Dungeons & Dragons Dilemma (Tradecraft)

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition has been released. Yes, we're all calling it "5th" now, even Wizards of the Coast. We're also universally admitting that 4th edition was kind of crummy. You can talk about what a piece of crap your old car was, but only when your fancy new car is sitting in the driveway. The D&D 5 play test, by most accounts, was a disaster. There was trepidation as the new edition of the past king of role-playing games released. So what do I think of it?

As a gamer, I love it. I've spent the last 30 days writing a D&D 5 campaign. It's called Mysteries of Laxa, about a frontier town established on an ancient site of power that has become a regional, medieval tourist trap for religious pilgrims. But something stirs under prosperous Laxa. An ancient power arises, yet the town elders are focused outwards on their trade, unable and unwilling to address the threats that may potentially destroy it. Can the young adventurers rise to the occasion and save the town? 5th Edition D&D lets me tell my story focused on the setting and the characters, without the gear trolling and murder hoboism endemic to past editions. It's streamlined without being dumbed down and the rules get out of the way of the story I want to tell. So yeah, I like it, and yeah, I'm embracing it pretty hard. It's fantastic. But what do I think about D&D 5 as a store owner?

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition has outsold Pathfinder 2:1 since its release last Summer. That's six products outselling well over 300 products, two to one. It has put D&D in the number four position for our top games, whereas it hadn't ranked for well over a year.

Position	Game
1	Magic
2	Fantasy Flight Games
3	Cards Against Humanity
4	Dungeons & Dragons
5	Warmachine / Hordes
6	Warhammer 40K
7	Pathfinder RPG
8	Ultra Pro
9	Mayfair Games
10	Wiz Kids
11	Pokemon
12	Asmodee
13	Steve Jackson Games
14	Z-Man Games
15	Weiss Schwarz
16	Days of Wonder
17	Rio Grande
18	Chessex Dice
19	Vanguard
20	Citadel

Dungeons & Dragons is back baby! I should be really excited. But am I? Do I like to ask myself questions and then answer them? The answer to both is a resounding yes. But I'm also concerned. Mostly about future D&D sales. There's probably a pill for egregious self question asking. You see, this won't last. D&D 5th Edition is great and all, but it's kind of on the same track 4E was several years ago when I predicted (and was laughed at) for talking about how Pathfinder was about to dominate.

The problem with 5th Edition is the emperor has no clothes. There are very limited plans for D&D 5 releases. I call it Dungeons & Dragons: The Stable IP Edition. Here's the thing. There's very little money in RPGs, especially from a company that makes another game that's probably a quarter of all game trade sales. Where Dungeons & Dragons could make money is in digital properties like electronic games and movies.

When I look at D&D 5, I see very good "core" book releases that are currently driving sales and then sparse, setting related releases planned to occasionally trickle out in the future. It's a boring and not terribly profitable release cycle. Paizo released more Pathfinder products this month than you'll see new from D&D in 2015. The gamer in me says that's just fine. We don't need a product treadmill with intentional power creep and books of marginal value. We also don't need endless card packs, map packs, novels, dramatizations, monthly themed adventures, and goblin themed hats for D&D 5. That's the gamer in me. The retailer in me is deeply concerned.

Role playing games, in stores, are in trouble. Or more accurately, they're on the verge of irrelevancy due to their scattered nature, move to an electronic focus including PDFs and Kickstarter, rampant piracy, and a model that encourages only 20% of customers to buy products. Plus, as Mike Mearls of Wizards of the Coast painfully explained, electronic alternatives are easier to get, to play and they're everywhere.

For those retailers who hoe this pen and paper field, like myself, we make role playing work on the back of the dominant version of Dungeons & Dragons. That game, whether it's D&D or Pathfinder, is often 50-75% of our RPG sales. Everything else is community service. Really, for most stores, non D&D RPGs not only don't pay the rent, they don't justify their space economically. If you see them in a store, know they're loved by someone in charge.

When the D&D 5 core books have cooled, much like with 4th Edition, what will we be left to sell? A bunch a nothin'. The 5E release schedule is sparse. It will include "accessories" that traditionally sell poorly compared to core books. There is also no open gaming license for 5E, although companies like Necromancer Games and Goodman Games are slowly producing compatible products. There are currently two.

