The Gaming Outpost

The gaming community has always been a little behind the times when it comes to technological advancement. It was quite late that we discovered spellcheckers and layout software, and our Internet presence still leaves a lot to be desired. We need to do everything we can to reverse this trend, to move our industry forward before it goes the way of HAM radio. Last week, Wizards of the Coast, the most powerful company in the industry, put one of the largest walls in the path of that advancement in recent memory. The Seattle bigwigs have somehow decided that allowing you to buy their products online is dangerous to whatever ideals they hold. In short, according to a story posted on mtgnews.com, Wizards has issued a notice to all distributors stating that their contracts will be revoked if they are caught selling to retailers who lack a physical storefront. Specifically, this targets Internet-based merchants.

I believe their main concern is with discounting, a practice most gaming manufacturers seem to fear. The argument goes that, if you have an online dealer offering discounts to customers, local retailers will be put out of business. It sounds reasonable. As someone who has worked in both an online store and a local retail shop, I can offer observations from both perspectives, and what I’ve seen does not support the above statement. For over two years, I worked for Discount Games Company (DGC). While they were poorly run (something I tried to do a great deal about but was ultimately shut down by management), they were the largest Internet gaming retailer. DGC was run by a store in Troy, Michigan called The Gamer’s Inn (TGI). For most of the duration of my employment, I worked in the back room of TGI and was intimately connect with the happenings in both stores. During the entire operation time of DGC, TGI’s profits did nothing but go up. We never saw customers stop shopping at the physical store to use the Internet one. Instead, DGC made money and so did TGI.

Why would this happen? Why would people pay full retail price for something when they can get it at a thirty-percent discount from the Internet? The reason is simple: People like shopping at local stores. They like being able to go in and pick up what they plan to purchase. They like being able to ask a real human about a game and get an immediate response. In short, they like the atmosphere. Internet stores are impersonal, like shopping out of a Sears catalog. Yes, you can save money, but you have to pay shipping and handling, you have to wait for your products to arrive, and you can browse though the shelves, flipping pages, and glancing at artwork. Being able to do all that is well worth paying full retail price for.

If all of the above is true, what’s the point in even worrying about Internet merchants? Why would anyone want to buy something online when they can go to the corner shop? First, not everyone has access to a local store. Many of DGC’s customers were either from obscure locations or foreign countries where gaming stores aren’t all that prevalent. Second, not all retail stores are worth going to. It is a sad fact that there are a lot of terrible gaming stores out there, places where the managers couldn’t care less about their customers, where the staff knows nothing about what they’re selling, were the latest “new release” doesn’t show up until several weeks or months after it’s due. Who wants to shop at a store like that? Third, retail stores are often limited in what they can stock. It’s easy to go out and find Shadowrun sourcebooks or Magic expansions. Try finding the complete line of Minifigs and you’ll encounter a very different situation, however. Physical stores can’t carry everything, so they have to pick and choose. Online stores are capable of having much larger inventories. Lastly, and most obviously, online stores discount. And this gets to the heart of the matter.

In order to exist, online stores have to discount. They really have no choice. If they sell things at full retail (or very close to it) like DGC did shortly before it was put up for sale, they aren’t going to get any customers. Everyone prefers local shops and discounts are one of the only things online merchants can offer that their competitors can’t. This is mainly because of drastically reduced overhead, but it has also become an online tradition. And ours is the only industry that seems to have a problem with it. You don’t see local bookstores complaining about Amazon.com. You don’t hear about Harmony House getting mad that people can get better prices at CDNow. Computer stores don’t have a problem with NECX. They know that online sales grow the industry, that they spread exposure, that they introduce people to new things they wouldn’t have found otherwise. The gaming industry should be no different.

Online gaming stores are a good thing for the industry. If allowed to exist, they will go a long way to building our Internet presence. This all comes at a time when the world is flocking to the Net in droves, when practically everyone is getting online. To cut off that huge of a market just doesn’t make any sense.