I thought that might be the general response to this thread. Glad to know people still like their Friendly Local Gaming Store.
I contend that local gaming stores are the heart and soul of this industry, and without them we would all suffer. Now, the two assumptions I am working with: industry growth is good, and local gaming stores promote industry growth.
1) "Growth for the industry is good." Some people will not agree with this basic assumption. They have been playing a homebrew D&D game for decades, all they need are the books already published, and if every game manufacturer, game store, and gaming person (other than those in their group) dropped off of the face of the earth tomorrow, it wouldn't be a big deal. In fact, because those people don't like the potential hollywoodization of the industry, growth in fact may be viewed as bad. This post isn't for those few of you out there in the "Grow irrelevant or bad" group.
For the rest of us, industry growth is good. Growth means more things will be published, giving us more choice of things to spend. Growth means more authors will become interested in publishing, and some of those authors will turn out to be fantastic. Growth means more money going around to make those authors more money. Growth means new players coming in faster than old players going out, assuring that we have a gaming group in the future. Growth means more people chatting on boards like this one about the rules, the game, and related issues. Growth means less stigma for the hobby, meaning our significant others, families, and friends will be more accepting of our hobby. Growth means more places to purchase industry products, and more competition in that industry, and more bulk discounts for higher print runs, which means overall cheaper prices and more access. Growth is good.
2) "Local Gaming Stores increase gaming industry growth." This one is probably more controversial than the first assumption. I contend local gaming stores increase growth by the following means:
a) It exposes non-players to the game in a manner that is in addition to word of mouth. Right now, if the whole game went to PDFs and online, the game would spread almost exclusively by word of mouth. There might be a bit of banner advertising and cross-over in video game sites and such, but for the most part almost all players would enter the game only due to word of mouth from other players. Now I understand that is already the majority of entries to the game - but it isn't the only one. The other main entry to the game is people going into gaming stores, see the game there, perhaps seeing it being played, and becoming interested. Maybe they have fond memories of playing it when they were a kid, maybe they have just heard of it and are curious now that they see it, and maybe it is something totally new to them. But whatever the reason, some players are introduced to the game merely by entering a game store in order to purchase something else (like a related or cross-over product such as a comic book, board game, card game, etc...). They see the game cover there, or a shelf of the games, or an entire section, or a demo, and they get interested. Once they get hooked, then word-of-mouth takes over with those new players, who spread the gospel of the game. Hence, the cover of the gaming books, the shelf space in the game store, and the demos becomes an important marketing tool for the game itself for brand new players.
b) It exposes players to new products through in-store demos. In-store demos are a powerful marketing tool. Players might not have heard of a game being demonstrated, of heard of it but not crossed the threshold into buying it. The demo can persuade them to do so. The more products players are exposed to that they like, the more likely they will spend their money on those products rather than non-pen&pencil rpg hobbies.
c) It exposes players to new products through shelf displays. This is again the marketing power of the cover of the book. You walk in to your local gaming store, see (in a visceral way) the new releases on the shelves. You flip through the books, and maybe get a comment from the people behind the counter about it, or someone else who happens to be in the store. Shelf displays are a powerful marketing tool (and again this means more money spent on this industry rather than some other non pen&pencil rpg industry).
d) It exposes players and non-players to the game and new products by the marketing efforts of the individual gaming stores. Almost all gaming stores advertise. It might be the yellow pages, a coupon book, an email list, web advertisements, or even sometimes a television ad on cable stations. It might be sponsoring an event at a high school or college campus. It might just be the big sign in front of their store. But however they do it, that advertisement attracts more people to the game, and to the new products of that game.
e) It exposes players to other players. Sure, you can meet other players online. But sometimes it is easier to meet in a game store, and...believe it or not, not everyone has access to online resources. If players don't find other players, the eventually may move on to other games, or another hobby entirely.