If you do sell Pathfinder well, and you're now encouraging players to move to D&D 5, which I do sometimes, you're not only undermining your Pathfinder sales, you're undermining your entire role playing department. When you've nuked Pathfinder from orbit and you're sitting on a dozen slow selling D&D 5 books two years from now (a dozen!), how are you possibly going to justify selling RPGs in your store?

As a gamer, I think D&D 5 is fantastic. As a retailer, I'm really happy with D&D 5 right now. Going forward I think RPGs in game stores will experience an existential threat with the current D&D release cycle. But there is a way out. It's called Pathfinder 2.0.

Stop groaning. We need it.

Just Not That Into You (Tradecraft)

I used to date this girl.

She would only go out with me on Wednesdays and Thursdays. She was seeing other guys on other nights of the week, so I got the crummy middle of the week time slots. It wasn't like she didn't like me. We had a fine time and she was a good kisser.

Eventually though, my mid week slots made me feel like I wasn't her prime event. She wouldn't give me additional time. I felt I was probably a mid week distraction from what really turned her on, whoever that was in those weekend slots. I could have just enjoyed what I had, but my annoyance with the situation only grew larger.

That's how many retailers are feeling right now. There's no big conspiracy, but there is a lot of shenanigans going on, once behind the scenes, but now right in our faces. Reduced discounts. Street dates unevenly enforced. Distributors selling directly to Amazon while orders to independent retailers go unfilled. Stock outages galore, with exclusives not helping, while the mass market appears to get priority stock.

Game trade, we know you kinda like us. You're metaphorical good kissers, but we also know we're not the main event. Many of us who run professional operations, those big enough to put our kids through college or allow us retirement plans, are looking around for other people to date. We're hoping to diversify, be it toys, coffee shops, or even other businesses. I used to think there weren't big chains of game stores because the business model didn't scale. Now I think it's just too damn discouraging to think about managing this day to day nonsense and hypocrisy at a grand scale.

How can I put this game trade? You're a hot mess. We love you and all, but you're the kind of gal who's laughing one minute and stabbing you in the face with cutlery the next.

This unstable relationship we have with you is no way to find love. If you think all your dates are losers, I would suggest it's because you like bad boys and drive away the smart ones. You've got some winners right in front of you, if you would only commit the time to an adult relationship.

Three (More) Startup Misconceptions (Tradecraft)

I wrote a previous article about start up misconceptions. Here are three more, based on a lot of what I'm hearing. One caveat, if you're paying rent the equivalent of a car payment and running a shop yourself, paid with peanut butter sandwiches, there are all kinds of possibilities in the realm of low finance. I'm talking adult retail stores where going back to a full time job won't cover your hobby of a hobby store.

Stealing customers. We'll put our store next to this other one and steal their customers. Now imagine the kind of world we would live in, if such a thing were possible. A major tool in my arsenal would be arson. Why build a business when I can burn down my competitors? You learn the truth of this once your first competitor goes out of business and you get ... nothing. When people stop shopping at a business, they go all kinds of places, but only a small percentage, perhaps 10%, go to a competing business. I've seen half our Magic community up and leave for another store, but again, not a big hit.

In the game trade, when a store closes, some customers stop playing games, some shop online, some just take a breather and play the games they have. This is another reason not to bad mouth your competitors. It just doesn't matter. A good relationship with a good competitor is more useful than talking smack for no benefit. Oh, and every store within 20 miles of me has people talking smack about it, no matter how good it is. I'm sure there's plenty of smack talked about me. Bottom line: You will build your customer base through hard work. You will impress one person at a time, hopefully creating elusive "word of mouth." Nothing is free. Everything is earned. Occasionally you catch a small break. That break doesn't involve combustion, metaphorical or otherwise.

The online model. If we can prop up a brick and mortar location, we can make a killing online. I still get this from my business partners. When I talk about other opportunities, they tell me to make sure I have an online component from day one. These two businesses, brick and mortar and online, are very different. The amount of work it takes to keep a brick and mortar location open is staggering.  They often need completely different identities to cover for the fact that one discounts and the other doesn't. The amount of work it takes to make legitimate money online is also staggering.

