Dragonlance

The Dragonlance series was the first successful spin off from D&D or what was called at thetime AD&D. Whereas today we have Wizards licensing other properties (Rick and Morty, Critical Role, Stranger Things) and converting them in D&D worlds or sourcebooks, back in the 1980s TSR went the other way with Dragonlance. After the success of the modules, sourcebooks and novels, dozens of which hit the NYT best seller list, TSR  created an number of other products under the DL banner. 

We saw a Dragonlance boardgame, comic books, animated movie (talk of a live action one never went anywhere), calendars and video games. There was even a Russian musical and songs released by several bands using Dragonlance concepts

Using the Media to Promote

In case you missed it this past last fall, and if you did, I can understand why, NPR ran a 5 minute segment in which host Scott Simon discussed good (and good selling) boardgames with Kathleen Donohue of Labyrinth Games & Puzzles in Washington DC. Games mentioned include Secret Hitler,  Azul as a beautiful game to give, Codenames, cooperative games from Peaceable Kingdom and, as a game that all ages will enjoy, that ol’ stalwart Ticket to Ride (which, surprisingly, is offered pretty close to Asmodee’s MAP on Amazon,  unlike companies with no MAP, such as WOTC, which does not seem to care a whit how much Amazon devalues the D&D brand). Though some people might complain about the games selected, given that Secret Hitler is only available through Amazon (from where a lot of stores buy and resell it) and a couple of others are exclusive with particular distributors,  it is still a nice bit of publicity that reached some 4 million to 6 million listeners at no cost to Donohue (except for her time and whatever preparation she made) or to any of the publishers of the games she mentioned. Just how much is getting your game (or your store) in front of 4 million people? Now and for the next 8 months is the time for you to start cultivating media contacts and developing promotional plans that will bear fruit in the last quarter of 2019.  How to do this?

Reach out to the media or otherwise make yourself known to them.  Donohue gets mentioned on some NPR program at least once a year because many of the staff there are fans of her store. MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow used to shop at the now shuttered Modern Myths  and would post photos of her purchases there on occasion. The editor of one of our local papers is a customer and we don’t hesitate to pitch him a story when we have something we think is newsworthy. Making sure the media is aware of your existence is a major factor in getting your store mentioned in articles like this . Incidentally, one of the things I would like to see GAMA do over the next year is launch an public relations campaign to position the organization as the go-to source for information on the tabletop game industry. Similarly, in your community, your store should be the one the media contacts if they have a question about what Secret Hitler is or why Catan has maintained its popularity for so many years. The Growler, which published the article linked to earlier, focuses on craft brewing while Illinois Country Living, published by the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives, also published an article on boardgames last summer. You never can tell what publications what might want to do a story on your store or game. 

Create Events and Pitch Them--The news media likes news and is always looking for stories to publish. In today’s 24 hour news cycle, the need for new content is unending and your events, especially if they are out of the norm, can provide that content, especially if you can tie it to some sort of national event such as Free Comic Book Day or Free RPG Day. We have actually had success contacting our city government and getting them to proclaim the 1^st Saturday in May as Free Comic Book Day in Carbondale and the 3^rd Saturday in June as Free RPG Day (Unfortunately, we still had to explain what an RPG is, but once we used the term “Dungeons and Dragons”, the proclamation went through fine).

The media is your friend or wants to be if you approach them. It is too late to work with them for this holiday season but you’ve nine months to prepare for the next one.

Power of the Package

I had the opportunity to try a game designer’s newish card games earlier this month. The games played smoothly and in general, I liked the card art. However, I opted not to bring them in for one simple reason:  the only packaging was a strip of plastic shrinkwrapped around them holding the cards in place. No box, no clamshell, nothing, so I passed on it.  If you want to sell any product (with the possible exception of live animals), you need packaging.

Packaging serves two basic purposes: functional and promotional.  The functional purposes of packaging are to allow the customer to transport it, protect its contents and give needed information about them.

Consider consumer products. Could you transport liquid laundry detergent or toothpaste home from the store if it did not come in a bottle or tube? This is the first function of the package, to hold the contents together conveniently. While carrying home an RPG like 13^th Age or FATE is relatively easy (though try getting one home without that handy binding), imagine taking home a board game like Settlers of Catan or Zombies! without the box. Pieces and cards all over the place!

