Silly me. I thought that the bold faced type would make it easy for you, if you wanted to actually make a meaningful statement about this. Then again, maybe this is a variation on your old playbook of insisting that online discount customers were not actually saving any money. Keep denying, even when the evidence is right in front of you, and maybe someone will actually believe you.

But, in the end, I blame myself and not you. I should have known better than to actually hope for a real rational statement from you instead of just more if the usual attempts at distraction and avoidance of trying to make a case for your position.

Maybe someone else (maybe Martin, but I have my doubts there) will actually be able to answer the fundamental question I raised

Try giving a rational explanation, for starters, as to how when Internet discounters are destroying the boardgame hobby, more hobby boardgames are being published by more publishers than ever before. Where are the purchasers for these games coming from if the B&M store is necessary for the health and growth of the hobby yet those stores are disappearing at a rapid rate (if you accept Martin's numbers, wherever he may have gotten them)?

Heh. I guess I'll keep re-clarifying this until it's clarified -

A Minimum Advertised Price clause is not in any way shape or form "price fixing". It merely states what the customary or usual "advertised" price of specific retail items has to remain at or above. Games Workshop's MAP clause is a 10% discount level. The key words are customary and usual. They actually have good definitions and aren't subject to any real dispute outside the micro-world of BGG threads about deep discounting.

Not sure it'd matter if any specific number of publishers went that route or not. Once the pricing parity was established the game will stand on it's merits, not it's discount level. I'd assume, if you were a game designer, that would be the primary concern you'd have.

Since you don't see this concept as a viable solution and since I have (along with, I think, Martin Stever) explained how and why it has been or might be done in this market and also the rational behind it... why don't you see it as viable? I mean, do you just not see it? Or is there some reason you think it won't work?



I don't make that assumption at all. And you're only temporarily on Team Dilettante... we'll draft you over here once the Fantasy Game Sellers League starts this fall.

While there are big differences, I think about hobby games when I'm considering the business. If you read the interview, I think Joe's point about inventory is dead on. Fixed location retailers see inventory turns drop to near zero when there's enough supply in the channel to get internet discounters all they need to fill orders. When the discounters don't get the product, sales volumes actually have gone up because the fixed location retailers can afford to carry more inventory for a longer period of time. It's not what I was predicting 6 months ago, and in this case it's nice to be wrong. I think the logic applies to boardgames and CMG's.


The reason I don't make any claims about anything earlier that '75 is I don't have a good source of info. Again, I'd love to talk with the guys that ran Avalon Hill sales in the 60's and 70's. When I got involved in the business in '79, TSR was going through a incredible an incredible period of growth and growing the business for all games, and that's when I first heard people start talking about outlet growth.

You're also right in that it's tricky to count outlets when TRU might carry 8 "hobby games" one year and 2 the next. For me the difference between {TRU, stationary stores, and bookstores that carry a small selection of hobby games} and hobby shops is that the hobby shops of the late 70's early 80's were striving to carry a full selection and hiring game geeks to run the department. So it's the difference between dabbling and trying to be a game store. Even today I can go to Rite Aid and find a few Hasbro games and at Christmas I might find one Hasbro/Avalon Hill release. I don't call that a game store nor consider it in either the growth or collapse in the number of stores.


Actually Paul, I have. It's even mentioned in this thread, and I've written about it extensively elsewhere.


I thought this was pretty funny, given the amount of abuse I've taken and seen piled on others who think that discounters are driving fixed location retailers out of business in this and other threads. People get really mean when they think you're arguing their 35% discount should be taken away.


I think there are several reasons and that you're missing one key point.
Because of the computerization of printing, the price of entry has gone down. One writer and one graphic designer can get a game to press from their garage. The price of the software, its ease of use, and printing companies' ability to accept computer files have made the time and expense of getting something to press drop way, way down.

Because of the advance of computerized communication, we're seeing an integration of the hobby and the business. Many companies now use hobbyists who work at home and have real full time jobs to do write the games, develop the games, create the first draft of the published materials, create online components, coordinate playtesting, even do the graphic design. Even here on BGG there are a number of posters who spend a significant amount of their week helping game publishers. That allows the publishers to put out more material without increasing staff and while really holding down costs.

