The Apathy of New Releases

Now, just a few days ago, I plotted out my gaming and purchasing goals for 2011. I'm truly focusing on one big game with a few simple side projects to keep the non-minis players satisfied.

But that wasn't always the case. With years of retail experience under my belt, deep discounts, and a cushy arrangement at the ancestral manse for a long time, I expanded my gaming interest and expertise to the four corners. Heck, I remember my first Wargames West catalog back in high school, highlighter in hand, making a wish list that focused on variety rather than focusing on one line. D&D, T&T, GURPS, Battletech, Teenagers from Outer Space, Floating Vagabond, Rus, I wanted everything.

In a store, most employees and good (re: wealthy) customers wanted the monthly copy of Previews, Diamond's monthly order book of new releases for comics, magazines, collectibles, etc. I always psyched myself for the manila envelopes from the game distributors with the new releases for rpgs, minis, and ccgs. A good afternoon would be to get a half hour for lunch and construct my wish list, my practical order, and what I would order if I had my own store and carte blanche for ordering. In the last year of Griffon Games I finally had the freedom to make the varied orders (and not all for me), and it proved successful. Seriously store owners, you have to spend money to make money, and you can only rely of 40k, WotC, or other big sellers to cover monthly expenses. You have to do something or else even your slick storefront turns in The Cove... or The Encounter.

Anyway, I downloaded a pdf copy of Alliance's Game Trade Monthy (GTM) for October, covering new releasea for November and December. I did my three-tiered ordering, and not only was I depressed about the lack of items that interested me, it cemented the continuous belief that unless one has a store in their mother's basement, a store selling solely gaming products from only Alliance would be diasterous.

My wishlist:

• Shadows Over Scotland: a third-party Cthulhu book that's $40, and I don't know the page count or if it's hardcover.
• Halloween and Thanksgiving Mouselings from the Reaper range.
• Pathfinder: Kingdoms of Legend worldbook. Alternate history 15-century Earth with the fantasy races. A nice read probably, but I run more of a 10th Century Earth with the same set-up.
• A Warlord Games plastic army box set or two from different eras (Pike and Shot Scots and WW2 Germans specifically)

My practical order:
The mouselings






The "Store order" didn't seem impressive. Another set of L5r CCG, 3rd party Pathfinder (and questionably priced at that), a new All Flesh Must Be Eaten book, a pile of Warhammer Fantasy and 40k rpg books, a Smallville supplement, a neat space minis game called Firestorm Armada, A&A naval minis, and a D&D book (which was a rehash of old Gamma World stuff). Throw in a slew of zombie gimmick books and board games, and you definitely need two or three other revenue sources to keep the lights on.

So twenty pages of new product, and I'm interested in two packs of cute mice minis? I am definitely not the game industry's target demographic, nor could I go into Comic/Game retail without a sharp learning curve and more investment money allocated to failed sales and covering first year expenses.

The GTM for October: http://www.gametrademagazine.com/downloads/GTM128Games.pdf

Prove me wrong...