The second thing the package does is protect the contents. Even something as simple as a deck of Once Upon a Time cards needs a package. If you just put them out on the shelf, they will get dirty, shelfworn, even torn. The box, or clamshell, or case, protects them from normal damage.

The third functional thing the package does is provide information about the contents. In the case of toothpaste, the customer wants to know how many ounces, is this tartar control or whitening formula, does it contain fluoride? Consumer protection laws for consumable items require a list of ingredients as well. You find that information on the package. Though ingredients are not necessary, in the case of a game, the customer wants some basic information: how many people can play, what ages are suitable, how long should a typical game take, what is inside the package?  This last is important because the customer typically cannot open the box to see the contents and stores may not want to open it if they do not have a shrinkwrap machine (If a store does not have a shrinkwrapping machine and the customer decides not to buy, the opened game is now worth less in the eyes of the next customer).

In terms of promotion, packaging can do two main things: make your product stand out on the shelf and sell it to the customer. Steve Jackson Games is a prime example of using packaging to make its products stand out, purely though box size. As I mentioned in previous columns, I used to think SJG was wrong for packaging Munckin in such a large box. Time proved me wrong and over the years, SJG has moved away from the small tuck boxes in which it packaged Chez Geek and Illuminati. Today, those games, and others, come in boxes the size of the Munchkin box, the easier to stand out on the shelf.

The packaging also should sell the product to the consumer. Tell them why they should buy it, why they are going to have fun playing it, how play works. While the FLGS probably has someone who can tell the customer about the product, if a game makes it to the shelf of a Target or B&N, no staffer there will work to sell it.  The poor game package is on its own. Bland doesn’t attract attention, bright and attention getting does.

Kickstarter from a Retailer Perspective

While from a publisher’s point of view, there is no real downside to Kickstarter, from a retailer’s point of view, there is almost no upside to the process, at least at the basic level at which crowdfunding works.

Conisder, the publisher lists a game on Kickstarter, or IndieGoGo, or some other crowdfunding site, gets pre-orders for it, collects funding, produces the game and ships it out.  Yes, there is more to it than that, but the publisher is selling their games to the customers who are most primed and ready to buy them.  At least one publisher that uses Kickstarter extensively has said they have moved their business model to a crowdfunding platform.  The company develops a game, puts it on Kickstarter, pre-sells 500-1000 copies, then, instead of keeping the game in print, develops another one and launches it via Kickstarter.

From the retailer’s point of view, stores see games coming up on Kickstarter and watch as they fund, with the opportunity to stock them occurring weeks or even months after those who participated in the Kickstarter receive their copies.  Assuming the typical print RPG sells  300-500 copies of a print run while small press boardgames sell 500-1000 copies, almost all of that demand gets satisfied by the Kickstarter campaign, leaving little demand left for distributors and retailers to satisfy.  Unless the game attracts a lot of post production buzz, such as Brotherwise Games Boss Monster, a Kickstarter funded game has already seen most of its sales during the campaign, leaving only a few potential sales through the distribution channel and lots of unsold Kickstarted games sitting on the shelf.

A number of Kickstarter campaigns do offer retailer tiers, wherein the retailer commits to purchasing several copies of the game, delivered at the same time as other supporters, at a discount comparable to what the store would get if purchasing the game through distribution.  This does require the retailer to tie up precious capital for several months, waiting for the product to release. Other Kickstarter campaigns, if the retailer commits to purchasing a certain number of copies of the game, have arranged to take payment and ship the game at the same time as it ships to the regular backers, putting it on the shelves while buzz still exists about it.

The big benefit that Kickstarter provides to retailers is the potential to develop an unending flow of new games and related products, some of which will prove comparatively successful in the distribution channel, such as 13^th Age, and some which will not, such as Kill the Overlord.  The case then becomes how much scarce time the store can allocate to determining which is which.

What Is the PLC

The product life cycle consists of four stages:  introduction, growth, maturity and decline.  All products go through all four of these stages, some at a faster rate than others (roughly 50,000 new products come onto the market every year, only about 10% of them stay in production for more than five years).

The introductory stage of the PLC is always the most exciting part of a product’s life.  The manufacturer has this cool new idea for a great new product(Dominion) or an interesting take on an already existing one (Ascension).  The manufacturer has (hopefully) playtested it extensively, made mockups or prototypes, lined up a production option, either in-house or outsourced and lined up financing, again either through theirself or, quite commonly today, through an exterior source such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo. The manufacturer is also all over Twitter, Facebook, TheyTube and any other media source  to which they can get access, talking about this cool new product and trying to get others to do the same.   During this stage, while their sales increases hit double or triple percentages, their expenses far exceed their revenues.  In short, they are losing money on the product until they hit the breakeven point, at which their revenues cover their expenses. 