The globalization of product origin. There are a number of companies bringing European releases to the U.S. which call for the U.S. company to have just 1 or 2 employees. Again, to a certain extent this can be chalked up to computerization. It is way easier to do multi-language products or products in which the language is switched out now than it was even 10 years ago.

It's not clear how much total volume in terms of units sold has changed over the last 30 years. I strongly suspect that if we looked at hobby boardgame units sold, we'd see that it's gone up and down with the rise and fall of RPG and CCG fads, because traffic in hobby stores was the big variable in driving sales. I also suspect that we'd see total units have been flat or down in the 90's, so more smaller releases punctuated with some big hits. While DOW and FFG are selling lots of good stuff at decent volumes, we don't have GDW, FASA, et al. Clearly the big hits are really big (Settlers, TTR), so I just don't have enough stats to say definitively my suspicion is correct. I'd love to have more data to work on figuring it out.

I also think BGG does a lot to make this a more fun hobby to be a part of, but I don't think BGG grows new players the way I believe fixed location retail stores do. I often wonder if BGG might increase the half-life of the hobbyist, but it's too early to say. If every BGG'er logged their whole collection and every play, it might be possible to reach some conclusions and make some good prognostications about the site's effect.


Unfortunately the census bureau doesn't cover game stores the way it does bookstores. Unlike the American Booksellers Association, GAMA doesn't collect and publish industry wide stats. So most of my numbers were collected by inference, for instance, Capital City was x% of TSR's business; we had y # of stores carrying TSR product; we figured our average store volume was $z; TSR was w% of our total game business. TSR told us they felt our store volume was 2/3 of typical. So with all those numbers you get a picture of what the business looks like. Then you sit around GTS, Gen Con, Frankfurt, the ABA show, and the 1/2 dozen other events having beers with your friends from other companies and share your ideas about market size, penetration, account growth, and you end up with a better picture of what the market looks like.

Of all the data, my experience is that coming up with the store count is the easiest one to pin down.

But if you don't want to accept my numbers, I don't mind.

Sheesh. I already said I din't agree with the premise you bolded. But hey, I have another 10 minutes...sooooo...



1. What you suggest - the destruction of the hobby - isn't happening

2. Do you really want to get into a discussion of some unknown number of purchases from an unamed game company and whether an unknown amount of the unamed game purchases are being made at unamed or perhaps unknown online and/or local merchants?

Or would it be handier to actually discuss what both Martin and I have said. To wit;

Online deep discounting has played a major part in reducing FLGS profitability. I didn't name genres, publisher or any specifics. To me, you're incorrect when you demand that only board games be discussed and WizKids or GW are apples/oranges.

Since distributors are secretive about their accounts and so, I assume, are publishers then all we'll ever have is generalities when it comes to numbers. But, I can give you a hint how an experienced neophyte like myself (I'm a bit reluctant to use the word expert around you Paul... for some reason you get angry when I do) might figure just such a thing out. In a general sense...

1. Collect up the last 15 years of White Dwarf magazine
2. Count the number of retailers listed in the insert of each issue
3. Graph it

Stores that carry GW products are typically at an econimic level somewhat above the comic book cave and most certainly carry more genres of games than a B&N big box type store would. So chances are you'd have a good baseline of actual "game stores". Something you could feasibly extrapolate some reasonable number from that would be a ballpark of how many actual small merchants sell games.

I'd bet there are less now than there were 10 years ago. I'd actually really truly BET money on it.

So. One can suggest that in the last 10 years a whole bunch of people suddenly got stupid and ran their business into the ground for no real reason. Or, you might look at what has changed. Martin and I both say that one change is the onset of cheap broadband and the "wow" factor of a 35% discount.

It's a biggie Paul.

At the same time there are so many unkowables that anyone insisting they have the answer is being silly. How much of the current expansion is due to the fact that there are hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of good local merchants who have moved into the sweet years... hit critical mass and have built strong customer bases and from that are evangalizing at a pace that is felt back in the profit centers? Or how about Target? Fred Meyer? Wal-Mart? B&N? And the other places that I have seen Euro and AT titles at that were barren a few years ago? There are tons of reason for growth in some arenas and in others declining.

It's really the publisher's job to figure out what to do. All I'm saying is that if the 35% game-crack gravy train stops running it won't end the expansion (the amount of which is unknowable) and might actually increase it and extend the shelf life of board games and even the shelf life of game geeks.

