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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ghostwind" data-source="post: 1244535" data-attributes="member: 3060">Despite the ups and downs of the RPG industry on the manufacturer's side, many of the "problems" fall into the retailer's ballpark. Too often a game store is run by the hobbyist and not the business man. As a result, the hobbyist owner tries to buy everything that comes out and is often stuck with shelves filled with d20 books that haven't sold. Because of this, at some point he becomes sour on d20, blaming it for his poor ordering decisions. On the other hand, the business man store owner tends to only stock the books from proven manufacturers that have a following (and the sales) in his area. This means the owner is likely to only stock those publishers that deliver consistent quality and product (such as Wotc, Green Ronin, Bastion, Fantasy Flight, etc.), special ordering all others as needed/requested. Unfortunately, the number of hobbyist stores outweigh the business minded stores by a considerable ratio. To combat this, gamers need to "train" their FLGS to carry the products they want to see and not the ones they don't want to buy. The average print run of a 3rd party d20 publisher book is only around 2000 copies now. With over 5000 retailers in the US alone, if every store bought just one copy of a particular title, you would see much higher print runs and publishers who were quite happy. However, preorders for a title are only in the 500-700 numbers and total sales between 1000-1200 copies on the average. So, obviously stores are not ordering product like they once were because they have a lot of existing d20 stock in the case of the hobbyist owner... This is why gamers need to get out there and begin telling their gaming stores exactly what they want to see. Game store owners tend to rely on the distributors to tell them what's hot and distributors only care about selling product, so they will say anything to make a sale (for the most part - there are some exceptions). If gamers can start educating the stores, you will likely see stronger sales in the products you want and in the publishers you want. A good example of this can be seen in a store near where I live. In the past, they have not done well with Green Ronin products and have been reluctant to carry them. After much ballyhoo and badgering, I finally got them to start carrying more. Lo and behold, the GR line is now selling quite well. If I had not done this, there would have been missed sales opportunities for GR products for that store. So start working with your LGS and get them on board with some smart decision making and you'll likely see a better and stronger upturn in the overall d20 marketplace.</blockquote>

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