Energy Stimulus

It occurred to me filling up my tank this week that I've got another $100 a month in my pocket with the falling price of gas. This kind of energy pricing relief should be some sort of economic stimulus for most people, the good kind of bottom up, regressive stimulus that helps the least wealthy and should result in more money spent in the economy. However, as mentioned by the press, most people are shell shocked from the economic events of the past couple of months and are hunkering down. Anyway, enjoy it while it lasts. Commodity prices and the dollar are both on the rise again.

I'm personally not willing to think too hard about my place in the economy right now, especially the long term prospects of my own situation after having all of my paper wealth vanish over the last year. You can justify an awful lot in your life when your assets appreciate faster than your savings. Introspection will be saved for the slow, dark months of Winter. For now, it's about survival and maximizing the holidays for the store.

Victory Sales

Yesterday felt like a public holiday as joyous customers came in and splurged, in what seemed like a Saturday rather than an average, slow Wednesday. One local Democratic party worker came in with a Swiss tourist (election observer?), and took pictures with me. Why? Dunno. Maybe it's a Swiss thing. We talk politics in the store a lot, but usually among friends and regulars, not with people off the street. It tends to bum them out. Yesterday was an exception, as Obama supporters, all people I don't know, were jubiliant and happy to talk with anyone who would listen. Of course, we had an older, disgruntled Republicans who also wanted to preach the end of days, also without prompting. Snore. That's when it sucks to be in sales. After some frighteningly bad sales weeks at the end of October, I'm hoping the election is one less uncertainty factor that helps return the economy back to something resembling normal.

Some of those strong sales were due to new releases, notably Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon, games that didn't even register as viable a year ago. There are a lot of hot new games out right now, but customers are passing. We're definitely in a stock up mode now, and not by choice. This is when my purchasing of scheduled releases far exceeds my sales. New games stack up unpurchased while my buying budget gets blown. It was good to see some enthusiasm about some of this new stuff yesterday. Upcoming hot releases this month will include the new World of Warcraft miniature game, D&D Draconomicon and Martial Power, and hopefully the Battlestar Gallactica board game (it's Fantasy Flight, so who knows). Meanwhile the store is bursting with new games that came out while customers were hibernating in October.

Taco Bell Effect

Lenina Huxley: Taco Bell was the only restaurant to survive the Franchise Wars.

John Spartan: So?
Lenina Huxley: So, now all restaurants are Taco Bell.
--Demolition Man

There's talk on the message boards about the impending demise of role-playing games associated with the bad economy. This comes from game store owners who have a hard time competing against the likes of Amazon, especially in a recession. I had a guy pull up the Amazon prices for D&D on his iPhone this week, as if I was delusional and didn't know about this great online invention from 1996. Ironically, I don't think it's the Amazons that are killing off our sales, it's the publishers themselves.

Those publishers with the strongest web sales presence make the books that many of us are dropping. They are bypassing the middle man, aka retailers, in hopes of gaining additional profit as well as solving the problem of the dwindling numbers of game stores. I can lose half my D&D sales to Amazon and still happily sell the game, but if I lose half my White Wolf or GURPS customers, it may drop my sales below a sustainable threshhold. I'll buy anything if I can guarantee one sale; GURPS and several White Wolf systems are now below that threshhold, so they won't get ordered any longer. Some publishers sell direct out of desperation, so perhaps it's not surprising that their books aren't doing well. As a retailer, however, I take this personally and it gives me additional incentive to drop them. To give you another useless sci fi quote: "'Bout 50% of the human race is middlemen, and they don't take kindly to being eliminated."

It might be unfair to revisit RPG market share in a new D&D version year, but what I'm finding is an increasing percentage of RPG sales going to Dungeons & Dragons. I've visited this topic before, and I've explained the long tail and the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of consolidation, but I think we'll be seeing more publishers fall by the wayside in this economy and more market share owned by D&D. What I see in each major, established game department is the leader taking about 50% of market share, with the rest divided among everyone else. Magic: The Gathering does this, as does Warhammer 40K. D&D did this until the last year. This year, sales for other systems began evaporating and 4E brought a lot of people on board, including a lot of dirty hippy gamers (DHG's). The restrictive D&D license should see some consolidation of D&D purchases towards WOTC as well, but that's an entirely different argument.

The Election: Like the stock market, I'm glad that to have one less unknown variable floating around out there, despite evidence that things are definitely not good.

Masking II

One thing about the spray gun, as veteran gunners will tell you, the paint goes on much thinner than with a brush. I'm debating about whether I want to add a second coat of Mechrite Red or just go right to the Blood Red. The baneblade is going to have a slightly different look than the rest of my brush painted vehicles anyway, but I'm alright with that. Baneblades are supposed to be venerable, ancient, singular vehicles, complete with names.

Again, effortless 15 minutes of work with the brush, and no mishaps with shaking the paint. I went to celebrate my good fortune with an afternoon cup of joe at my local coffee shop. As I was sitting down, I bumped my head on a small halogen track light. I carefully avoided spilling my coffee, but the bulb fell out of the light fixture and, you guessed it, plunked right into my cup, splashing coffee across the table and onto the floor. Hole in one. I highly recommend this place, despite the funky fixtures. So yeah, if I can use an airbrush, anyone can.

Paladin Club Holiday Special

Starting November 21st and ending December 25th, have a friend or relative bring in your Black Diamond Games Holiday List and you'll receive DOUBLE the paladin club points. Just pick up a holiday list in the store, or print this one.

Masking

It's too wet to paint today, but I wanted to do something in the little time I had. I use Handitak, to do my camo masking. It's a yellow variant of the original Blu-Tack. Handitak is less spongy and pliable than Blu-Tack, so I like it better for masking. Once the masking is in place, I hit it with a layer of foundation paint Mechrite Red, a good base coat to go over the gray, and then a coat of standard Blood Red. I'm still wondering how well the standard paints will do in the spray gun.

Feeling the Vibe

I just did our October analysis for the store. It told me I've been embracing the mood of despair while in reality the store is doing very well. The down side of the "community center" game store model is you get the good and bad vibes from the community. Customers tend to project their mood onto you, especially when they don't understand your business model.

October is not a good retail month for us normally, it's a transition month between Summer and the holiday season. There's a lot of quiet time to embrace those bad feelings, if you allow yourself to indulge. In the end we were profitable and did significantly better than last year, but it felt hard earned. It wasn't really, it just felt that way.