WOTC Mall of America Store doesn't sell RPGs

[Zaukrie]

I recently went to the WOTC store in the Mall of America. About 2 years ago, they moved all the RPG stuff to the back of the store, and made it almost impossible to look at.

As of this week, they have almost no RPG materials left in the store! There was an end-cap display with the 3.5 core books, and three copies of Dungeon, from May.

This is the company that owns D&D, right?

 

[Hecatol]

Unfortunately this seems to be happening in other WotC stores as well, even here on their 'home turf'. The store in Bellevue, WA recently relocated to smaller premises, and one of the non-essential product categories that didn't make it over was RPGs. I suppose it is good for the FLGSs, but then again it doesn't do much for the casual buyer that was more prone to visit a mall WotC and get exposed to RPGs.

 

[der_kluge]

What the heck do they sell, just cards?

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

What the heck do they sell, just cards?

The one around here sells tons of random games and stuff. Pretty much everything you can think of. They sell lots of cards, a lot of Mageknight/HeroClix/etc, and they have a decent RPG selection...but surprisingly, they don't get Dragon or Dungeon....

 

[Hecatol]

Not a whole lot of card games either at the Bellevue, WA store. There's a short wall of Mage Knight stuff, but the majority of the store is filled with board games, puzzles, and weird party games/entertainment.

 

[Zaukrie]

MoA store sells board games galore. At least that is what is on the shelves. I'm not sure I get it. Millions of people (that's millions of different people) go through that mall every year. As an MBA in marketing, I'd think that the advertising of having one of your product lines on display there would be good for the line overall.

I also noticed that the iconic statues are now covered with stuff, or gone from the store completely.

 

[Davelozzi]

Those stores keep changing their business model pretty frequently. It seems as if they're desparately trying to prevent themselves from going out of business.

I predict failure.

 

[Verdigris]

WoTC stores have turned away from the video-game/RPG niche to the family-game-store-in-the-mall kind of place. The reason is obvious: malls are not great environments to play RPGs and the audience is not really the geek-game type.

That being said, the WoTC store near me sells all sorts of cool, off-the-wall games as well as traditional board games. Magic cards have been relegated to one puny display as well -- poor treatment of the product that made WoTC, if you ask me, but loyalty has nothing to do with it. With any retail outlet, it either makes green or it gets gone.

The whole attempt with 3e to make it more palatable to the general public was a noble but fruitless enterprise. It was the snake oil of a "brand manager" talking from ignorence. Most gamers are and will always be dorky, white, middle-class, males with obvioius notable (and very welcome) exceptions.

I think there will always be a niche for stores that cater to folks like us, but they will be a bit removed from the mainstream eye: probably in the usual low-rent strip malls where they've always been (ala the "Last Grenadier" in L.A., or "Dream Wizards" in Rockville).

 

[shouit]

Yeah, I was at the MoA and I got some great deals on stuff. They sold it all at 75 percent off. It is sad that they had to get out of the market...

They closed the Rosedale Mall WoTC store too.

 

[Darth Shoju]

When I was there a few months (end of April) ago they still had a fair amount of RPG products. True though, the store was clearly dominated by board games and that kind of stuff. But there were guys there playing magic towards the back. They had the Dackon Blackblade statue there and a cool Stormtrooper too.