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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Erik Mona" data-source="post: 2389928" data-attributes="member: 2174">The rumor floating around the industry goes something like this: A lot of struggling retailers hung on through the holiday shopping season, hoping against hope that the increased sales would pull them through a difficult time. This didn't happen, in most cases, and the number floating around the floor of Origins and in the halls of game companies says that something like 400 FLGS's closed up shop in January and February.This has dealt a major blow to many publishers. Speaking as one of them, the sales numbers for Dragon and Dungeon in that market segment saw a significant fall-off during that period, even while things like subscriptions and general newsstand sales have been hitting three-year highs. With fewer game stores, game distributors are less likely to put in large orders for new RPG products. Even "sure thing" products are unlikely to get preorders above 1,000 copies these days, because distributors are leery of carrying a big inventory risk on what is essentially a shrinking market.It's true that internet sales can make up for some of this slack, but right now RPG publishing for anyone but the biggest kids on the block is a riskier venture than it's been since I came to the industry in 1999, and I don't see it getting much better in the short term. Gamers not supporting their local game store certainly isn't going to help the situation.It won't hurt the tiny guys, who would sell the same number of products out of their trunk as they would ordinarily sell through hobby store distribution. It won't hurt the giant companies with distribution deals with major book distributors and retailers. But the "middle guys" are really feeling the pinch these days, and those companies produce many of the d20 products popular with the members of this community.I'm not trying to tell anyone how to do their business, but I thought my perspective might be of value to the discussion at hand.--Erik Mona</blockquote>

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