Goodman Games

Hey there, manufacturers of DCC goodness!

It seems to be getting harder to get the game here in Toronto, even when one tries to special order. This seems to be due to some slowness at Lion Rampant, or it could just be that stores are scapegoating the distributors. In any event, I was wondering if the Goodman Games modules were being solicited through Diamond Comics Distributors? It they are, I will just place a special order with a comic book store and get this done!

(Right now, I have only pdf copies of the last three GG modules, and I need the hard copies, my precious.....)

Thanks,

Daniel

If I could order these at Silver Snail that would be AMAZING. It's a bit disappointing that the gaming stores in Toronto aren't that good. I ended up ordering a few things direct from Goodman Games, but shipping is kind of a suck.

I used to co-own Golden City Comics out in Scarborough, and I believe Goodman Games is distributed by Diamond, so that would be great if true. Being the end retailer, one is always at the mercy of the distributor, but Diamond is pretty reliable, all things considered.

Last time I was at Hairy T Leon I seem to recall Leon complaining their distributer was a lazy good for nothing guy. (Well i'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of things.) I had asked Duelling Grounds to order books for me, because I want to support the store, but they never actually followed up with me about that. They just wrote my name down in a book a month ago and left it at that. I think they make their money from Magic tournaments and war gamers, and aren't that interested in the RPG community. (Not that there is anything wrong with that. I imagine there isn't that much money to be made selling RPG books compared to Magic cards.)

Also that's amazing you used to run Golden City Comics. I'm from Scarborough too. (Though the comic book shop i'd visit when I was small was Ron's Comic Shop in the basement of the Paperback Exchange. I'm not sure it's still there.)

I dislike speaking ill of anyone.

When Hasbro acquired WotC, that affected Diamond's relationship with the company in that they were no longer allowed to ship to Canada. So, we had to go directly through WotC or through Lion Rampant. Both had their challenges.

Being a distributor has its own hardships, I'm sure. Although it is illegal (as I understand it) for a distributor to fill orders on the basis of the size of merchant placing the order, I feel pretty certain that most distributors do just that. My understanding of the law is that, if store X orders 10, and store Y orders 10,000, you cannot short store X in order to fill store Y's order. You can short them both an equal percentage, though. My experience leads me to believe that Diamond is better than average in this respect; you are very likely to get what you ordered in a timely manner.

Dueling Grounds held Free RPG Day in 2011 and 2012, so I wanted to support them, but when I ordered the DCC book, it took a lot of effort for me to actually get it in my hands. And I prepaid. How much of that was the distributor, and how much of that was Wayne, I don't know.....but I do know that I eventually tracked the order myself, and confirmed that it was at the distributor, and then called the store and made sure it would be on the next shipment. I don't think that is good customer service.

I understand, from direct experience, that chasing after customers is tiring. I know that, after you've done that work, a percentage of those customers will disappear into the aether, leaving you holding the bag. And I know that, the economy being what it is, that's a bag you don't want to be left holding.

Still, it seems to me that a direct relationship with a comic book store is best, if these modules are available here in Canada. Most comic book stores already have a holds policy and a pull list, so this should be nothing new. Because of orders for toys, statues, etc., said stores should already have a policy for unusual items. As long as it is in Previews, and as long as it ships to Canada via Diamond, this seems to be the best bet to me.

Yeah, to be clear I very happy that Duelling Grounds even bothers running all the RPG events they do. I can't imagine they generate much if any revenue for them. I just think the store could be much better than it actually is. Anyway, I feel like i've hijacked this thread a bit.

Yeah, I'd like to like DG more than I do as well, although I also appreciate what they do, and I understand that I'm outside their core business. Maybe next year, I'll run Shanthopal in their game space, and help to make my game part of their business.

I wish you could get it on amazon.ca! haha My FLGS is terrible with rpgs, they are more of a wargaming store. When the 2nd printing comes out I'll probably order it from Le'Valet in Montreal, unless I goto the Kinetik Festival next year and get it in person

I am sorry, but this has moved me to comment. I lived in Toronto for 4 years, and I've moved around a lot in my life. I've lived for a spell in Chicago, in Pittsburgh, and currently live in London England. Where ever I travel I always have a look around the game shops.

