All good and worthy news sources out there report on the "hot topics" of the moment. Granted there is no way of mistaking TDHM for anything good or worthy much less a source for news but screw that as I said in the title I'm jumping on the bandwagon here and gonna talk about the infamous Mayfair deal of limiting how much a retailer can discount their product. Am I late on the topic? Yeah probably but I don't really care. Don't like it you can skip your happy ass right along to the next blog and ready about Susy Whitler's newest quilting session.
Hold on to your balls boys because as cheap as I am and as many times as I have ordered from online retailers I'm going to give a big 'ole "BRAVO" to Mayfair Games for being proactive in taking the first step to save our hobby. That's right I said Mayfair is trying to save our hobby! No I'm not one of those people who think that the internet is going to kill off this or put that out of business (see my previous post about Rays of F'ing Light and you'll see that my thought process is pretty much still the same here. That thought process is simply that online retailers are now feeling a bit of the crunch that the FLGS have been feeling for awhile and maybe they will need to rethink/rework their business model. Just like the FLGS also still need to rethink/rework their business model the only difference is now one of their product manufacturers is stepping up in support of them.The only way for our hobby and that being the hobby of designer board gaming, to grow is for new people to find these games and play them. So the question then is how is that likely
to happen? By some schlep sitting on the net surfing porn and jerking off who accidentally clicks over onto a site about board gaming (probability factor less than 1%). What about some schlep who happens to be taking his kid in to some new store that opened up in town to buy him some of the new Magic the Gathering expansion and he happens to see some board game that is themed around one of his favorite hobbies or something else that intrigues him? Which of these situations seems more plausible to you for creating a new fan of board games? (and YES I'm quite certain you were hoping for a nice porn image instead of me visualizing the MtG example but I do have scruples. Wait no I don't have scruples but there are rules for blogging that I was forced to agree to in order to have this blog in the first place. So blame "the man" for keeping you oppressed and absent of porn here at TDHM...or maybe check out http://pornaddictsanonymous.com/ )Now I'm not a rich man. If I were I wouldn't be able to be bothered with writing bullshit for gamer geeks like you anyway. If I were rich I'd be far too
busy entertaining all the hot ladies on my yatch all along the Spanish Rivera leaving me precious little time to play, think about and as mentioned write about a silly thing like board games. (Again no porn or hot chicks...that link for you one more time was http://pornaddictsanonymous.com/ ) My point here is that I understand the need to be frugal in shopping for games. No doubt about that. Hell for a long time I was the only person brining games to our group's gaming session as no one even owned any. [One of the negatives of living in a college town is that it's filled with poor students, of course one of the positives is all the hot young female students who walk around in next to nothing....sigh ( http://pornaddictsanonymous.com/ ) ] So there's some sort of balancing act that you as a fan of these games, as a hobbist, as someone who (should) give a shit about the future of gaming must work with.Now who should be the responsible ones? On the one hand you have those who are more affluent than others...should they be the ones to only buy from FLGS? Well given that they are going to buy a large number of games if they did these few gamers could effectively fuel these stores almost by themselves. The truth is quite often these are also the ones who bring a large number of new titles out to be played. So then think how many more titles they can obtain and bring out if they were getting 30%-35%!
Then again let's say you are one who doesn't buy nearly that kind of numbers. What of you? Should you save up to buy a game or two here and there? Paying an extra 30%-35% would certainly slow your acquisition of games and that sucks ass too.
Mostly I think people will fall in between those marks. Regardless of this fact however I think that ALL of us are responsible parties. If you are gamer and you purchase games despite the quantity you purchase you need to be mindful of your purchases and spread them out. Buy some from online retailers and hell, I suggest you buy from those who offer free shipping at certain price points...if you are not going to buy enough to fulfill said minimum amount for free shipping get a group together and all go in. This way 4 or 5 of you will get a cheap game and no one pays shipping. This will also pressure those who don't offer free shipping price points to get off their asses and step up!
Still there are times you need to carry your sorry carcass into your local FLGS hang out and pick up that one game you really have been drooling over but for whatever reason haven't picked up...buy it! It's right there dammit, be an American and satisfy that instant gratification bullshit drive we all have in us.
Me personally well I can say that I very rarely purchase a $50-$55 game that I can easily buy online for $30-$35. Smaller games however I buy frequently locally. I mean when the difference is paying $20 for a game that is $15 online...well. I also tend to buy expansions locally because they fall into those price ranges as well as those lovely small box Fantasy Flight games and a few tuck box games. The profit margin is percentage wise still the same for the FLGS so when they look at their numbers they are going to see that they sold units in their board game inventory and encourage them to carry more and different titles. There will be plenty of people who walk in and pick up the bigger price tag titles too. Most of the places that sell games these days are not solely targeting us. Again they are going to carry the MtG expansions and probably some comics as well so again those dads bringing their kids in have a chance to browse these new shiny boxes of goodness.
Again I say bravo to Mayfair for stepping up and putting their neck out there. Days of Wonder! Where are you? Why aren't you next on this? DoW has a great line of products, great marketing and could easily jump into this as well and know that their product is still going to get stocked. Rio Grande? All their games are SDJ winners or nominees that alone is going to sell units no matter what the cheap ass gamers gotta pay for them! Enough buzz on BGG and there's gonna be a package sold and shipped right there.Alright bitches that's my take on the situation like it or not. (As per usual with me.) Now for your horn dogs who've been waiting I'll throw up an image for you that relates to this paragraph specifically. Gotta love the internet, check out those hot little pink panties...damn you are pathetic. http://pornaddictsanonymous.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment