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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 2805258" data-attributes="member: 19675">2 points:1)  Like it or not (I don't) Wal-Mart is the WORLD's largest toy & game retailer, followed, as I recall, by Toys R Us...  No game company can afford to ignore that market power.  However, WM also has a tendency to exercise its muscle to affect content.  Given the company's current policies and the content of many RPGs, its not a good mix.Still, the introduction of gateway products in chains like Wal-Mart, stripped of the majority of content that could be considered "objectionable" could be a powerful marketing tools for the hobby.  Note, this is a different concept than introducing simplified rules.  The rules of the games need not be altered.Example: Instead of producing a full Monster Manual, etc. for Wal-Mart, you'd introduce the D&D Adventure in a Box series, each containing a certain number of pregenerated PCs, a softcover book with the relevant rules, a softcover book with the adventure (one with enough variablity to encourage repeated play, like the old Metagaming Fantasy Trip adventures- "If A occurs, go to room 334, if B occurs go to 215"), stylized game pieces, die, and a board.  Price it at...$35 (guestimation).  Include advertising along the lines of:The AiB games could be linked to particular settings.  They could be expanded to other systems, like Modern or Urban Arcana.  Other companies could use the idea to market theirs as well, assuming nobody gets proprietary about it.  They could, yes, but this is really more of a form of advertising than a truly new product, and should be handled as such.  In fact, if EVERYONE in the industry got on board with AiB's as a form of advertising, it could be the "high tide that bouys all ships."2) Something I've observed in analyzing craft factories:  Tour + Factory Store = increased revenues.  This is the same model in the drug trade (legitimate & illegal) and in the music industry- give the potential customer a free taste, and you'll increase sales.  My point?In store-demos may devalue a particular copy of a game, but if the game has any merit, it will sell more copies than the loss of revenue from the opened copy.  The problems for the stores, of course, include 1) lack of space to run games, 2) lack of personnel to run games, 3) the time involved training the personnel to play & run the games that could otherwise be spent working in the store 4) and choosing which games to play, since each choice represents not only a chance at increased revenues, but also the opportunity cost of not demoing a better game and the odds of running a bad game.Several of these problems could be circumnavigated by mini-cons, with nominal admission fees to defray operating costs.  Games could be chosen on the basis of reccomendation of satisfied customers...who could be tapped to run these games.  The risks and opportunity costs of running bad games would be minimized over time by paying careful attention to which companies put out good products.</blockquote>

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