Saving Money in this Hobby

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I think the ultimate solution is something involving print on demand. Either a machine at the store, or a machine at the company/distributors that allows them to handle small volumes profitably. This wouldn't be for first run release but as a way to handle back catalogs.
*Thinking about retail ink prices* :sick: /angina ensues
Most likely for distros and likely in black & white laser jet.
 
One other point on economizing in general. It has been my experience that a person who isn't willing to spend $100 on a game isn't willing to spend $5. The guys who do illegal downloading, photocopying, and even hand copying of the books will never spend a dime.
That is distinctly not my experience. And I used to know a lot of those...these days a lot of them have stacks and stacks of books, and even more legal PDFs.
Granted, some remained unrepentant, but that's not even the majority of them:shade:.
 
Sorry if I sound sarcastic but I being serious when I say what we are facing is the same thing as when the Monks of St Albans and their scriptorium went up against Guttenberg and his printing press.

I would say there have been far more tech changes impacting the RPG hobby 2000-2022, than in the prior 25 years 1975-2000.

The internet was in full swing by 2000 and resulted in a huge increase in the ability for people to discover new games, purchase online, find players and share information. This was a huge boon to remote gamers, and a major upheaval for brick & mortar game stores. If they didn't offer service it became easy for customers to bypass them. I can remember trying to order games from my local shop in the early 2000s, and getting the run around. I'd just go home and order online.

Now we can add on demand printing and 3D printers which is making it easier for creators to get their stuff out there. Traditional publishers and brick & mortar game stores have to be nimble and responsive to new trends. It is a great time to be a creator or customer, and I imagine an exciting and occasionally trying time to be on the distribution or publishing side.
 
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Okay, as a Canadian retailer I can honestly say with some authority that that is because our distributors suck.

Okay, as a Canadian retailer I can honestly say with some authority that that is because our distributors suck.
Is that how it works? Retailers generally go through distributors rather than buying straight from the manufacturer/creators (like Mongoose)?
What's the reason for this? Distributors can buy and resell at bulk discounts to retailers?
 
Distributors by CASES not books*. There's always some weird back and forth. Games Workshop handles their own distribution but frankly I don't see how else they could do it. Trying to get that figure you want from a retailer going through a distributor was always next to impossible. Their model is pretty much dependant on making the whole range available. I've heard Wizards of the Coast and TSR also did this.

The real barrier is that there is usually an order level a retailer needs to make to get a discount. Shipping fees can also be prohibitive for small orders if the producer is in another country. There's also the accounting nightmare of trying to deal handle a dozen supplier accounts instead of one.

*there's some stuff SJG has in their warehouse that you can't get from their store, I'm not sure whether that's not wanting to break open a case or some aspect of their POD contract with Amazon. I just know that at the height of my ranting during the Dungeon Fantasy Companion kickstarter campaign Phil Reed posted or messaged me a list of what's in their warehous case wise and there were things there I'd love to bring in a copy of but wouldn't want to gamble on half a dozen. I'd have to dig around on therpgsite to find it and then if It was a PM I'd have to ask permission to post it.
 
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*Thinking about retail ink prices* :sick: /angina ensues
Most likely for distros and likely in black & white laser jet.
This is one of the things I cite as an obstacle for retailers becoming print on demand sites. If you can't get a discount on the paper, toner, binding sleeves and pdfs there's zero profit in it. Of course, that obscure supplement on lacy wrist cuffs for GURPS Scarlet Pimpernel third edition that's been sitting on your shelf for a decade isn't just zero profit, it's a sunk cost. The big advantage for retailers would be product access and fighting stock creep. Oh, you'd still get stock creep like the time you printed half a dozen copies of GURPS Lacy Accountrementsfor GURPS fourth edition because you were sure you could sell them.
 

Saving Money in this Hobby


Whenever I worked in an office I considered the use of my employer's laser printer part of the benefits package.

In one of my old jobs I came into the office for some reason afterhours and found a former co-worker in there printing a bunch of shit off. He had kept his key but hadn't worked there for 2 years! I was taken aback by the balls it took. Implemented a proper FOB and key tracking system soon after.
 
More on topic, lately I've been saving in this hobby by not buying much. If it continues like this, I'd fit in the "under 100 dollars spent" at the end-of-the-year survey:shock:!

But in my defense, to me the amount of money I spend is proportional to the amount of play I do. Given my amount of play in the last months is about zero, it's actually a surprise I even spent anything:shade:.

OTOH, I'm still reading RPG books I've purchased and didn't manage to read. My backlog is huge, so I don't really need to purchase anything:grin:!
And, of course, with POD I can purchase them when I plan to play them. I love POD:heart:!

