Why can't WotC break the mass market barrier?

[Grimstaff]

I bought my first D&D box set (Moldvay, baby!) in JC Penny's. I bought my first miniatures at the corner hardware store. I didn't know there was such a thing as "game stores" until I had been gaming for a couple of years. There was a time when D&D (or some related product) was in just about every store you could walk into. Also, in my area, boxed sets were given to teachers to run in schools for "gifted" students.

Then the whole Satanic/Suicide/Angry Mom thing happened, and stuff disappeared from shelves. Well, its been like 20 years now, why can't WotC get this product back into non-specialized stores? Its hard to find all 3 Core Rulebooks in a Barnes and Noble, much less walk into Walmart and pick up a Basic Game boxed set. Now, I know where to get stuff, online, game stores, whatever, but what about the fledgling or potential gamer? What about the kid who picks up his pokemon cards every time Mom is shopping at Target, and is starting to get the yen for something more involved, more challenging?

And now, there's no more Dungeon or Dragon magazines on newstands...

Why can't WotC seem to break this barrier? Why no Toys'R'Us? No Kmart, no Sears, no 7-11's? Do they just not want to? What's their plan for getting the next generation into their product?
Just curious, as I never hear this addressed. You'd think they'd want to be. You'd think game store owners would want it too, as Basic Game sales should eventually lead to further book purchases in their own stores when the new players start to shop around.
What gives!?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In addition to the prejudice, maybe they just don't sell well enough for the bookstores to bother. Putting DnD books in a bookstore might attract new people to the hobby, but I'm pretty sure most core books are bought at FLGSs or Amazon.x. I think putting them in non-bookstores (Sears?) is just pointless. If Sears has books, I have literally never seen them.

I got to bookstores all the time but I only buy game books at FLGS (and only once bought RPG books from Amazon).

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Is there even a basic game set in print?

 

[Imp]

Packaging? Basic was organized like a boardgame, in a cardboard box with booklets and dice, and that's where it was shelved. Where would a rulebook fit in a toystore? Pretty much the only space would be next to the coloring books, right?

I am not sure the content is what's keeping it out of (many) stores that also carry Grand Theft Auto, etc. Wal-mart's probably a different story.

I have seen a decent amount of space for D&D books at just about every Borders I've been in; I don't think they're not being stocked.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Putting DnD books in a bookstore might attract new people to the hobby...

I doubt it. A brand new player isn't going to be attracted by the hardbacks at a bookstore -- in fact, he won't even know where to begin. Back in the day, just about everybody I played with started with a boxed set (usually a basic set).

 

[thedungeondelver]

I bought my first D&D box set (Moldvay, baby!) in JC Penny's. I bought my first miniatures at the corner hardware store. I didn't know there was such a thing as "game stores" until I had been gaming for a couple of years. There was a time when D&D (or some related product) was in just about every store you could walk into. Also, in my area, boxed sets were given to teachers to run in schools for "gifted" students.

Then the whole Satanic/Suicide/Angry Mom thing happened, and stuff disappeared from shelves. Well, its been like 20 years now, why can't WotC get this product back into non-specialized stores? Its hard to find all 3 Core Rulebooks in a Barnes and Noble, much less walk into Walmart and pick up a Basic Game boxed set. Now, I know where to get stuff, online, game stores, whatever, but what about the fledgling or potential gamer? What about the kid who picks up his pokemon cards every time Mom is shopping at Target, and is starting to get the yen for something more involved, more challenging?

And now, there's no more Dungeon or Dragon magazines on newstands...

Why can't WotC seem to break this barrier? Why no Toys'R'Us? No Kmart, no Sears, no 7-11's? Do they just not want to? What's their plan for getting the next generation into their product?
Just curious, as I never hear this addressed. You'd think they'd want to be. You'd think game store owners would want it too, as Basic Game sales should eventually lead to further book purchases in their own stores when the new players start to shop around.
What gives!?