f) It supports the distributors. If you only had PDF games, then hard-copy distributors would go out of business. That's bad, because those distributors have their own marketing efforts on behalf of the game. In addition, they make publishing a more stable industry, where you can have a more consistent payment from the distributors, and from a more reliable source.
g) It supports the regional gaming conventions. Those dealer rooms are full of local game store businesses. If they go out of business, that dealer room shrinks drastically. If the dealer room shrinks, the convention makes less, and therefore the convention shrinks or goes out of business. That's bad, because the convention also supports growth of the industry through their marketing efforts, ability to get players to meet other players, ability to expose people to new products, and other growth efforts.
h) Local gaming stores often provide a location for people to play the game. Some people simply cannot find space to play elsewhere, or a DM as good as the one provided by the game store. This promotes playing the game more, which promotes buying more products and using word-of-mouth to bring more players into the game.
I can probably come up with several more reasons why local gaming stores promote growth, but by now you get the point (and either agree or have formulated responses to each of these points in your mind already, and nothing further that I say would persuade you anyway at this point).
Industry growth is good, and local gaming stores promote industry growth.
If companies want to put out PDFs, I am all for it. There is another thread detailing the benefits of PDFs, as well as the excellent commentary by Morrus on the front page of ENWorld this week. My point is that it would be bad if the industry went exclusively or a majority towards PDF-only products. Local gaming stores cannot realistically make a living in a world of PDF products. They generally are not allowed to or cannot sell them, either because it is sold through an exclusive source already (often through the authors web page only), or because the profit margin is too small or nonexistent on such products, or because the barrier to entry to selling such products in their store is too costly (and loses many of the benefits mentioned, like packaging display and shelf space).
If products are available in both PDF and hardcopy format, you can get many benefits of both worlds. Heck, I've even bought both hardcopy and PDF versions of a product, and many of the people I know have done so as well. It's only a matter of time before Hardcopy products are sold with a disk or license code to download the PDF version (if this isn't already being done - and I bet it is).
And if PDFs are a means to generate enough money for a small publishing company so that said company can eventually afford to print hardcopy versions as well, then even better. That means you will eventually have more hardcopy products that you would have otherwise, which means growth for the local gaming stores and therefore growth for the industry as a whole.
But if PDFs become the primary medium of product delivery in this industry, and hardcopies become the exception, then I think the industry will eventually shrink drastically. Gaming stores will pull out of the business and move to comics or video games or anime DVDs or posters or card games or board games or anything except pen&pencil RPG games, or else they will go out of business. As local gaming stores pull out of cease operations, that means less growth for the industry, and all the harms that come from that (detailed above).
It is easy to think short term. It's easy to think that YOU are fine with PDF products, therefore no harm will come to you if the industry loses some growth because of them. But that isn't the case. If the industry shrinks, it stands a good chance of impacting you in some way, in the future. It means eventually fewer products, less money being spent for authors, less competition, fewer authors, fewer players, less acceptance of the game by non-players, and all the other harms I detailed earlier. It even means fewer PDF products in the future, since losing new players means losing revenue from those new players when they purchase PDFs as well, which means fewer PDF products. Everyone, including PDF publishers, benefits from the growth power of the local gaming store in drawing new players into the hobby, and enabling existing players to enjoy the game and not want to drop out of playing.
So for all but an extremely small group of people who are content with only the products that they currently own and have no interest in more products, authors, players, or acceptance of the game in general by the population, industry growth matters. That means your local gaming store matters. And that means it would be a bad thing if the industry shifted from primarily hardcopy products to primarily PDF products.
Of course, none of this deals with the troubling issue of mass distributors like Amazon and other online distributors who provide few of the growth benefits of either a local gaming store or a PDF publisher's website. But that is a subject for another thread.
I encourage publishers to publish hardcopy products, in addition to PDF products. I encourage players to buy hardcopy products from your local gaming store, in addition to the PDF products you buy online. And I encourage everyone to show a little respect for your friendly local gaming store. They are the heart and soul of this industry, and without them we would all suffer.