Prove me wrong? You can't. Neither of us know the real numbers. But at least you got your reasoned argument... well, by my standards it's reasoned.

Don't worry. I'm never asking another business question again.

Just to comment on this..Looney Labs recently increased the MSRP of this game to $14 and asked stores to increase the price of their current stock accordingly. This is because of the price point of their newer game coming out, they didn't want too much of a gap between the games (not an uncommon strategy).

Wow, we're at this again. Alright, let's get a few things straight.

What's best for the consumer in the short term is not always what's best for him in the long term

Look at it this way, wouldn't it be great if companies gave away their games for free?! I mean, you could have every game you wanted. That'd be awesome! And then all the game companies would go out of business and you'd never get any new games. What's good for you no isn't neccesarily good for you overall.

So, to use a less extreme example, deep discounting is good for YOU (and me, I do shop online most of the time btw) the consumer. We get the product for cheaper. I don't need to bother explaining to you wh that's good. But is it good in the long term?

I'd say no. Online stores only sell to people already looking for boardgames. They preach to the already converted. Physical stores however can reach out to non-gamers. Or Monopoly/Scrabble gamers. B&M stores, when done well, have a far larger potential to expand the hobby by infusin it with new gamers then any online store does.

But, physical stores are getting hit hard by online stores. They can't compete due to the increased overhead of running a physical location.

Deep Discounting: Good for now, not neccesarily for later.

Since you shop online most of the time, does that mean you don't plan to be gaming later? Or is this just a case of "I see and approve the good, but follow the bad"?

Meh, a lot of the business questions get here eventually. If you aren't interested in the standard debates, you can often just read the first page or two then tune out.

Me, I think it's an important debate, although I do think we would benefit from standardization somewhat. Maybe just a link to an archive of the usual suspects standard arguments, so the basic review doesn't have to be hashed out every time... (Sorry, couldn't find a good emoticon.)

BGG gets hundreds of thousands of unique users every month, the majority of which is assumed to be non-gamers coming from search engines and such. If they end up interested in anything when they come here, they undoubtedly see the advertisements for all the online retailers (especially the text ads on the game pages), giving browsers the ability to wander on in. On the flip side, a non-gamer isn't just going to be driving around town some day and decide to wander into a game store. What exactly are physical stores doing to "reach out" that would make non-gamers enter? If I didn't have a reason to look for one, I wouldn't even know that they exist. Seems to me that the chances of someone wandering into an online shop through the power of the internet are much better than the chances of someone wandering into a physical location.

As far as BGG finding "new gamers" . . . I wasn't much of a gamer myself. I happened upon this site when I was looking for some rules clarifications to a really dumb card game my friend had. Before I knew it, I was browsing around the whole site . . . made an account . . . found a local group of gamers THROUGH BGG . . . and started buying 3-7 boardgames a month.

Upon walking out of his store at the mall one day with a fresh load of games in hand, I even told my FLGS owner, "You can thank BGG for this."

No, it's a case of "I shop online because there's no B&M near me and cause it's convinient". The key thing is, if online stores suddenly weren't able to discount below, say, 15%, I'd still shop there. I wouldn't stop buying boardgames.

I support a solution that allows B&M stores to still compete with online stores. I don't mind only getting a 10% discount instead of a 35% one if that's what happens.

No, but those in mall locations attract alot of people. The smart ones put monoopoly and trivia games in front, and then throw in a table set up for a less common game. People walk in to get "Canadian Beer Monopoly" for ther buddy, and maybe see Blokus sitting next to it set to play and think "That looks kinda cool".

The only way your gonna find BGG on the net is if your searching on the web for stuff about boardgames. Browsing around game reviewsites, or political plogs or whatever is not gonna magically and randomly link you here, you gotta be looking for it.

For a physical store, all you gotta do is be near it. Your walking through the mall/down the street and see something in the window that ooks interesting, and wander in.

I'd say it's FAR more likely for someone to stumble upon a physical store then an online one. And that doesn't even cover the group of people who don't like shopping online (they exist) or the services a B&M store can offer some of the gaming community that online stores simply can't (demoing, game tables, events, whatever).

