D&D General The Disappearance of D&D from Mainstream Retailers

[Paul Farquhar]

Can you cite that?

Not for Target, which doesn't exist in this country, but that's how large retailers generally operate.

 

[MGibster]

But it was probably a bad call, since Target isn’t going to put games in the book section, or books in the toys and games section.

I honestly don't know if it was a bad call. Last time I saw D&D at Target, and it was for the 2014 5th edition books, it was located near the electronics section where they keep all the eclectic toys meant for collectors and not too far from the video games. I'll wager a lot more kids saw D&D in Target than they did on display at hobby shops. I have no idea about sales though.

 

[darjr]

I honestly don't know if it was a bad call. Last time I saw D&D at Target, and it was for the 2014 5th edition books, it was located near the electronics section where they keep all the eclectic toys meant for collectors and not too far from the video games. I'll wager a lot more kids saw D&D in Target than they did on display at hobby shops. I have no idea about sales though.

Next to all the electronic toys they got from a book distributor, no doubt.

 

[bedir than]

If the upcoming Starter Set launches in big box stores, near the board games, that will be more important than having the core 3 in amongst the selfhelp books

Though I really want both things to happen

 

[MGibster]

Next to all the electronic toys they got from a book distributor, no doubt.

I assume it was all shipped from Sigil directly.

 

[darjr]

I assume it was all shipped from Sigil directly.

Wait!? I have a few things I need shipped out of Sigil.....

 

[David Howery]

from what I remember about buying D&D stuff in the 90s, most of it was through mail order; can't remember the name of the company, but I could call them with product numbers and they'd send it. TSR/Dragon magazine was helpful with this, as they had an 'upcoming products' list every issue with product numbers attached.

 

[SteveC]

A lot of things have changed since Hasbro took distribution back. I go to Target all the time with my daughter and they still have some of the starter boxed sets in the toy section. They used to carry the PHB and so on, but I haven't see it there and never saw the new books. I looked at their website and Wallmart's as well, and they have the old starter set and a bunch of older 5E third-party stuff, but not the latest books. Will they carry the new starter set? Don't know.

I would say that not carrying the latest edition in stores like that is going to make it harder for people to get into the game, but that was a strategy by Hasbro. To quote Dodgeball, "It's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for them."

 

[nevin]

I'm old, but I'm not that old, so I don't really know where people were buying D&D back in the 1970s. By the early 1980s, AD&D products were available through mainstream retailers. You could go to the mall and find AD&D books at Kaybee Toy, B. Dalton Booksellers, and I don't know if Sears carried it in their stores but you could get it via the Sears catalog. I'm pretty sure I got my copy of Keep on the Borderlands at a Kaybee Toy store at the Chapel Hills Mall in Colorado Springs circa 1986. I think it was on clearance.

At some point, AD&D was no longer at places like Kaybee Toys and you had to rely on boutique hobby shops to get your RPGs. I remember seeing RPGs at B.Dalton, but their stock was sporadic, and I had to rely on Lone Star Comics for my games. While I suspect Satanic Panic had something to do with retaillers of AD&D, I can't help but think it was more complicated than that. Switching to boutique stores was a business decision. Anyone know why?

This changed with D&D 3rd edition when you could find the three core books at Target and these days you can find 5th edition at Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon (of course), and probably more places I don't show. What changed to make those viable retail outlets when they weren't in 1989? (Amazon didn't exist of course.)

no you are on to something with the satanic panic. It slowly turned into the never ending attack of the Southern Baptist church down here in the south and midwest. That lasted til sometime in the mid 90's. That and it was a fairly niche product up until 4e and 5e. Retailers in the wrong areas could stock up and then not sell the books. As everyone pushed to the just in time toyota style inventory models it just didn't fit that.

 

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

In my younger and more vulnerable years, I most remember the only place I could find D&D game books and box sets was a small bookstore on the main drag in Wisconsin Dells. When we went on vacation/work on my grandparents' summer cottage, I usually ended up grabbing a module or "Complete Guide to..." Closer to home, Waldenbooks, Crown, B. Dalton, and Krochs and Brentanos in the malls only had novels as far as I recall. I may be misremembering though.

Then I discovered the Gamers Paradise at a mall a little further from home, and it was like opening the Library of Alexandria...but you know, I could buy the stuff!

Today: 2 Targets, a Meijer, and 3 Wal-Marts in my typical errand-running radius. Meijer has the Essentials Kit in the boardgames. I remember seeing the 2014 core books, the Planescape box, and the Spelljammer box there in the past, but that has to have been at least two years

Similarly, I remember seeing 2014 Core and other WotC books at Target, in fact, one of them still has a shelf display wrap with them on it! But actually in-stock? One Target has weird aisle in the Toys departmemt that has some of the NECA figures, the TCGs and sportsball cards and paraphernalia, high-end Lego, squismallows and other stuffies, and some D&D: Chesex dice, Stormwrack and Essentials boxes, minis (the Circle app says the have 50th Anniversary, Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, and Monster Menagerie II are in stock right now), "Worlds and Realms," and some 3rd Party maps books/"The Gamemasters Guide" books. The other Target has some of those books on an endcap in the Books department, and Stormwrack and Essentials in the boardgames. One Walmart has nothing as far as I can tell, and I'll swing into the other two over the course of the week now that I'm curious. The local Barnes and Noble is standard: good selection of WotC/Wizkids stuff, some 3rd Party, and really no other TTRPG titles as far as I have noticed (but man, they went ALL IN one Battletech and have not put any of it on clearance!)

We're blessed with THREE local game stores, a Games Workshop, and a Gamestop in the same radius as those big-box stores (and I'm not TOO far from Games Plus--IYKYK, as the kids say), so I'm lucky enough that if I want to go game shopping, my dice bag runneth over with options. (I know how lucky I am.)