Robin Laws posts a column about the industry that's actually salient and sane
- Thread starter buzz
- Start date
Customer Voice
This is another good, relevant review of the rpg market. Thank you to Robin Laws and to Hussar for posting it.
This is particularly relevant to enworld as many of the publishers in question visit.
As with many "state of the industry" commentaries we've seen, there is a great deal of information that highlights what I would call marketing symptoms or outcomes. The state of the retail distribution channel is disarming and disappointing. It seems only a major market can support a retail FLGS these days.
One thing that seems noticably absent from these updates, for the benefit of all publishers, is the voice of the customer - your average gamer. In my own example, the face of my gaming group (a set of customers) has changed significantly in the last seven years.
This is another good, relevant review of the rpg market. Thank you to Robin Laws and to Hussar for posting it.
This is particularly relevant to enworld as many of the publishers in question visit.
As with many "state of the industry" commentaries we've seen, there is a great deal of information that highlights what I would call marketing symptoms or outcomes. The state of the retail distribution channel is disarming and disappointing. It seems only a major market can support a retail FLGS these days.
One thing that seems noticably absent from these updates, for the benefit of all publishers, is the voice of the customer - your average gamer. In my own example, the face of my gaming group (a set of customers) has changed significantly in the last seven years.
Baron Opal
First Post
Yes, I think it would hurt the gaming market but only in the short term. In a hauntingly cyclical manner, you would eventually get gaming materials for sale in other, related retail outlets. Hobby shops that cater to rail and R/C hobbies, bookstores, chain and independant, and other such outlets that games were first marketed through in the late '70s. This would make things more difficult for the smaller companies, but those would probably be distributing through the internet, POD and similar channels anyway.
Psion
Adventurer
Hussar said:Whoops, Buzz posted this, not me.
As a question from someone with no marketing/economics background. Would it dramatically hurt the hobby if the FLGS went extinct? I know that sounds cold, but, I'm actually really curious.
I have absolutely no empirical evidence whatsoever to back this up, but I think that a major shake-out could help divest the industry of some old patterns and dependencies and get it into the 21st century.
Varianor Abroad
Explorer
The one thing I saw missing from the article was the vast number of new distribution channels formed by new and old players in the RPG market. ENWorld has the ENWorld Store. Paizo has sales on lots of stuff now. (Dragon never did that once upon a time.) There's RPGNow and DriveThruRPG and virtually everyone with a website has their own store for it too.
Infernal Teddy
Explorer
Hussar said:Whoops, Buzz posted this, not me.
As a question from someone with no marketing/economics background. Would it dramatically hurt the hobby if the FLGS went extinct? I know that sounds cold, but, I'm actually really curious.
I think it would. Perhaps not stateside, but in the rest of the world. In my corner of the world, for example, one shop does comics and games, and a lot of gamers come from the comics customers. You'd lose people who come into the hobby after accidentally stumble over the books somewhere, which is not as rare as you might think.
Also, new games will have a harder time of getting sold, because of the lack of browseability that you have in a real world gaming store. That's how most people discover new games - see something cool-looking, read into it, buy it. If we follow this to the logical conclusion, we see almost all RPG's apart from D&D, SR, and one or two others dying away in the long term...
my 0.02€
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