The consolidation going on

[Arnwyn]

I was under the impression that the "Top 20" (or whatever it is) of products with 5 or more reviews here at ENWorld emulated the "must buy list"...

Edit: I should add something more. As Jim Butler alludes to, the LGSs in my area are certainly making decisions on the products they carry - they have chosen a set number of publishers, and *only* order products from those companies... no exceptions. They will special order on request, however (but their reliability on that front is very poor).

For example, one of the larger stores around here will not order anything from Goodman Games - they consider them just too "small fry" to bother with. Another place doesn't order anything from Troll Lord Games. As time goes on, they are ordering less and less... consequently, my purchases have become less and less, since product availability has dried up.

(I look at these "consolidation" and "glut" threads with some amusement. I remember some people at ENWorld always shouting out loud that all these products are great! All this choice is good! Yeah... in theory. However, anyone with any business acumen whatsoever will also see how all this "choice" affects the logistics at the retailer/distributor level...)

 

[trancejeremy]

I dunno. While EN World does publish some stuff, most of it's pretty minor - I know I don't any of it, nor have I seen it in stores.

The company that Morrus seems to favor above any other isn't the EN stuff, but WOTC stuff. He usually puts up big previews of books on the front page.

Anyway, the RPG field is somewhat incestuous - people from companies often end up working at magazines and new sites, and vice versa. For instance, Steve Creech, the guy behind d20 Magazine racks, works for Bastion (and I think he's done some editing for other companies). It certainly hasn't affected the reviews there.

 

[spacecrime.com]

Look out! Incoming rant!

Retailers must say "no" to new upstart companies that haven't shown them something truly remarkable

Be careful what you wish for, Jim, because I think you've already got it.

I think retailers started saying "no" to new publishers a year ago. We may try a likely-looking product here or there, but most of them are considered guilty until proven innocent. I just took a quick eyeball of my shelves, and I only see two items from two publishers who weren't on my shelves in 2002.

You're not feeling the squeeze of market pressure is not because of the new guys. You're feeling the squeeze because there are more products coming into the market from established publishers than any but perhaps the top 5 retailers in the country can profitably stock.

A few retailers are, perhaps, still trying to stock everything. They're not your "problem". Your problem is that retailers are making choices about what to stock -- and if you're not seeing the sales you want to see, then you're not getting chosen by enough retailers.

Jim, I've got room for 120 SKUs of fantasy D20 stuff here, INCLUDING WotC's D&D books. (I'm counting Star Wars and Mutants and Masterminds as separate for this; FWIW they add about 15-20 SKUs to that total.) In any given month, I'm going to change out about 10% of those SKUs in favor of new or at least different product. As long as there are more than 12 fantasy D20 titles being released, somebody's going to get left out in the cold. I'm going to stock the 10-12 "best" books I see in a given month -- "best" being the most interesting, attractive, and sellable books, chosen from new and old releases as carefully as possible with my admittedly imperfect judgment -- and if you're not in that cream of the crop it doesn't matter if you are the 13th best or the 60th best book I see this month. You're not getting on my shelf.

I'm sure some retailers have room for more new stuff, and that others have less, but no matter what the precise threshold is, the basic principle is the same. Joe's Amateurish Fantasy Setting isn't your competition. Your competition is WotC and all the other publishers who are putting out great books, because we don't have room for all of you. Average isn't good enough anymore. Good isn't good enough. If you can't hold your own with the best the market has to offer, you're going to fail.

this rant brought to you by,

 

[Monte At Home]

Chris, you sound like a canny retailer and I've heard nothing but great things about your store. I do take a very small issue with one thing you said, though. WotC is not my (speaking as a d20 publisher) competition.

1. First and most clearly, because I am not WotC's competition. If you've got one space left on your shelf and it's down to a WotC product and a Malhavoc product, I of course lose. Any d20 publisher does. No question. However,

2. WotC's wise enough to not flood the market with product, so that you don't have to make the choice between the WotC product and the Malhavoc product. WotC could easily put out enough products to fill your 12 spaces every month. In keeping with the lessons learned the hard way from strategies employed by TSR, however, WotC knows that that's a path to disaster in the long term. It's just far better business to sell 80,000 big hardcovers a month than 20,000 copies each of 4 separate smaller products. In addition,

3. There's still enough people at WotC who understand the benefit they gain through the d20 license to not create strategies that run counter to that benefit. Every time I sell a Malhavoc product, WotC is benefited, not harmed. That's not a competitive relationship, it's a supportive one. (Likewise, my own business is guided by the successes and failures of WotC--if they do better, I do better).

Of course, it's possible that someday #3 and #2 might become no longer true, which would be disaster for all d20 publishers because of #1. (It would be disaster for WotC, too, of course.)

 

[spacecrime.com]

That's a fair point, and I think that you're right that the situation is a little different with WotC as opposed to other publishers. They're the baseline, in many ways the rabbit that all the hounds on the track are chasing. There's no way you're going to "beat" the rabbit, so your goal is to be the fastest dog in the chase.

But the fundamental point still applies. If the customer is standing in front of the bookcase with $33 to spend, he's not going to buy both Arcana Unearthed and Forgotten Realms: Underdark. He's going to pick (at most) one of them. If your book is going to sell, there's got to be something about AU that the customer wants more than the FR book. Maybe it's your rep, maybe it's that AU has new things you can't find in FR, maybe he just likes your type size better. But there's got to be something that swings the choice in your favor.

Of course, if you really don't want to think of yourself as competing with WotC, that's okay by me. But the corollary of that is that I got 3 new WotC books this weekend. That's 3 of my slots for the month gone, which means the competition is that much fiercer for the 9 that are left...