Now, they move into the growth stage of the product life cycle.  During this stage their promotional efforts slack off as others have, hopefully, picked up on the buzz their original efforts generated for their products.  This means less expenditure on promotion, allowing they to divert more of the gross profits to cover fixed costs.  If they allocated revenues well, they start making a net profit during this stage.  As their product gets wider notice in the market though, sales start to slacken from the triple or high double digit growth they posted after the launch.  They should still see growth in the low double digits though.

The characteristic of the growth stage that makes me think the deckbuilding category is exiting the growth stage and entering the maturity stage of the PLC is that, towards the end of the growth stage, competition products start to enter the market.  Competitors see how well this product has done satisfying consumers and want a piece of the action, so they enter the market with similar products, planning to capture a share.  Currently, I count a minimum of ten deckbuilding games on the market, with more on the way.  Nothing says more clearly that the market for deckbuilding games has matured than the number of companies announcing their entry into the market.

What happens during this stage?  Profits for early entrants into the market continue to increase as their expenses likewise continue to drop.  However, sales increases drop to single digits and start to decline towards the end of the cycle, as the product moves from maturity to decline.  One sure sign that the market has moved from maturity to the decline stage of the PLC is competitors pulling the plug on their products and announced product launches never making it to market. 

During the decline stage, sales drop, either slightly or precipitously and they must decide whethe

Games Workshop Releasing Feb 1

Warcry: Spire Tyrants (111-26)   Contains 9 brand-new multi-part plastic Citadel Miniatures 9 Spire Tyrant Fighters Cards, 8 Language specific Spire Tyrants Ability Cards and 2 Wound Divider Cards A brand-new Chaos Warband for Warcry   (111-26) US $50/ CAN $60 For sale in your shop on Saturday 02-01-20

Warcry: Souldrain Forest (111-33)   Multi-part plastic kit. Contains 7 Frames of scenery (makes 2 Awakened Wyldwoods and 1 Timeworn Ruins) 16 pieces in total Includes 36 unique terrain cards, 24 of which use terrain exclusively from this set (111-33) US $100/ CAN $120 For sale in your shop on Saturday 02-01-20 *

Warcry: Ogroid Myrmidon (111-25)   Contains 1 multi-part plastic Citadel Miniature A brand-new Chaotic Beast Ally available to any Chaos aligned warband Includes a choice of two head variants, two left hands and two right hands (111-25) US $40/ CAN $50 For sale in your shop on Saturday 02-01-20

Warcry: Gloomspite Gitz (111-28)   Added value box-set (29%), containing 12 previously available Fighter cards, tokens and all the rules you need 13 existing multi-part plastic Citadel Miniatures Includes green tinted tokens and new Warcry rules for the Sneaky Snuffler exclusive to this set (111-28) US $50/ CAN $60 For sale in your shop on Saturday 02-01-20

Warcry: Stormcast Eternals (111-34)   Added value box-set (27%), containing 8 previously available Fighter cards, tokens and all the rules you need 11 existing multi-part plastic Citadel Miniatures Includes blue tinted tokens exclusive to this set (111-34) US $50/ CAN $60 For sale in your shop on Saturday 02-01-20 *

Warcry: Nighthaunt (111-35)   Added value box-set (11%), containing 7 previously available Fighter cards, tokens and all the rules you need 13 existing multi-part plastic Citadel Miniatures Includes purple tinted tokens and new Warcry rules for the Myrmourn Banshee exclusive to this set

Herbie

Arguably the greatest hero in comics ever, I am not talking about the Fantastic Four's HERBIE or even Herbie the Love Bug, but rather Herbie Popnecker, the "fat little nothing", according to his father but Alan Moore's (yes, that Alan Moore) favorite superhero. Some critics have speculated that Moore based the speech pattern of Rorschach in Watchmen on Herbie's speech. Herbie premiered in 1957 and continued in various titles until 1967.

Herbie took the traditional superhero strip and turned it on its head. Instead of a muscular physique, he was rotund and  short of speech, able to fly by "walking", gained powers by licking lollypops, could talk to animals and known to every world leader. Quite absurdist for the era and well worth a read if you can find them.