And you know what... Toronto has the BEST games shops and the BEST tabletop gaming scene I have ever come across anywhere.

The thing about Toronto is that there are a lot of good shops, and each have it's specialty. Hairy Ts has loads of great vintage stuff (though a lot of it is hidden away in their storage spaces) not to mention the city's most colourful staff. 401 Games has the discount prices, the card games and a pretty good board game selection. Game Trek, while weak on RPGs and high on prices, still has an amazing selection of board games, including some very rare stuff that you won't see anywhere else. Dueling Grounds has the minis, a great space for play, and probably the most knowledgeable and passionate staff. Comic Warehouse out in Brampton has foolishly sold off most of its older RPG stuff at deep discount, but still have a lot of little treasures left for the dedicated explorer. Silver Snail would be a good game shop in most any other city, but in Toronto it can't really compete. Yonge St and Bathurst St. also littered with used book stores that, whilst they don't specialize in games, still have a lot of RPG gems stashed away on their bookshelves, often selling for 50 cents. Plus there's Snakes and Lattes game cafe, which I've never been to, but think its an awesome idea.

By comparison, in the whole of London (UK) there is really only one excellent game shop (Leisure Games) and a smattering of tiny places that predominantly sell miniatures combat games like Warhammer and Flames of War. Leisure's closest competitor, Orc's Nest, has an ok selection, but its also got tourist prices and the annoying policy of shrink-wrapping their books (I hate that so much!). Orc's Nest employees don't seem to know anything about the products, and they have terrible hours to boot. There is no place in London that carries vintage, used or out of print games. You'll have to hit a convention for that.

Chicago supposedly has some good game stores in the suburbs. I never found them. The city proper is a desert, which I always found strange for a city so closely connected to the hobby. There's an embarrassingly weak game shop in the Landmark Plaza where you can buy 500 different types of Monopoly and drinking games. They finally started carrying Catan around 2009. I love Chicago, just not for games.

Pittsburgh, for such a small city, did alright on the game front. It has several venerable game stores, Phantom of the Attic and Games Unlimited that carry out of print stuff. Phantom's selection is pretty impressive, but Games Unlimited is a shell of its former self. Still a pretty good town for game thrifting, just no comparison to Toronto though.

None of the other places I've traveled to, in America or Europe, have compared to Toronto either. Mind you, I've never been to Austin or Seattle, which I assume are probably good towns for gaming.

I've moved around quite a bit, too, if that helps any. I've lived in many places where it was hard to get to a shop, and many places where it was easy. There used to be a great store in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, back in the 70s-80s, and I had good places to go in Riverside, CA and Los Angeles.



Sure.....but I'm not looking for materials for Pathfinder or 4e. Hairy Ts has loads of great stuff, and has certainly supported the OSR (I have bought a number of OSRIC modules there, including the excellent Pod Caverns of the Sinister Shroom!), and they carried the core DCC rules. I bought the first two DCC modules there as well. And then.....nothing. It doesn't seem to matter that I have gone in and talked to the owner and staff. Not sure why. In the past, HT was always a good go-to place for Goodman Games materials.

I was recently able to track down the travel edition of Settlers of Catan at 401 Games, too. That was cool. Both of these stores are near work for me, and I can go buy stuff at lunch time. I also bought my giant d20 there recently, and have bought some other cool stuff, such as the Mines of Moria boxed set and Barakus.

As I said, I want to like Dueling Grounds more than I do. Part of it has to do with trying, unsuccessfully, to order DCC materials through the store. Now, Wayne indicated that the fault was the distributor, and I know that both DG and HT use Lion Rampant as their games distributor. So, maybe the fault does lie there. Certainly the quest for the more unusual DCC dice hit a snag because LR doesn't carry them. And, as I indicated earlier, making my interests part of their business would motivate the good folks at DG to do more.

And, again, I have said that I understand that times are bad. No store wants to get caught with inventory that it cannot move. But, frankly, I hate going to a games store and not buying anything. Right now, what I am looking to buy is DCC. There was some good vintage stuff at DG last I was there (1e and 2e), but that isn't what I am looking for. And as cool as colourful staff, card games, and board games may be, none of those things help me pick up a print copy of The 13th Skull.

