The market dying?

[rpghost]

Late 1Q2005 was the first time locally (Atlanta, GA) I've seen major booksellers like B&N and Borders all properly stocking D&D and a handful of other RPGs. During the same period of time our oldest FLGS (well stocked/run store in business for over 28 years) saw their sales plummet and closed down at the end of August. I would wonder if that sort of thing is happening in other markets as well and is therefore what is causing those C&GR numbers to drop so rapidly.

The same exact story here in Milwaukee with another 25+ year old store. I do think that B&N and Amazon are hurting the core sales of WOTC products from LGS. Add to that the dive of non-WOTC d20 product sales and it's not hard to see why stores of having trouble. Not to mention that most of the CCG department is stagnent and no new fad has it in a while. (Believe it or not there are many stores that make it only by riding one fad to the other).

James

 

[MongooseMatt]

Trying to put this politely as possible: Matt's statements have been, shall we say, historically divergent from things that I've heard about Mongoose's operations, from people who have since been let go.

Well, after being called a liar outright, I can be somewhat less polite. This is coming from a guy who was never particularly successful while involved with a print company, who likes to pick fights on forums, who was forced out of his last print business by his own partners and who has busted every deadline he ever accepted while trying to freelance for Mongoose (we told him not to bother in the end). He is also persisting in the use of C&GR figures after I pointed out that more solid information is waiting for anyone in the industry with the nous to find it.

On to his particular point about comments from people let go from Mongoose - remember, that is an enjoyable euphemism for being fired. We have no gag orders on such people and we know they have portrayed us in a less than nice light. Probably something to do with having being fired.

Also, remember my comment in the first post about employees of companies not having the full picture - the only people who know anything about the sales, costs and finances of Mongoose are myself and my business partner, Alex. No one else can talk with any authority about these things.

One thing to consider. Suppose, just for a moment, I was indeed lying about how Mongoose is doing. How would we have been able to release plastic miniatures, open a seperate miniatures production facility in Ohio, move into not-exactly-small offices (you can see the pictures of the place in our magazine, even if you cannot attend our regular Open Days), and still pay the salaries of over 20 staff members?

It would just not make sense. . .

 

[rpghost]

As a percentage, you are looking at something like 0.0002% However, that is no slight on PDFs, as far as they go - we have just never really attacked that market in any meaningful form. The problem, you see, is that we have to make a conscious decision to make something a PDF as, up until it goes to print, much of the design process is the same - with the same attendant costs. Once you have a final product ready to go, it is all too easy to acknowledge that a paper product will sell more units for more revenue.

That said, we have been fairly astonished with sales via Drivethru - they do not seem to eat our existing paper sales and they amount to thousands of Dollars every month.

To be fair (or shed some other light on this), Mongoose products at RPGNow have done ok, but not steller, mainly cause they have been second class products. There are several other vendors (5-10 usually each month) that are getting "thousands of dollars" from pdf sales each month. And we too see it not caniblizing their print sales.

Now that many DTRPG vendors are using watermarks (which also isn't very secure) and see their sales sky rocket, just think what a store with 80,000 customers could do for you...

James

 

[Akrasia]

... I still refute it, because that's the same with most hobby industries, with some exceptions (like model railways, which are usually too expensive for younger people without approprate income). It's not the feature of the product you mentioned, the indestructible manual, that leads to the decline of the hobby, because music CDs are equally indestructible. It's the inability to win young customers. That's something different from what you claimed.

The inability to win young customers is one factor. The inability to keep older players buying new products is also a factor -- viz. an 'impact' on long-term viability. That was my point. And it is an impact worth noting if the average age of your market is getting older (which is true of RPGs). So I fail to see how you refuted my original claim (a poor analogy with the pop music industry isn't adequate -- the RPG market is simply too different).

 

[MongooseMatt]

Funny thing about CG&R, a little while ago they went from voluntary reports where we could just tell them what we did as retailers, to a more in depth data-mining effort where they wanted actual sales records. Many stores don't have a POS and inventory system to track each and every sale precisely. As a result, far fewer stores report their sales (I know I don't any longer) and the most likely to be able to meet their requirements are comic book shops, which should sell fewer titles than your dedicated FLGS. Funny thing is, the change in methodology occured about the same time as the appearant decline.

I happen to know that there is a decline, because much of my competition has gone away, but I haven't seen it in RPGs on the retail level. What I have seen from a publishing level is that even though Living Arcanis is larger than ever, the distributors are ordering less and less. So much so, that they have to reorder our titles immediately (and I do mean same day) upon their arrival in their warehouse. Not only do distributors make no effort to have a month's supply, they often fail to maintain even a single day's supply. This doesn't apply to all distributors, some are plugged in enough to know the demand for Arcanis titles.

For those trying to keep track of what is actually going on - it is worth paying attention to all of this.

Excellent post.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

To those out there that only shop online because you think you're getting a bargain, remember that bargain when your job gets outsourced to another country that will do it cheaper. Barnes & Noble online just isn't the same as a real game store. If I want a new paperback, I'll hit B&N, but when I want game product, it's my FLGS.

I doubt if buying from your FLGS (which for me, typically means wandering into a dark, god-forsaken store far from my home to deal with a greasy teenager behind the counter who's rude to me) rather than Amazon.com is going to have any impact on whether your job gets outsourced. It just means that you have less savings to cushion you when the shoe drops.

I'm not going to miss the terrible FLGSes near me when they go.

 

[Krug]

Well one sign that the d20 market is drying up; almost 1/3 of the month is gone, but over at RPGNow.com, there's only been 38 d20 products that have sold 5 or more this month. But it does look like other non-d20 RPG products are selling pretty well.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

The inability to win young customers is one factor.

That 'inability' is a myth spread by gamers who have gotten older and no longer have any real contact with younger gamers. D&D is out there in schools, churches, homes, and all the things it always was in, you just don't see it as much anymore because they ARE young gamers...and a majority of them still see D&D(or RPing in general) as a stigma and do their best to keep the fact that they play to themselves and their group.

 

[smcrey]

That 'inability' is a myth spread by gamers who have gotten older and no longer have any real contact with younger gamers. D&D is out there in schools, churches, homes, and all the things it always was in, you just don't see it as much anymore because they ARE young gamers...and a majority of them still see D&D(or RPing in general) as a stigma and do their best to keep the fact that they play to themselves and their group.

i tend to agree that they are out there. i attend Radford University and for my Adolescent Literature course i picked the fantasy element for my paper(s). what is interesting is that we have a pen pal project starting up in which we will exchange emails with a local seventh grade student. i will definitely address my love for Dungeons and Dragons and rpgs. i hope that it will create an interest in the younger generation. if you have any suggestions on bringing attention of the young ones into our hobby, please let me know!

 

[Akrasia]

..
I'm not going to miss the terrible FLGSes near me when they go.

I will (and the ones I frequent are not 'terrible').

The FLGS provides an essential service: the ability to browse or 'read through' RPGs that you would not otherwise have encountered.

They also provide a location to consult with other people about products.

Don't sneer at the utility of FLGSs! Their disappearance will be a great loss to the community.