OTOH, I might get a couple books I've been eyeing for a while and see if it would lead to more gaming...:tongue:
 
In one of my old jobs I came into the office for some reason afterhours and found a former co-worker in there printing a bunch of shit off. He had kept his key but hadn't worked there for 2 years! I was taken aback by the balls it took. Implemented a proper FOB and key tracking system soon after.
Wow! Risking legal or even criminal charges to avoid spending 8 bucks at Kinko's is nuts! What happened to the guy?
 
There's also something weird about Canada shipping in general. Even from comics or Etsy-esque crafts, shipping across that border is crazier than expected and just as prone to /shrug "guess it didn't make it?" Do we need RPG rat lines to Canada or something? Like make a Costco & Half Price Books run and then be Santa Claus all up there until we hit Whitehorse?

How are you guys not smothered yet in the overflow of our mass quanities? We buried a veritable mountain of ET Atari cartridges already and you have more unpopulated space than us. :grin: Did you want a few more discounted pop culture mountains? We might sprinkle in some nice gamer stuff to sift through!
 
Ah, the glory days of having unmonitored access to a proper full color printer... tbf my sneaky printouts were nothing compared to the mundanes printing out their holiday photos.

I had the responsibility of testing a printshop-grade printer for work about 20 years ago. Serious quality stuff, the kind of thing you run a couple of dozen tests on to ensure Pantone colour matches and a ton of other settings before you print 5000 copies.

Way over-specced for the 5-10 copies we were making for our reports, but I still have many of those "tests"...
 
There's also something weird about Canada shipping in general. Even from comics or Etsy-esque crafts, shipping across that border is crazier than expected and just as prone to /shrug "guess it didn't make it?" Do we need RPG rat lines to Canada or something? Like make a Costco & Half Price Books run and then be Santa Claus all up there until we hit Whitehorse?!
Yeah I ordered some books from Exalted Funeral last week, paid for customs/duties 4 days ago and then the books vanished.

So stupid of me. What was I thinking?! I mean, Exalted Funeral explicitly says: “Canadians: order at your own risk, if your stuff vanishes go fuck yourselves :smile:”. Shame on me.
 
Yeah I ordered some books from Exalted Funeral last week, paid for customs/duties 4 days ago and then the books vanished.

So stupid of me. What was I thinking?! I mean, Exalted Funeral explicitly says: “Canadians: order at your own risk, if your stuff vanishes go fuck yourselves :smile:”. Shame on me.

What the hell is going on with Canada?!? I've been seeing comments about shipping there the last 2-3 years when I never used to before.
 
Yeah I ordered some books from Exalted Funeral last week, paid for customs/duties 4 days ago and then the books vanished.

So stupid of me. What was I thinking?! I mean, Exalted Funeral explicitly says: “Canadians: order at your own risk, if your stuff vanishes go fuck yourselves :smile:”. Shame on me.
I am so sorry to hear that. If I were in your shoes I'd be really upset. Why is shipping to Canada so difficult? Is this a rural thing or does it happen in cities too? Do you guys have access to alternative premium shipping like UPS, DHL and Fedex or are they prohibitively expensive? Does this effect commerce and trade?

I realize my questions might seem strange but staying on top of time-sensitive, nationwide shipping is part of my job so I find this sort of thing interesting.
 
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I am so sorry to hear that. If I were in your shoes I'd be really upset. Why is shipping to Canada so difficult? Is this a rural thing or does it happen in cities too? Do you guys have access to alternative premium shipping like UPS, DHL and Fedex or are they prohibitively expensive? Does this effect commerce and trade?

I realize my questions might seem strange but staying on top of time-sensitive, nationwide shipping is part of my job so I find this sort of thing interesting.
I live in a major city (Ottawa, the capital), driving distance to Toronto and Montreal. Not an isolated place. And it’s DHL, but it’s not their fault: its the border stuff. Canada is the WORST.
 
Yeah I ordered some books from Exalted Funeral last week, paid for customs/duties 4 days ago and then the books vanished.

So stupid of me. What was I thinking?! I mean, Exalted Funeral explicitly says: “Canadians: order at your own risk, if your stuff vanishes go fuck yourselves :smile:”. Shame on me.
If you can show me where on their site they say this I will immediately place an order. I feel like this level of honesty needs to be rewarded.
 

Customs is seizing some material under obscenity laws in Canada. I reckon it's likely that the customs officials are kinda fucking incompetent.

Holy fucking fuck!!!

One important note is that the border agents aren't necessarily going to limit their search to your books; they can also search anything you may have on electronic devices like computers, cameras, DVDs, flash drives, cell phones, or any digital storage devices. The CBLDF notes that "such searches may be conducted at random, with or without reasonable suspicion, and are becoming increasingly common."

Fuck a giant pile of ever stepping into that dystopian hellhole country!
 
If you can show me where on their site they say this I will immediately place an order. I feel like this level of honesty needs to be rewarded.