Quoted for truth, my friend.

My first ADVANCED D&D hardbacks came from a TG&Y (it wasn't until years later that I got the joke that some of the older guys I played D&D with were constantly cracking - "Shopping at the TZGY"), a generic department store. Come to think of it, so did my BASIC DUNGEONS & DRAGONS boxed set.

My copy of the EXPERT SET came from a Sears outlet store - couple of funny stories about that place: the merchandise at outlet stores, or at least this one, consisted of overstock, discontinued items or returned repaired items (like electronics) so it was basically a scratch-and-dent shop. You could also have catalog orders delivered there instead of your house. The three D&D things of interest I ever saw there was the noted expert set which had apparently been cobbled together out of whatever was handy when some of the boxes got opened; this set was taped shut and when I got it home it had an open, half-used pack of Quadrille graph paper, the rulebook, dice & crayon and two copies of X1 ISLE OF DREAD! They also had a copy of the Mattel DUNGEONS & DRAGONS electronic board game (which I have never played), and a case of the handheld D&D LCD games (essentially a 3d graphical hunt-the-wumpus). This latter item was interesting because I opened one to play with it, and to my dismay, the LCD screen had been smashed - not cracked, but smashed in the middle. If the impact shape was anything to go by, someone very deliberately took a screwdriver and drove it point-first into the LCD. I tried the second one. Same thing. Then the third. Then the fourth, and so on. The case of eight had been destroyed. I can just see some zealot freight handler or stockboy at a Sears store surreptitiously working through a shipment of D&D LCD games making sure the PURE EVIL of an LCD game branded with the logo didn't go on to corrupt the hands and minds of children everywhere...

Sorry. Anyway...

My copy of A1 SLAVE PITS OF THE UNDERCITY was purchased at a Zayre's; I recall the mess (literal mess - the toy department in late Zayer's stores were pretty much their second-highest shrink area because even during Christmas they were essentially unmanned) of D&D books there.

...

I don't see anywhere near this degree of market penetration any more. I just don't. Hasbro owns a huge slice of the US toy market - why don't I see the core books and modules in J.C. Penney's and Sears and KMart and so on?

I keep hearing about the dreadful condition "hobby games" are in and how this many stores closed and that many retailers are going to online only and so on and so forth but where's the big push? C'mon, you gotta spend money to make it.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Its hard to find all 3 Core Rulebooks in a Barnes and Noble

I don't know. I mean I have no trouble finding a decent size selection at any B&N I goto. Granted, it's increadibly tiny compared to any game store, but that's what I expect from a big box store selling to a niche market. And it is shoved into a tiny area between SciFi/Fantasy and Graphic Novels, but hey its still there. Most B&N/Border that I goto generally carry WotC/WW/Misc titles from various other companies.

IMO, RPGs survived the angry mom time by becoming a geek market. So now it has to get past the steriotype of it being for geeks only. It'll happen. Not quickly (probably not in the next 10 years), but it'll happen.

 

[Desdichado]

Wachoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?

Hard pressed to find products in Barnes & Noble? I have a better selection at my local B&N than I do at my FLGS.

D&D was everywhere in the early 80s because it was a fad. Why can't it come back again? I don't know; probably for the same reason parachute pants, break-dancing and those checkerboard looking Vans shoes don't come back. Because they were fads too. That's the nature of fads; they fade away quickly.

 

[Festivus]

Is there even a basic game set in print?

Two... sorta. The D&D Basic Game boxed set comes with a basic D&D rulebook (covers a few levels, 1 to 3 I think). There is the blue dragon and the black dragon edition. They both have their merits. I use it to teach new players the game.

 

[Shroomy]

I don't have any problems finding WoTC products in Barnes & Nobles or Borders. However, what I think you are remembering were the heights of D&D's popularity in the early 80s. Now, I think that most chain stores that actually stock toys don't view D&D as popular or cheap enough to justify stocking them.