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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eyebeams" data-source="post: 4264151" data-attributes="member: 9225">Your game store is probably not unpleasant because they're bad people, or incompetent. Your game store is probably unpleasant because you, the RPG consumer, usually represent their least profitable segment, with the least crossovers between segments. Asking to be catered to specifically is kind of like demanding that a restaurant put sushi on the menu because I like it, even if it never sells to anybody else.Part of the failure is also the industry's. It has pretty much given up on expanding its brand beyond core products outside of computer games and has failed to stake a wider place in the entertainment culture. This is a fancy way of saying almost anybody'll by a Spider-Man shirt for kitsch value, but nobody gives a crap about Tordek or Meepo. Since most game stores are actual comic/game/mediageek stores, this is important.(Also, the broadly derivative nature of most RPG properties means that Hollywood has pretty much figured out it can file the serial numbers off of any RPG inspiration and use it without paying anybody.The industry has also done a terrible job of educating store owners. You may complain that they don't know about this game or that, or get their facts wrong, but why should they know? It doesn't make them enough money. Knowing about Warhammer 40K's army lists counts for more. On the other hand, the scale of RPG sales is such that no company can necessarily afford to send really thorough kits to everybody. Hasbro could. Maybe White Wolf -- but who else?By contrast, I'm think of the L5R re-release. A store manager I know went from knowing nothing about it to being really excited, because they sent a great kit and a FRICKIN' KATANA to hand out as a prize.You have the right not to shop at ill-stocked stores with ill-informed employees, but this doesn't mean they don't have rational reasons for being that way.So any solution would have to come from the industry taking store support more seriously, consumers indicating a real demand, *and* stores responding to these concerns.</blockquote>

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