WotC and brick and mortar retail stores - Greg Leeds weighs in

[Festivus]

My FLGS just has a mini fridge behind the counter and folks come up and buy them at the register. It sounds like you were looking for an actual vending machine to put in your store... but isn't that going to have the possibility of mechanical breakdowns too?

 

[evilbob]

It's really amazing to hear people from cities talk about their experiences. Things like "4 stores within 30 minutes" is like, some sort of heavenly realm that I thought only existed in storybooks.

Seriously though, if you think FLGSs are rare, trying living in a rural area (not even "rural" - just "not that urban"). They don't exist. People always forget: D&D is niche-within-niche - a tiny segment of a tiny segment. My experience with D&D-friendly gaming stores is that we've had a couple try to start up in my town over the last decade and all have failed within a year or two. The only stores that sell games that make it are the ones who have been around for 20+ years already, and let me tell you: the ones that even have D&D stock sure don't focus on it.

For me, there is zero reason to go to a store to purchase D&D products; it's ALWAYS cheaper online and no one offers anything other than simple retail sales. (Of course, thanks to DDI, there's zero reason to purchase a D&D product anyway, but that's another story...)

 

[renau1g]

There's the setting info and other fluff that's not in the builder that I find useful. It's hard to run Eberron with just the compendium.

 

[Herschel]

What about local bulk stores (e.g. Costco, Smart & Final), where you can buy for roughly .25 a can, even with deposit, selling them for $1 is a considerable markup. Candy for .75 purchased similarly is large. Now you might think $1 for a soda is too much, but look at a vending machine these days.

It is illegal in many markets to do this due to distribution and wholesale vs. retail licensing. At least it used to be, I've been out of the restaurant/bar market for a while now.

 

[jaerdaph]

(re: SIMCON)
Did you go? I had a booth there myself. According to the organizers, they had a bigger turn out this year. I know my sales were up (not as good as Running GAGG, but then that was the release weekend for the Worldwake Magic set).

Unfortunately not. I'd learned about it late, and the kids had just too much going on that weekend already with Scouts.

Next year hopefully. I think there's going to be a SciFi con held in Rochester in the Fall I'd like to check out too: Astronomicon

 

[Festivus]

It is illegal in many markets to do this due to distribution and wholesale vs. retail licensing. At least it used to be, I've been out of the restaurant/bar market for a while now.

I was wondering about local laws on that, I should have mentioned in it my post, thanks for pointing it out.

 

[S'mon]

For me, there is zero reason to go to a store to purchase D&D products; it's ALWAYS cheaper online and no one offers anything other than simple retail sales. (Of course, thanks to DDI, there's zero reason to purchase a D&D product anyway, but that's another story...)

Well, I went to Orc's Nest yesterday and bought the new edition of Labyrinth Lord, at £14.95 it was cheaper than ordering from Lulu, as well as much faster. amazon.co.uk doesn't have it for some reason, so the LGS got my business. While I was there, I helped a newbie GM (played years ago, never GM'd) decide what to buy to get started with RPGs - he wanted something he could run with his theatre group offstage. The staff girl dissuaded him from Pathfinder and tried to sell him Vampire, even though he clearly wanted an 'elves and orcs' game. Labyrinth Lord didn't have the name recognition for him, though I suspect it was what he really needed (simple, portable, no need for minis). I mentioned the D&D Essentials starter set coming out in September - too late - and the staff confirmed that the 4e Starter Set is long OOP. So he/we settled on Keep on the Shadowfell as the only real option - even though IMO it's not really satisfactory, it does have short rules and pregen characters, two things he wanted.

 

[S'mon]

It is illegal in many markets to do this due to distribution and wholesale vs. retail licensing. At least it used to be, I've been out of the restaurant/bar market for a while now.

It's quite hard to make such restraint-of-trade contracts stick though, unless the manufacturer can use some other right like copyright (videos) or sometimes trade marks (in import/export cases). If you buy drinks from a retailer, you have a contract with the retailer, not the manufacturer, so the manufacturer can't sue you for breach of contract. In theory the retailer could but they have little incentive to do so, since you are buying their stock.

What I've seen in the UK is that discount retailers just won't sell vast amounts of a product to one buyer; I think though that's more because they want to keep the product in stock for other customers. And they reserve the right not to sell to someone they think will resell.

 

[Kzach]

I wish game stores here would learn to run events properly. It's ironic that one of the quoted posts says they're being 'forced' to run live events, but realistically, they should be doing it anyway to bring in customers.

In my city I only know of two locations that run D&D games. One is so disorganised and never returns emails and is stand-offish at best when discussing the issue in store, that I've given up trying to run any events there. As a result, they're losing money hand over fist and can't seem to put 2 and 2 together as to the reason why.

Another chain store outfit specialises in running games for Magic, WoW TCG, L5R, D&D events, etc. They sell books and snacks as a secondary income stream. And guess what? They're doing very well and just recently opened up a new store.

Oh well, survival of the fittest I suppose.

 

[darjr]

(Of course, thanks to DDI, there's zero reason to purchase a D&D product anyway, but that's another story...)

I'll give you that DDI covers a lot of what's in the books. But it isn't everything, and PHB3 came out in my FLGS BEFORE it came out in the DDI. There are also other books with a ton of stuff that isn't in the DDI. The dragon book for example, sure the crunch is, but that book is mainly about the fluff in it. Hammerfast, I don't think I've seen it in the DDI.