Of course, I tihnk people are far more likely to get into gaming due to a friend. But even then, B&M stores in the neighbourhood are far more likely to be helpful. Me and my friends started gaming after my friend pulled out his Dad's old copy of Risk one night. It was really old though, so we went into a store one day to buy a new one. While trying to figure out which version of Risk to get (there were alot more then we'd thought), the sales person said "Why don't you try this?" and handed us Settlers of Catan. And it went from there. I don't really see that sort of thing hapenning at an online store. " recommends this!" doesn't generally grab peoples attetion. It's just another add on the internet.

Kevin N. just nailed it as far as why board game stores close. The reality is that the people who work in the stores seem more interested in using the store as their own personal "lair" versus advocating and selling various types of games. Wargames are usually in a corner shelf and get no "push" to be sold. The wargames are never on sale (at least where I live they aren't) and the employees know nothing about the wargames on the shelf anyway.

Boardgames and wargames require people to sit down, be patient and learn a game. In our society that has "immediate gratification" and in a faster paced life, good luck finding people who will sit down, set up a board that takes a while, read 25 pages of small print instructions with almost no examples (that are poorly written at best many times and confusing and then play a game for hours. That is why I spend time playing my old AH games in a solitaire way as best as I can.

Hey, I want boardgames and wargames to be re-born into our culture, but I doubt it will happen until it's "cool" in our society again. I can remember the 70s and how we played wargames all weekend long. Now, that's not happening.

How old is the hobby game industry really?

Let's contrast with personal computers. Personal computers as a real technology available to many, worth buying and enjoying are perhaps 30 years old. In only 30 years, they've revolutionized our lives - especially our entertainment. Isn't it amazing how much change has happened in only 30 years?

Can the hobby game industry really claim to be much older? Sure, there were people playing games before that. Who was buying Avalon Hill bookshelf games? But those were published when? By and large the 1960s. But those weren't really the hobby game industry.

It's the rise of Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer and a few others (and perhaps a symbiotic relationship with computers) in the 1980s that really creates the hobby game industry.

Just 30 years old.

Hobby games are young. By proxy, hobby game manufacturing, distribution, and retail are young. And, to complicate matters, it is growing in the face of the computer revolution.

Is it any surprise then to find that your FLGS struggles? Managed by people with no special business experience because none exists, supported by the same, in the middle of a cultural technology revolution.

Most of us came to games because of friends because it is too new to have established markets or styles. As a business, it's is also too new (and still too fringe) to really fairly compare it to many long established business models.

This is absolutely true. I often feel like boardgaming is my "secret shame" and feel like I have to be very circumspect in bringing it up. What surprises me is how many people like them. Even those who arch their eyebrows and indicate that you are a "big nerd" or somesuch thing almost always succumb once the game begins. Before you know it, they're asking you if you want to play "one of those nerdy games again?"!

Stores really need to get wise to this. Although it may be unfair to loyal customers who like D&D etc, the truth is most find this sort of stuff very off-putting. Just like Barnes and Noble puts all their best sellers up front and their specialty items upstairs (even though these are for their best individual customers) so too should games stores.

Everyone is a winner if games shops do well. It allows them to expand or purchase products they might not otherwise be able to afford.

What hipsters are hanging out at B&N reading a best seller? Maybe things are different in SLC, but I can't say I'd ever seen a "scenester" do anything but hide their corporate whoring.

So are you buying your games from vendors who have both a B&M location as well as an online presence? Do you pay MSRP for your games to help the B&M store stay in business?

My guess is that there are such entities in Canada (that have a B&M presence as well as a web site and that charge MSRP) and that you can put your money where your mouth is.

OK. At the risk of starting a new flame war, I don't think this whole debate can be taken seriously unless we acknowledge that in all but 5 states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon) local governments give online retailers an unfair competitive advantage: making FLGS charge SALES TAX! The FLGS has to charge it and very seldom does the online discount retailer have to charge it. In most cases this translates into an additional 5-8 percent savings if you buy online:

Example: Ticket to Ride

Boulder Games shipped to Salt Lake City:

Price: $26.80
Shipping: $9.83
Sales Tax:$0
Total: $36.63

FLGS

Price: $40.00
Shipping: $0
Sales Tax (6.85): $2.64
Total: $42.64

If Boulder Games charges sales tax, then it would be $2.51 more, bringing the total to $39.14 (only $3.50 savings for shopping online vs. $6.01 savings for shopping online if sales taxes were not charged).

