Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[GranFalloon]

That old idiom sounds weird when flipped around.

There are a bunch of ways for us to get our books these days, and I like to see my dollar well spent. Particularly, I like to see the creators of these fine books be as well compensated as possible. Obviously, if I see a good deal, I'll go for it. All other things being equal though, how do you guys like to see your books getting picked up?

If it makes a difference, my local game store doesn't really stock RPGs. They can order books, but really only have space for comic books and Magic: The Gathering. So by buying through them I'm helping some decent folk stay in business, but it's not really fostering a local RPG community.

[The Dread Polack]

I was briefly in the sales department at FFG, and I can say that we got the most money when people bough products directly from us. This is pretty obvious to some of you, since you know that the distributors and retailers aren't taking their cut.

However, that's not necessarily how we wanted it to go.

* Although it's becoming less true, most people heard about our product at their FLGS, and having copies in the store meant people got to look at them, and were more likely to buy.

* The publisher -> distributor -> retailer infrastructure is well established and fairly efficient.

* Cutting out the distributors and retailers meant they lost revenue, and we didn't want to hurt that infrastructure. It worked for us as well as them.

* If everyone started ordering directly from us, our warehouse would be overwhelmed.

So, when people called and asked how they could get our products (usually from a small, remote US town or overseas), we would first tell them to contact their closest retailer, and give them the number to the distributor who covered that area. If that didn't work, we'd point them to an online retailer. Lastly, we'd tell them to order directly from our web site.

I remember some of the big online retailers, like amazon, or even some smaller game-centric stores were being supplied directly from publishers, but selling their products at discounted prices. The distributors were annoyed by this, since they were cut out of this, and they were losing business from retailers who wanted to buy directly from publishers as well. This was 7 years ago, and I'm not sure how things have changed, but I know you can still find way better prices online than you can often find at your FLGS.

[jpk]

After double-checking with our illustrious leader, our official preferences (which we hope you will share) are:

1. Buy printed materials from your FLGS
2. Order printed materials from the Studio 2 Publishing web site*
3. Download digital material from the Pinnacle digital store**
4. Download digital material from the Studio 2 Publishing web site
5. Download digital material from RPGNow or DriveThruRPG
6. Get your mitts on our stuff however else you (legally) can

*Yes, we really like printed materials. How can you not?
**You're right, this option hasn't existed for years. You can expect to hear more about it as it continues its long, slow crawl back from the grave. Even if they're digital, we love our undead!
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Joel Kinstle
Pinnacle Entertainment, www.peginc.com

[Sherman]

I appreciate the nod to retailers, but when you're offering materials before my distributors even have them in their system (PDF counts...), it's hard for me to create much of a buzz or excitement for an item. I have to say I'm personally excited to see what's in Last Sons, but I can't really relate that excitement to my customers since the product is already available, just not through me...

Thank you for not being Paizo and trying to create a subscription system to completely cut retailers and distributors out of the loop. Mayfair is my favorite company for their business practices, and Paizo is by far my least favorite...
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Gryphon Games & Comics
2020 S College Ave, Suite B
Fort Collins CO 80525
www.gryphongamesandcomics.com

[Timon]

[jpk]

[jpk]

[kronovan]

[Timon]

Well the chestnut guy offers free puppies with every game system you buy...so it is kind of a no-brainer. It is so hard to find a cheap source of fresh puppy-meat otherwise.
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Biting! It's like kissing but there's a winner!
The Doctor's Wife

[Snate56]