The two work loads are entirely different. An online business is a separate endeavor, requiring separate marketing, separate skill sets, and additional work hours. People spend every minute of their day working on their online business. Are you really going to compete with them in your spare time? Online is also an enormous pain in the ass, mostly because of a discount model which makes you work twice as hard for the same amount of money as a full retail brick and mortar store. There is rampant fraud from customers, often adding up to thousands of dollars. Unless you're serious about a second business, with people covering for your previous position, time spent on an online store is likely time better spent on an aspect of your brick and mortar business. It's probably an issue you're trying to avoid.

For most game stores, online sales is an escape valve, a place to dump dead product and occasionally speculate. Amazon is the place of choice. You know that game that's out of print that you want on Amazon that's twice the retail price? Game store. About 1% of my sales are online. As long as my brick and mortar business is growing, I see online as a distraction. Now, if you're in the middle of nowhere with little local sales potential, by all means, supplement your income.

The Magic store. If we can just get all the Magic players to come to our store, run pre-releases at a loss, and make it up in Magic singles sales, we'll own the market and profit. There are plenty of stores right now, "casinos" or "club houses," dedicated to the Magic community, box flipping, and singles sales, that are essentially living off the cream of the game trade. They are making it up in volume. For real. Here's the thing. You're being actively squeezed with smaller Magic margins, pre-release allocations, and allocations of exclusive products. There is an active attempt to push you over the edge, so you don't make it up in volume, as you're not viewed as having a sustainable business model by the powers-that-be.

There are professional variations of the Magic store that are stunning in their ingenuity, with custom computer systems, professional tournament organizing, and the like. Those stores are not what I'm talking about. The club houses are rows of endless tables with a wall of cards and very little to offer, other than a place to churn Magic players and sell Magic at a volume discount. Is there a problem with that?

First, it's usually a blight on the community. These places are usually hang outs with bad habits. Nobody usually cares about that. Second, that "cream" would normally go to a professional retailer with a sustainable model. Again, not a lot of sympathy, capitalism and all that. Finally, it's just not sustainable in the long term. You're not only susceptible to a downturn in Magic, which will come, but this boom has been going on long enough that stores like this are getting undercut by other Magic stores. So if you do this, do it for the money with a clear exit strategy. Like a first marriage.

5 Ways to Spend Your Money (Tradecraft)

The tendency in January, the one time a year most hobby game retailers are sitting on a barrel of cash, is to find new product to buy for the store. Before you order in the full range of The Hobbit models from Games Workshop, consider a few options:

1. Taxes. Have you been profitable before? If you're new at this, you might get sticker shock at your tax bill. The most dangerous expense in my business right now is my income tax bill. Wait and see what you owe before you spend all your money. When you do find what you owe, begin saving for next year. You could do quarterly pre-payments or you could just save that money with discipline (you should probably do the pre-payments).
2. Marketing. Do you have a marketing budget? How about a marketing plan? With a cash cushion, this is a great time to make a plan and try some new mediums. Ask what other retailers are doing. Facebook is still the core for us, but in smaller markets, retailers have good success with cable TV and radio. Consider local options, like school newspapers. Budget for going to local conventions, making sure they're profitable and not a "marketing expense." 
3. Education. Have you been to a trade show recently? Ever? Toy Fair NY is February 14th. The Gama Trade Show is in March and everyone should go at least once. I would ideally go every couple of years. Other regional options include ACD Games Day (May 6th), Gencon (July 30th), and The Alliance Open House (September 12th). Plan now while you can justify the expense. Are you one of those store owners paying $400 a month to have someone else do your books? How about taking a basic bookkeeping class and buying yourself a new car as a reward when you're done? That's some incentive, no? Backfill your education with some business classes or seminars. Or budget for some solid business books. 
4. FFE. Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment. Last year we bought a new POS system and cash wrap fixtures. This year we bought a new camera system, new book cases and phone system. Entropy is your enemy and you need to keep up on this stuff. I'm sure you have a list.
5. Buy New Stock. But wait. The game trade is "front list" driven, meaning most sales come from new items. New items for 2015 don't exist yet. Why spend your money on slow things? If you want to expand an area, it would be better to expand with new product rather than back fill. Where should you put those inventory dollars? Well, check out turn rates for each department. If your Games Workshop product turns at a dismal 2 turns, move on. If your board games are turning at 5 a year, that's a bit fast. Find the departments that have the high turns, because you're either losing sales from stock outages or the category is hot and the risk is lower. Just don't buy a lot of old junk (things that exist now).

Victor Dubreuil - Barrels on Money, c. 1897 oil on canvas