the nature of my visits to the town) but each time I'm treated very well even though we rarely can get there much before closing.

That's the kind of restraunt I would go out of my way to use and recommend to folks.


But the fact is, even the FREE RPG DAY isn't a big enough draw to make me want to drive that far when I could easily spend time doing something local to me with the family. Now if I'm driving by it, yup I'll stop in. Maybe I'll make an impulse buy in addition.
The LGS needs to find what fits its Locale the best. If it's tables dedicated to teenyboopers playing magic after leaving the highschool across the street everyday, that's what you cater to.

 

[MacMathan]

I'd agree that D&D Encounters was a easy marketing promotion if it wasn't limited to Wednesday only. That restriction makes it impossible for my (and other) FLGS to participate.

We ran the D&D Game Day. That worked well; however, the D&D Encounters? We can't even try to participate.

The requirement of Wednesday-only is a piece of colossal arrogance on the part of Wizards of the Coast: it says they understand your local gaming scene better than you do. This is patently false.

Don't want to get anyone in trouble but one of our local FLGS is running Encounters on Thursday also. I mean will the WotC police really know one way or another?

 

[Dragon Snack]

Related to Smeelbo's post, my local FLGS owner told me he orders one box of MTG cards and WotC ships him 10 boxes, if he refuses to accept the 10 shipped or complains to WotC, they withhold products from him on future orders. If he does not host the MTG events as per schedule, WotC withholds products on future orders.

The FLGS owner claims his store has a high rating at WotC, which means in order to maintain that rating he has to comply to any and all requests by WotC, cannot complain with shipments, has to abide by all events.

Though this refers to MTG, I believe he's in the same boat regarding 4e products.

He is primarily a comics shop, that also serves as an FLGS, but business is down in all aspects of his business, not just 4e and MTG sales. Being forced to purchase larger orders than he requires is further causing financial strain to his business, but if he does not comply to WotC requirements - they will screw him even harder.

It seems pretty heavy handed to me, and am glad I don't run an FLGS - I wouldn't want my merchandiser to force me to comply to all their needs, despite my bottom line.

Boxes? Or cases? One case (6 boxes) will meet WotC minimum shipping requirement (actually, the minimum can be met with 4 boxes IIRC). In any case, I've never had WotC inflate my orders. In fact, for the last couple of releases many stores were left with a shortage due to the surge in popularity of Magic.

As for running events, while they do push them, you set them up. If you set them up and then don't report them, they do penalize you - but it's only if you let 10% or more of your events lapse. While it hasn't happened to me, I imagine if you set up lots of events and then don't run them (since they do send some nice prize support) they may raise an eyebrow or two. I had this concern when I signed up for D&D Encounters, since D&D sells poorly around here and a customer service rep made a comment about not running it after signing up for it. My sales rep told me that was way off and the customer service guy was out of line.

Either he doesn't deal with WotC direct (and is really talking about a distributor), he's telling you horror stories from years ago, or, well, it's a flat out lie (I suppose he could have also torqued off his sales rep so bad that he's been singled out for "special treatment").

I don't love a lot things WotC does (like allocating new Magic sets after your initial orders, which forces you to up your pre-orders just in case), but that kind of thing sounds like a call to your states Attorney General would be in order - if it was really happening.

The only thing like that I've ever seen is when I order from other suppliers, some of their salesmen are on commission, and they often try to slip in extra product. If we don't catch that within 48 hours of delivery, we are stuck with the product. But it's always something like a couple extra copies of this, duplicate back orders, and so on. In my experience, WotC salespeople are very professional.

Hmm, interesting that my last couple of orders from a certain distributor have included extra items. Didn't realize this was a recurring problem...

I get tired of listening to disgruntled store owners bitching about WotC, Games Workshop, or <insert company here>, or the changing nature of the business. Take positive proactive steps to make your store a destination location, such as actually participating in easy marketing promotions like D&D Encounters and Free RPG Day. Stores that continue to fail to adapt to the changes in retail and go under will not cause me to shed any tears.

And what stores are not adapting? If you note, Smeelbo IS running D&D Encounters. If you paid attention to what Marcus King (whose blog is what started this conversation) is actually doing, he IS being proactive (I have no idea if he is running D&D Encounters, but he is a very proactive voice within the industry).

I'm trying to run D&D Encounters (and will run Free RPG Day again despite a dismal turnout last year), but quite honestly - I don't need D&D (gasp!). Magic keeps my doors open and Savage Worlds outsells D&D in my store (double gasp!). If nobody buys an RPG book from me again (not going to happen, but if), I could stay open on the sales of Magic and used video games (and used DVDs, but that's not gaming).

The one advantage I can see the LGS having over ordering online, married guys can appreciate this, my wife would have a hard time stopping an impulse buy of mine.

Really!? What do you do? I have a couple players whose better half's hold a shorter leash on them...

You figure out a way to get me in your store, and to continue coming to your store well than you can win the battle with Amazon.

But you keep telling me you're not my customer. It's a spiral, if RPG's don't sell, why do I carry them? If I don't carry them, you buy them online. If everyone buys online, how do you find out about them? If DDI can only get 30,000 subscribers, how do smaller games actually get a toehold?

As much as I think WotC wants to move people to the online subscription model (and the one thing I will definitely agree with Smeelbo is that D&D Encounters is an attempt to push the DDI), they would rather have millions of people playing than just the 30,000 subscribers they have now (I'm surprised it's that low personally). Obviously online doesn't meet their minimum sales goals, but book sales do (or are close enough to attempt to push over the top). It's not time to dump the storefront yet, we have value to the majority of players - who don't shop (or post) online

That's how I see it, anyway. Others may give better explanations. In fact, I hope they do.

Cheers!

Pretty good actually. I'll add that many stores are upset that we weren't even asked what day would be best for us (Thursdays would work MUCH better for me).

Another reason D&D Encounters are supposed to be run on Wednesday is because WotC was going to incorporate "social media" into the gaming sessions. Twitter was used to add a bonus to rolls at different points during the first one, not sure if they added anything or kept it up last week. Doesn't seem that big a deal to me, I wonder how many DMs even kept up with that part of the event.

As a technicality, stores are allowed to run it different nights - but not as an official "D&D Encounters" event (meaning no reporting to the DCI). In fact, since I've missed the first 2 (and will miss at least 3 until my DM can show), I was told to run them on different nights to "catch up" to the current action. I did have to cancel the events with the DCI though, so I won't get credit for the events (nor will the players, but I'm a little confused as to what they get - unless they can use this to qualify for Magic cards or if they're going to set up something like that for D&D).

 

[Glyfair]

I'd agree that D&D Encounters was a easy marketing promotion if it wasn't limited to Wednesday only. That restriction makes it impossible for my (and other) FLGS to participate.

We ran the D&D Game Day. That worked well; however, the D&D Encounters? We can't even try to participate.

The requirement of Wednesday-only is a piece of colossal arrogance on the part of Wizards of the Coast: it says they understand your local gaming scene better than you do. This is patently false.

I suspect part of this has been the success of Friday Night Magic (I only know about this second hand, so the details may not be exact). With Friday night being tied up with MtG promotions they had to pick another night, and Saturday/Sundays are not good fits with a lot of locations (that like flexibility on those nights).

Assuming Friday is tied up with MtG (I know my local Premier store has no room for any other open events most Fridays because of this), what would be the best night of the week to stick it on?