I am sorry that London doesn't have what you are looking for -- that is a real concern! -- but saying that London is great for pubs doesn't make the stuff you are looking for appear. It isn't relevant. Likewise, noting that Toronto is great for game stores -- so long as you are not looking for DCC -- may be true, but it isn't really helpful. OTOH, if GG is distributed through Diamond Comics Distributors, then I know that Diamond will distribute in a proper manner, and I have to do nothing more than place an order at a friendly comic book store. And Toronto is also good for those.

I'd be happy to have any store in the GTA pop up in the thread -- comics, games, or other -- willing to order these materials for me, so long as they follow through. So far, that's hard to find. My pre-paid, pre-ordered advanced copy of the DCC rulebook didn't get to me until after street date when I ordered it at DG. And, as I said, I went so far as to call the distributor, so I am pretty fairly certain that I could have gotten it earlier....It was apparently there, waiting for me, as soon as Wayne okayed it being shipped to the store.

(When I co-owned Golden City Comics, we used LR as a games distributor, and I have a better-than-average understanding of how it works. The store doesn't pay until the item ships from the distributor. An item can be waiting at the distributor until the store okays it to ship. My experience with LR suggests that LR gets the merchandise in a timely fashion, and that any delay that occurs is probably on the part of the store. My phone conversations related to my own order seem to indicate that this was true in the case of my book as well.....and I was told by the store that it had not arrived at the distributor while the distributor was telling me it was there, just waiting for an okay to ship. You do the math.)

Diamond, on the other hand, ships when the item is available; the store cannot defer shipment until a more favourable economic period. So, items shipped by Diamond arrive when they are supposed to. This is probably largely due to two factors: (1) Diamond deals mostly with periodicals, and (2) Diamond is large enough that they can dictate terms in this fashion.

My goal is to get the DCC materials in hard copy. Stores that will not meet order commitments -- no matter how excellent they are otherwise -- don't help with that. IME. YMMV.

Daniel

I worked in Chicago and although it is out in the suburbs of the city, Games Plus is hands down the BEST game store I have ever been in. I work in Toronto now and while Hairy T's has lots of stuff, it is dirty, disorganized and the prices are how. While the game selection is not as good, I much prefer the clean and bright Heroes World out in Markham.

Raven_crowking, I don't doubt what you are saying about the business, I don't really know anything about that. I'm sorry you can't find what you are looking for in Toronto.

My only point was that, in my experience, most cities are lucky to have 1 modest game shop, whereas Toronto has a wealth of very good shops. Not only that, most of Toronto's game shops are within walking distance of each other. No need to drive out to some outpost on the edge of town to find your games, you can shop around for the best price over a few city blocks. Dare I even suggest that Toronto's game market may be over-saturated? That would certainly help explain why game shops are reluctant to carry new merchandise. But again, you're much more aware of the business side of this industry.

However, I will say that I don't understand the point of distributors in the game industry. Distributors just seems like a relic of the past, an unnecessary middleman siphoning off potential profits from both the publisher and the retailer, and driving up cost to the consumer. I like supporting game publishers, so I buy their products. I like supporting game stores, so I buy their products. I have no relationship with or awareness of distributors except when shop owners complain about distributors when they can't get the products I want. Why can't a game shop just call up Goodman Games and place an order at wholesale price? Do we really need distributors to promote products when everything you'll ever need to know about a game is a google click away?

I have gone out of my way to be balanced in what I am saying.



Well, let's try to explain.

Imagine that I can buy a can of Coke for $0.50, and then sell it for $1.00. There I have made a profit. In order to do so, I need to be able to buy that can of Coke cheaper than you can. I do this by not buying one can of Coke, but instead buying many, many cans of Coke. I get a bulk discount.

Now, even in my comic shop days, I did not sell enough Amazing Spider-Mans to get the same discount from Marvel that I could get from Diamond Comics Distributors. Why? Because I might be buying 25 units, but Diamond was buying (say) over 25 million units. Where Diamond (and any distributor) makes its money is by leveraging that huge shipment size into a discount that allows them to offer me a better price than Marvel will, while still making a profit.

