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Message: <blockquote data-quote="joethelawyer" data-source="post: 4427267" data-attributes="member: 55764">i was at a few stores today.  i live near new haven, connecticut.  big college town, lotsa money (yale university).  anyhow, there are a ton of used bookstores there.  at least 8.  none of them sell dnd or rpg stuff.  there are a few of the rare non chain bookstores there.  none of them sell dnd or rpg stuff.  there is a comic book store there.  geek central.  they sell everythinbg geeklike, from comics to action figures to magic card game stuff.  they have about one foot of shelf space devoted to rpg products, 10 books were 3e wotc, a few white wolf, no 4e.  i went to the official yale bookstore, which is a barnes and noble chain store expanded to be huge---a full scale barnes and noble, plus textbooks, plus college kid stuff for dorm rooms.  they had about one foot of rpg bookshelf space.  no 3pp stuff, all 4e and 3.x stuff.  yale is one of the top 3 or 4 richest universities in the world.  their students are sojme of the smartest brightest and richest people who go to college.  around new haven, within 20 miles or so, are 5 other colleges.  from small, to state, to private.  all levels of income.  and we have 2 feet total of rpg space in the entire greater new haven area.  for 20 miles around.  last weekend i called every chain bookstore in the state to see if i could find a castle zagyg product.  no one had any.  nor did they have any of the 3e books i was looking for.  it was all 4e.i called into new york city yesterday to compleat strategist, looking for castle zagyg stuff, and some of the older 3.x books on my list.  they didnt have what i wanted in stock.  compleat strategist is one of the largest gaming/hobby stores in the entire new york city area.  13 million people live within 30 miles of it this store.  and they had nothing i wanted. (call me old fashioned, but i live online but dont like to buy books or anything else online.  i like to go to stores once i find out what i want online)so when a someone wants to get into rpg's and do it like many of us did it when we were kids, and go to a bookstore, what are they going to get?  wotc 4e.  just like we got the basic boxed set, or ad&d, or whatever edition we came into the scene at.thats the problem in a nutshell for 3pp's.  no chain of distribution.  basically 3pp's do well because of the internet and conventions.  i dont have hard and fast numbers or statistics or market breakdowns.  just my experiences.paizo and pathfinder and true 20 and all those other games and systems we love so much here on these boards, have essentially no presence or recognition in the world at large of potential new customers.they will live and die based on us, the net community.  for better or worse, thats the way it is for the near future.which makes 4e the entry level game of choice, since it is the only one out there.  i think now paizo's growth strategy, as well as the other games out there, ought to be to steal the new customers that 4e gets from wotc.  thats the only real way to expand and grow.  for the most part we here in the internet community have made up our minds.  whether it is a 50/50 split, or some other number, i think we can all agree that the existing net base has mostly decided who they're going to bed with tonight.the problem for 3pp's, and the reason why dnd is so big and commands such a market presence, is simply their name.  their ip.  the name dungeons and dragons is like bandaids.  a readily identifiable trademark.  slap that name on anything they it make money, no matter the quality of the product.  thats what paizo and pathfinder and true20 compete with.none of the other games out there even come close to a name which is identifiable as a rpg like dnd is, except maybe castles and cryusades.  paizo/pathfindrer suffers from the same problem gleemax suffered from before they that horse down---namely, wtf is it?  even if i saw it on a shelf in the barnes and noble, near a dnd book, in the rpg area, i would have no idea as a newbie wtf it was.  these 3pp's need something to make them stand out, stand apart.  something to help them get new gamers, asuming they can even get chain stores to stock the product in the first place.  they can make a living out of us, here on the internet, but never truly grow into their full potential, which many of them deserve, imho, unless they get some more readily identifiable name/brand recognition in the world at large.  and i'll be damned if i know how to do that.</blockquote>

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