Last week, all of us here at SR were pleased to find an incredibly sweet deal on the 4th edition boxed set of books. $57, and that included shipping. I have no idea how the Internets brought us this price, but whatever deal Buy.com had with WotC saved me a whole ton of money. I just got my books on Saturday, and they are Fantastic. Reviews will be coming as soon as we have read enough to have any idea what we are talking about! Unfortunately, that's not really what I wanted to talk about right now -- it is simply the root from which a very stupid tree grew.
Dante went into one of our local gaming shops over the weekend, and during the course of a conversation with one of the employees about 4e, he mentioned that he got his 4e books already. And. in a nutshell, the conversation went something like this:
Dante: "I see you've got 4e books in. I love the new edition. Got my books just this week."
Employee: "Well I bet you paid more somewhere else!"
Dante: "Actually, I got them online for $57 shipped."
Employee: "Why the hell did you do that? Where are you going to play games if you don't support your local gaming shop?" <begin several more minutes of vitriol and guilt>
This begs two questions. One, why the hell would we buy it online as opposed to this guy's gaming shop? I think the answer
possibly lies with the fact that we could get it for $57 instead of $102. I can understand buying local under most circumstances, to support the community and local commerce and all that. But please forgive me if I do not have enough civic pride or have enough loyalty to your store to take advantage of a price that is over half off what you're asking. I get that Internet sales are killing brick and mortar stores. I understand why he didn't go under the MSRP. But I also happen to have both a newborn and a thirst for Xbox games, and he's crazy if he thinks I'm not going to take a $45 discount on the same product.
The other question, as to where we're going to play games if we don't support our local gaming store, made me a little angrier. Making customers feel guilty about not shopping at your store makes me want to shop at your store considerably less. You know what's going to happen if you piss everybody off and nobody buys stuff at your shop anymore? We're still going to buy our stuff elsewhere and we're still going to play games wherever we want. And for the record, I have never played a game inside a game store before. I have this thing called a "kitchen table" around which we all gather. Some of my friends have a similar device.
When Dante told me his tale, I got my +3 panties in a twist, and I had written most of this article before I realized that I might not know the whole story here. I've never run a shop before, much less a gaming shop, and I don't know how everything works exactly. Fortunately, my friend
Tony did run one up until recently. So I asked him his thoughts. And basically, I was pleased to hear that I wasn't completely off the tracks in my thinking (at least in his opinion). The guy's price really wasn't his fault, and he did think the guy was kind of a toolbox for guilting his customers. A lot of the guy's problem, Tony thought, was that the owner of our local store hadn't figured out it was 2008 yet and he was playing by an old set of rules. Tony knew right from the start that his store wasn't going to be able to compete with the prices of the Internets, and thusly, he offered a lot of things that the Internet couldn't give his customers. He hosted events, like tournaments. He held promotions. He gave people reasons to want to physically come into the store. And he supplemented that income with Internet sales.
All of us here at Stupid Ranger are firm believers that a strong gaming community benefits everyone. But I also believe that a good gaming community is founded when a lot of people discover a common interest and all work together to make it great. Not because they feel guilty about it. If you want your store to be the center around which the local gaming revolves, make your store kick ass. Give us reasonable prices, host fun events, put up leaderboards, and let people get in contact. The community doesn't even have to be IN the store -- put up a website. Offer stuff for sale online. Put up forums and spread the word to your customers. Get us involved and make it relaxing and enjoyable for us. It's gaming, we're supposed to have fun. Don't make us feel like we're going to sink the whole community and make your family starve if we don't jump on your wagon. I have my own wagon. It is nice.
I imagine this article is probably going to piss a couple people off, but this is part of the world all of us gamers live in. I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts and experiences, especially any of you who own a game store. And please note that I didn't name any names. I probably won't be shopping at this particular place again, but I certainly don't want them to lose business. I want to see our local gaming shops succeed just as much as the next guy.
Labels: game shop, rpgbloggers, Vanir
