(TFT) Getting into Stores

["Kirk Woller" <kwoller@satx.rr.com>]

I had forgotten to address this tidy little item.

My work for DCG on how to get into stores took in the weird world of catalog
sales.  And finding the right people to call starting completely ignorant
about retail and have them give a care was no easy task, believe me.  And by
this I mean that all of the hobby and gaming stores fundamentally get their
games from catalogs.  So you have to get your game listed in a proper game
catalog, of which there are about three major ones (forgot the names).  And
they base this primarily on how popular the game is.  Uhhh, reminds me of
looking for my first engineering job, need experience to get the job, need a
job to get experience.  Hmmm.  I think, though I remember handing off all I
found to George, if memory serves, that we did manage to get in at least one
catalog, at least for a time.  

I also went to the local neighborhood game store (yes, I have returned like
a fish to where I was spawned) where I grew up in San Antonio and had bought
the last copy they had of the 1st edition Melee the summer of my freshman
year before I entered college and boldly asked to talk to the owner.  I got
the weird eye from the clerk, like "oh no another nut with some crazy thing
he wants us to sell in our store, like solar powered flashlights" but the
manager heard me out.  Turns out he played TFT when he was growing up and
instantly asked how much his cost per game would be and our suggested
retail.  We sold our first batch completely through him, and he called me on
his own to order more.  Sales may have dropped off and he didn't call again
(I promised him that I wouldn't call him like a regular sales guy so he was
safe from harassment, I think he liked that).  And sales through stores, as
George will attest to, basically lose money for each copy sold.  Selling on
the internet produces more reasonable margins, but of course if you don't
see the game in the store (and the space is precious, I talked to a least a
dozen store managers in both Austin and SA and he is the only one that
picked us up for a time) most people don't know to buy it.  And the shelves
are just covered with various FRPs including GURPS and AD&D.

But I do know that Steve basically put his games together with his
girlfriend (Monica, I think, at least at the time) in his garage in South
Austin and peddled them from store to store (ah, the 80s, things were so
much simpler then).

-Kirk
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