Store owner complains about Kickstarter and Twitter and D&D

[Waller]

Mark Craddock of Comic Book World on Game Publishers on Twitter

'Crowdfunding Sites Are Taking Sales Away from Us at Some Point'

icv2.com

However, those crowdfunding sites are taking away sales from us at some point. I have always loved RPGs of every kind and still want to have a large selection of different RPGs, but in my two markets they rarely sell.

Additionally, many of these companies are not using crowdfunding sites for their original purpose, which is bringing a risky project forward to find a market, with as little risk as possible. At this point, all of the companies I mentioned should have moved beyond Kickstarter and focused on supporting distributors and retailers to connect with us, the retailers. But they can’t do that because Kickstarter works too well and is just too profitable to bypass.

I appreciate your point of view and I continually work to find ways to support publishers and the games they make, but even I get tired at times of D&D being the 8000 lb. Gorilla in the market.

Well my FLGS doesn't stock anything but D&D and some Pathfinder, so Kickstarter is my only option for buying other games. If my FLGS stocked the games I wanted to buy, I would buy them there. It's a self-fuflilling prophecy.

 

[Morrus]

I’m not convinced it’s the job of small publishers to ‘support’ big distributors. That feels somewhat inverted to me. It’s hard for a small publisher to get the big distributors to stock them.

 

[prabe]

There are three stores within easy driving distance of me that go a good bit deeper than D&D and Pathfinder. I back things, yeah, because I want to support people more directly, but I've rarely had trouble finding in-print things.

 

[overgeeked]

I can’t get my “f”lgs to stock anything more than D&D and Pathfinder. I can’t even get them to order stuff. So if I want anything more niche than D&D, it’s Kickstarter, Amazon, or direct orders from the company. Each of which poses problems of its own.

Hey, small game companies, I get you’re small, but maybe don’t let orders sit unshipped for more than a week. Just saying.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It's hard to get your product into distribution and have FLGS to pick it up. I know, I've been there, done that. And I am almost certain that a game like Coyote and Crow would never had the success it did if they followed standard distribution model. I would not be surprised if C&C even got picked up by a lot of retailers if they had to go through traditional methods. So it's not just that KS is more profitable, it's that you might not even have success at all with distributor-only models, even with very popular KS games.

 

[Morrus]

It's hard to get your product into distribution and have FLGS to pick it up. I know, I've been there, done that. And I am almost certain that a game like Coyote and Crow would never had the success it did if they followed standard distribution model. I would not be surprised if C&C even got picked up by a lot of retailers if they had to go through traditional methods. So it's not just that KS is more profitable, it's that you might not even have success at all with distributor-only models, even with very popular KS games.

Yeah. Stock our games, and we'll support you as best we can as a small publisher. It has to be a two-way street. You have to support us, too.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yeah. Stock our games, and we'll support you as best we can as a small publisher. It has to be a two-way street. You have to support us, too.

And I'll note, many KS campaigns have retailer tiers. Get 3 books for half the normal pledge amount for example. So even with KS, there is still retailer support there.

 

[Morrus]

And I'll note, many KS campaigns have retailer tiers. Get 3 books for half the normal pledge amount for example. So even with KS, there is still retailer support there.

Yep, we have retailer tiers, and a way for retailers to order directly from us also.

 

[Umbran]

Well my FLGS doesn't stock anything but D&D and some Pathfinder, so Kickstarter is my only option for buying other games. If my FLGS stocked the games I wanted to buy, I would buy them there. It's a self-fuflilling prophecy.

The guy hasn't thought about the numbers there...

A million-dollar kickstarter, at about $100 per order, is only 10,000 units, total. That's a small print run to do broad, scattershot distribution in brick-and-mortar venues. That's a production run begging for direct-to-customer distribution.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Yeah. Stock our games, and we'll support you as best we can as a small publisher. It has to be a two-way street. You have to support us, too.

And if they didn't stock you when you were small and struggling, they really have no business complaining about losing sales of your products to online business once you're bigger.