 

[jgbrowning]

I think it's mostly a nonobligatory mutualistic relationship with touches of competition between WotC and d20 publishers.

But I've been reading to much ecology......

joe b.

 

[Monte At Home]

That's a fair point, and I think that you're right that the situation is a little different with WotC as opposed to other publishers. They're the baseline, in many ways the rabbit that all the hounds on the track are chasing. There's no way you're going to "beat" the rabbit, so your goal is to be the fastest dog in the chase.

That may be my new favorite game industry analogy.

If the customer is standing in front of the bookcase with $33 to spend, he's not going to buy both Arcana Unearthed and Forgotten Realms: Underdark. He's going to pick (at most) one of them. If your book is going to sell, there's got to be something about AU that the customer wants more than the FR book. Maybe it's your rep, maybe it's that AU has new things you can't find in FR, maybe he just likes your type size better. But there's got to be something that swings the choice in your favor.

But before we were talking about getting on your shelf, not getting customers to buy. From a publisher's POV, these are actually often very different goals, and require different strategies. Which is why my job is so complicated (and interesting). Once I'm on your shelf, I've got to recognize that I've got two different potential customers:

1. The guy who's dissatisfied with what WotC's offering him.
2. The guy who's satisfied with what WotC's offering him, but is interested, willing and able to purchase still more.

When I got into the d20 market, it seemed like most of my customers were #2. Now, #1 seems to be on the increase, but still not the majority.

In either case, I'm still not going head to head with WotC. I'm not putting out a campaign setting to try to out-FR them (don't laugh, I've talked with more than one publisher who claimed to have been trying to do just that). I try to put out the products that WotC isn't doing, or that I know they won't do. Even products that look the same, such as say, Book of Eldritch Might and Tome and Blood, are only similar on the surface (at best). I intentionally try to go a little farther afield in many cases with my material, to try to catch my two potential customer groups with material they simply cannot get anywhere else.

(Arguably, there may be a third customer. That being the guy who enjoyed my work before I started Malhavoc, or perhaps later, and will always look for my work in the future, regardless of what WotC's offering. It would be hubris for me to rely on that, though. It's a much better strategy to rely on consistent, quality work--that will keep the #3 guy coming back and hopefully attract #1 and #2. But in addressing your point of me vs. WotC on the shelf, even quality work isn't enough, because WotC also puts out quality work. It's really got to be quality work with a difference.)

Of course, if you really don't want to think of yourself as competing with WotC, that's okay by me. But the corollary of that is that I got 3 new WotC books this weekend. That's 3 of my slots for the month gone, which means the competition is that much fiercer for the 9 that are left...

Right. So the whole point of my first post can be boiled down to this: The smart d20 publisher doesn't look at your shelf and see 12 open slots. He sees 9.

 

[Cergorach]

When i look at the Malhavoc Press material on my shelf (and on the harddrive) i see a gradual change from the pretty general (Book of Eldritch Might) to the pretty unique (When the Sky Falls). The current uniqueness (but still usable in a 'classic' D&D game) is what's making MP products more attractive to customer type #1. But i think a large portion isn't really dissatisfied with WotC products, it's probably more the case that they didn't know any better. I also think that the presentation helps a lot in this regard, the covers look very profesionally and impressive, especially on the display shelf. A lot of WotC covers on the other hand look pretty dull (Book of Exalted Deeds for example)...

 

[Halivar]

This policy is to get rid of spongers, freeloaders and others leeches that can't be bothered to make the appropriate commitment to the hobby that they say that they like but--by their actions--treat with contempt. $30-$50 for one book is not too much to ask; these same people pay that much for a videogame for their PC or console system, which they use far less for a shorter period of time. Tabletop RPGs are not a casual hobby; they require that everyone make a commitment of time, money and energy to get much of anything out of it. If a would-be player can't commit the money, then chances are that he's not that likely to commit the time or the energy to make his presence worthwhile. Get rid of him; you'll be better off if you do.

I don't mean to offend; I really don't, but when I read this all I could think of was the Dead Alewives D&D spoof where "Graham" the DM says "For God's sakes, Mark, this is ADVANCED!" For years before I was into D&D, I made fun of "D&D nerds" because of the mentality that if you didn't give all your time, money and energy into the game you were not fit to play with the real D&D devotees.

My first experience with D&D was as a level 1 2nd Ed. Ftr/Mu in a high level group that had been playing together for years. I had no books and certianly no money to purchase them. So I borrowed. By your thinking, this would have been inappropriate. I am glad the group I joined disagreed with you.

Today, WotC has received a truck-load of cash from me (yeah, I drove it right up to their door) and they have benefitted from my first group "breaking the rules."

Players that don't own the rulebook often don't know enough about the game to participate in a meaningful manner.

Glittering generalization. I disagree from past experience.

That said, this sort of reformation of the gamer subculture is long overdue. The expectations placed upon people in mainstream daily life don't extend here; they should, and those that don't measure up must be made to pay the consequences.

Actually, this mentality came and went. With its passing, D&D has become a game (not a volunteer job) that mainstream folks can enjoy liesurely without having to join a cabal or secret nerd society. WotC knows and understands this; that's why they released the SRD as a free download. The expectation is that you can sit down and enjoy the game without putting a dime into it. If you expect something different, lobby WotC to do away with the SRD and OGL.

EDIT: BTW, I say all of this as a bona fide D&D nerd.

 

[spacecrime.com]

So the whole point of my first post can be boiled down to this: The smart d20 publisher doesn't look at your shelf and see 12 open slots. He sees 9.

Works for me.

cheers,

Chris Aylott