D&D General The Disappearance of D&D from Mainstream Retailers
- Thread starter MGibster
- Start date
I think where I lived, KB was a ghost town with tumbleweeds rolling through by that point. They were still there but they were starting to look very second tier, very picked over.
Meech17
WotC President Runner-Up.
This is what I'd attribute it to as well. When you go to Walmart or Target they sell TONs of board games. You probably won't find anything really obscure or indie, but they have loads of what you could consider the "Gateway Drugs" of the board game world, Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, etc. I think D&D fits right in with this segment
Well, first, note that Kaybee and B.Dalton and Waldenbooks, and many retail chains of the 80s kind of fell over and died over the 90s. That included a long period of decline in which the companies struggled to find their niche, and "hobby game store" wasn't in their niche.
Well, there's something like 30+ years in there - it isn't going to be any one thing that changed. There's an entire generation of cultural and economic change in that span of time.
Stormonu
NeoGrognard
First off, I remember getting my (revised) 1E books at Toys'R'Us, Greyhawk from Waldenbooks and the Companion D&D boxed set from Kaybee Toys. The last I remember getting D&D stuff from a non-bookstore was when the local Kaybee was having a clearance on D&D games and I picked up the War Captain's Companion for Spelljammer - sometime after '93, as I recall.
I was one of those ones that found out about D&D due to the Satanic Panic (namely, a blurb on the nightly news when that guy vanished into the pipes under a College - I've forgotten the name).
I think it started showing in retail stores when TSR started working with Random House for publishing novels, and thus they were able to distribute to a wide variety of retail stores. As you'll recall TSR went under due to the debt it built up with Random House, so when WotC picked TSR up, they dumped Random House and used WotC's distribution connections.
Walmart's a funny case. I seem to remember a quote/stance from Sam Walton that they'd never carry D&D because the game was Satanic. I was quite shocked when I first saw the 5E books in a Walmart.
I was one of those ones that found out about D&D due to the Satanic Panic (namely, a blurb on the nightly news when that guy vanished into the pipes under a College - I've forgotten the name).
I think it started showing in retail stores when TSR started working with Random House for publishing novels, and thus they were able to distribute to a wide variety of retail stores. As you'll recall TSR went under due to the debt it built up with Random House, so when WotC picked TSR up, they dumped Random House and used WotC's distribution connections.
Walmart's a funny case. I seem to remember a quote/stance from Sam Walton that they'd never carry D&D because the game was Satanic. I was quite shocked when I first saw the 5E books in a Walmart.
aco175
Legend
I wonder which 'golden rule' we are talking here now.
"If you gimme gold, I'll change the rule."
I don't have the whole picture...but the distribution of D&D was a pure mess of chaos.
Somehow...many of the big distributors did not carry RPG game books. Or seemed not too. Novels, yes, anything else no. Some...for some reason did not even put them in their catalogs(the ancient old tyme paper catalogs). But if you called them up and ordered RPGs by name they would have them. Sometimes.
And in the 90s.... Once upon a time I was looking for The Planes of Law boxed set. As a Waldenbooks Otherworlds Member I got the special preview card. Then going to Waldenbooks to buy it at 20% off with my card. And they did not have it. The store had no clue. So we looked it up in the big thick catalog and it was there. Like Item#8675309. So they called (no computers/no internet) to order a couple.....and the distributor says "that is an invalid number". So....somehow it got into the catalog...but the distributor never got it. I gave up and just bought it at The Game Pit.
My guess here is that this was all....somehow...on TSR. I know The Game Pit just ordered things from TSR's Mail Order Hobby Shop(or whatever)...
And right before 2000 I remember going to The Keep (the Cool Mall Game Store), before they were bought by WotC. The store was a K-mart (aka modern day Dollar General) mess. They just had boxes of RPG stuff sitting on the floor. I remember opening a box and finding it full of foam peanuts and random RPG books. Like some mad man just tossed it all in the box.
Somehow...many of the big distributors did not carry RPG game books. Or seemed not too. Novels, yes, anything else no. Some...for some reason did not even put them in their catalogs(the ancient old tyme paper catalogs). But if you called them up and ordered RPGs by name they would have them. Sometimes.
And in the 90s.... Once upon a time I was looking for The Planes of Law boxed set. As a Waldenbooks Otherworlds Member I got the special preview card. Then going to Waldenbooks to buy it at 20% off with my card. And they did not have it. The store had no clue. So we looked it up in the big thick catalog and it was there. Like Item#8675309. So they called (no computers/no internet) to order a couple.....and the distributor says "that is an invalid number". So....somehow it got into the catalog...but the distributor never got it. I gave up and just bought it at The Game Pit.
My guess here is that this was all....somehow...on TSR. I know The Game Pit just ordered things from TSR's Mail Order Hobby Shop(or whatever)...
And right before 2000 I remember going to The Keep (the Cool Mall Game Store), before they were bought by WotC. The store was a K-mart (aka modern day Dollar General) mess. They just had boxes of RPG stuff sitting on the floor. I remember opening a box and finding it full of foam peanuts and random RPG books. Like some mad man just tossed it all in the box.
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