The competitive environment is what it is. Expensive retail space for FLGS vs. Cheap warehouse space for online with shipping and handling expenses. If government regulation was even-handed between the two business models with everyone charging sales tax or not, then a big part of the online retailer's price advantage would go away.

In my mind competition is fine, but neither side should have have an unfair advantage and we should all be subject to the same taxes for our area.

Right now the online retailers have an unfair advantage and most of their supporters in this thread are complaining that the FLGS may be about to gain some advantage (whether fair or unfair). On balance, MAP pricing could help online retailers as much as FLGS (they would sell less, but make more on each sale). It could also be very good for the industry as a whole.

Of course, if online retailers charged sales tax or if MAP pricing is implemented, game buyers could pay more out of their pockets for their games.

Well I run a big box retail machine, and times are tough all of the way around. People no longer have disposable money. I could not even imagine trying to keep a retail operation afloat with out big money behind it.
Times are tough, food and gas prices are on the rise, but income is not.
Those who do run full servie game stores deserve a loud round of applause.
We could argue all day about smelly hang abouts and dirty bathrooms, but it doesn't change the fact that people are just not spending money like they used to.
Actually to save a buck, people should stay at home and play games with members of their family or neighbors, but I find most people would rather go to the movies or out to eat with their extra cash.

Interesting post.

I reckon the most vocal complaints about the potential of change would be from the folks who see their 35% off threatened. I'm not sure I'd describe the situation as unfair... unbalanced perhaps, but not unfair. It's not as if the publishers intended a negative side effect and the online merchants merely discount deeply because they must do so to be competitive... which is the underlying illness. The competition has mutated into a price point struggle rather than a struggle to intice casual gamers into the fold of Game Geeks.

A casual study of the threads here where people are asking for help deciding on what to buy shows that the central theme of many of those threads and geek lists is "making the free shipping cut-off". I tend to see that as somewhat counter-productive to the online merchant and it pads the stats by selling lots of games that may never be played or played only rarely because they were bought to fill out an order, not on their merit as a good game.

Okay. So what it boils down to is that most games sold online either aren't that big of a discount when they arrive (those that aren't part of a large order) or are best serviced online because of relative scarcity, small print runs, limited interest, etc. Online merchants are in a somewhat better position to carry dead-weight inventory and it ends up becoming a service to those people who want those hard to find products. And... the buyers aren't newbies, so they really aren't a factor in why price parity might help grow the hobby.

It's true that initially online merchants might sell less copies and yes, make a bigger margin on those sales, but in the long run the online merchant ought to benefit even more from the potential of more board games being available on the street.

Why? because customers come and go. Stores lose them. They move. Stores close. They change product assortments and so on. But if the board games publishers can get larger quantities of these titles shown, demo'd and sold locally the residual effect will be more gamers, more kitchen tables, more word of mouth and more online sales as well as local sales.

I went to a scrapbooking store today with my wife. Real niche audience, and I have no idea of the niche population difference between scrapbookers and boardgamers, but some of the game store owners should go in one of these stores. It was so nice and clean that I wanted to stay, and I hate scrapbooking (well, I kind of like Photoshopping.)

http://www.archiversonline.com/

Aside from the selection, it had a large back room with tables for scrapbooking. They had cutouts or whatever, machines that did "stuff" and fellow scrapbookers to help you. There was a "scrap to you drop" Friday's for $15.

They also had classes, some free, some not, but most free. You could have substituted everything boardgame there and you'd have a great store. They even gave you dinner for the $15. Read demos, playing, etc.

And I'm sure there's differences in the business as far as products and prices, but stil....

Of course, there's that money thing and all that, but uh, besides that, stores could learn a thing or two about niche business from them (no I don't work there.)

But I still don't want to scrapbook. I bet my wife will be back, though.

Hi, in answer to one of your questions, a friend ran a game store for a few months and it also served coffee and whatnot. The coffee side of the business kept the rest going (New Zealanders love good coffee), but he never made enough to make it worthwhile.

Other than the difficulty of getting people in to buy stuff, it was also very hard to get stock. In NZ, Games Workshop is pretty popular among younger kids, but GW couldn't give a damn about actually shipping orders to non-GW FLGS. So, small market, hampered by stock issues on core products = hard to make a go of it.