Look at it like this: let's say that you and I both own stores. We can both buy Coke in the case, so that we pay $0.50 per can, and we can both sell it for $1.00. But, if we pooled our resources, we might be able to shave that cost down to $0.45 a can. If every store in the city pooled its resources, it might be able to shave that cost down to $0.25 a can. If every store in the county pooled its resources, we might pay only $0.20 a can. At some point, though, someone will need to specialize in pooling resources. And that someone is a distributor.

Traditionally, distributors don't undermine storefronts -- which are their bread and butter -- by selling directly to the public. In recent years (esp. with places like Amazon, DriveThru RPG, and RPGNow) we are seeing models where the distributor is the virtual "storefront". I haven't noticed a real drop in prices, but I have noticed a decline in local availability, and a Wallmartization of actual businesses. (Shrug) Things change, but changes that seem like they are for the better are not always really better. I didn't used to have to pay cover price + postage for some of the things I now order online.


Daniel

EDIT: Forgot something important in my Coke analogy. If I make 50 cents off of every can of Coke I sell, I should not drop money into something where I will make less of a profit, unless a sale is certain. This is why your comic collection might be worth quite a bit on ebay, but isn't worth much if you sell it to a comic store. Every dollar they spend on your collection is a dollar that could have been turned around on sure-sellers with a high profit margin. Even consignments use up shelf space that could be turned into direct profits. It is better to make $1 now off of 100 people than to eventually make $125 off of one.

OK, I do understand economies of scale, and how and why were have distributors and wholesalers. I have a bad habit of being rhetorical, and I too often forget that rhetorical points don't work well on the internet. What I am trying to get at is that perhaps the business model that works for Coke is not necessarily the best fit for independent publishers of niche role-playing and board games.

I don't know how large the average print run of a GG module is, but I'm guessing it's in the low thousands. Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe there is a bigger market out there for OSR modules than I realize? But it seems to me, if a publisher's sales and manufacture are in the thousands, rather than 10s of thousands, or 100s of thousands, or millions, then the publisher might do better to sell directly to retailers at 50% of retail, rather than cutting deals with distributors for 25% of retail. Produce only what you are confident you can sell, and sell it for the price it is worth. Its not like there are a million game stores out there that are carrying these products either. A few in-house sales and marketing staff should suffice to meet demand and maintain client relationships.

But again, I've never run a game company. I could be way off base.

Hi guys - getting back to you on Canadian distributors (missed this thread earlier) - two of our Canadian distributors got large restocks that arrived last Monday. Your stores should have better luck placing orders now. Please let me know if this helps.

Duelling Grounds ordered in People of the Pit and the Emerald Enchanter for me! I didn't see that coming, since I asked them to do it ages and ages ago. I ordered the two modules after these ones from Goodman directly, but I think i'll give Duelling Grounds another try now.

I picked up Emerald Enchanter just walking into Hairy T's North on the right day. Dueling Grounds didn't carry DCC by default, but Wayne was happy to order People of the Pit and Starless Sea for me.

Man, they were supposed to call me when stuff comes in. Do they have any of the new modules?

I was going to ask Wayne to order in the remaining books. I play D&D Encounters there so I kind of want to give them my support.

FWIW, I had a guy in the UK asking me for hardcopy of "Attack of the Frawgs" and my distributor said if I had any outside-the-US customers looking for my mod to pass along the name of the local FLGS the customer is at and he would try to setup an account with them. Send me a direct message to let me know if you'd like me to pass along a game store in the Toronto area (which I'm sure my brother would love as he lives there, but of course he already received his copy...)

Last week, I was able to pick up all of the DCC modules I didn't yet have hard copies of at Hairy Tarantula on Yonge Street, and also a copy of the 2nd printing rulebook (not yet the new cover!). So, my faith is restored.

Yep, it looks like they were getting a healthy amount of books in. I need to go look for Emirikol Was Framed! Hopefully this trend continues and it's not a battle buying this stuff.