It's not specific to Canada.

INTERNATIONAL ORDERS:

Please note that ALL SALES ARE FINAL. Shipments are sent via DHL. Shipping does not include customs fees, which are subject to each countries' tax requirement. We want you to buy with confidence but please understand that once the items leave the USA we will not be responsible for lost or damaged items unless you contact us to get additional insurance if available.

Is there anything via DHL tracking to indicate if your order was seized by Customs? It's so crazy, I'd just assumed that the shipping issues to Canada were the result of Covid somehow. RPGs getting seized by Customs due to being considered obscene never occurred to me.
 
Canadian customs and Canada post have been notoriously bad for at least a decade at least on plastic modeling sites. It became a running joke among Canadian members that Canada Post blows dead bears.

Canadians would report getting kits in which not only the packages were opened, but the individual kits opened and roughly sorted through often resulting in damage. There were also claims of under reporting value despite retail prices being readily available online.

My Dad bought a built ship model from Canada. It was obvious that the model had been carefully packed, and then opened by customs. Instead of carefully replacing it in the packaging and padding, it was just carelessly shoved back into the box where it then bashed itself into oblivion on the rest of its journey.

Not surprised to hear it is even extending to books now.

Hearing from those in other countries I am repeatedly made to appreciate the US Postal Service, relatively cheap and reliable. It was even better before the political sabotage took effect.
 
Hmm, the article mentioned that using USPS helps prevent tampering back in 2011. Does that still work as such? Have you guys tried a buddy system? American buys your jeet and USPS mules it, er, I mean, buys your goodies and USPS ships it on over. Then all you have to do is have a meet up at a border Timmy's and settle accounts in loonies & maple syrup! :grin:
 
It truly is remarkable that you can order stuff directly from China or overseas in Europe and have less trouble (and less time) than USA to Canada. The Canadian border REAAAALLYY hates the USA.
 
It truly is remarkable that you can order stuff directly from China or overseas in Europe and have less trouble (and less time) than USA to Canada. The Canadian border REAAAALLYY hates the USA.
That's not very ecologically friendly. :cry: :wink: Probably one too many jokes about politeness and poutine got under the skin.

edit: :grin: There should totally be a Dukes of Hazzard remake about the Canadian border and pop culture media black market! I'd so watch that!
 
Back in the day a guy's Illuminati New World Order deck was seized as hate speech.
I rememeber when the UK obscenity squad got confused and seized a window display that had Jarvis Cocker in it.

I believe the NME ran the story with the headline "Ban this penis named fiend now!"
 
There is that Border Security show, it's not fiction or at least it's not supposed to be fiction it's pretty well shot for found footage you know?

As for openned packages, every single Flames of War Open Fire set I ever brought in had been openned.
 
I'm hearing there is an opportunity in becoming a game mule smuggling stuff across the Canadian border. Perhaps by boat. I could use this kind of justification to get a boat. Sadly for Canadians it also might be profitable for me.
 
It truly is remarkable that you can order stuff directly from China or overseas in Europe and have less trouble (and less time) than USA to Canada. The Canadian border REAAAALLYY hates the USA.

In many cases you can ship stuff from the U.S. to overseas destinations cheaper than you can ship it to Canada. In fact, Canada is one of the most expensive places to ship things to.
 
It truly is remarkable that you can order stuff directly from China or overseas in Europe and have less trouble (and less time) than USA to Canada. The Canadian border REAAAALLYY hates the USA.

mad-men-i-dont-think-about-you-at-all.gif
 
It truly is remarkable that you can order stuff directly from China or overseas in Europe and have less trouble (and less time) than USA to Canada. The Canadian border REAAAALLYY hates the USA.

I'm not sure what was the cause but I recall years ago when I worked in music writing and magazine publishing the US labels said that due to changes in the postal system they'd have to cut way back on mailing CDs to magazines and writers because it was now too expensive. Obviously once digital distro arrived big time that became a non-issue.

Most of my mail orders are obscure films on blu (and DVD in the past). I used to get a few packages opened by customs but it hasn't happened in a long time. Nothing was ever held back but considering the garish titles and covers of 70s exploitation I'm a bit suprised it has never happened.
 
I think some of it is the US postal service hasn't been profitable and has enemies in Congress. Where can you raise rates to that constituents won't complain about? Canada. The 51st state doesn't get any votes in Congress and there more polite about it than Puerto Rico.
 
I think the problem is on this side of the border, Canada Post is pretty bad.

Anyhow, back to cheap gaming. One common complaint is the cost of gaming stuff outside the cost of gaming stuff outside the US. One thing I've wondered about is localized production. Back in the day Ralpartha produced some Citadel miniatures for the American market and RAFM produced both in Canada. In a time of greater and greater shipping costs and restrictions I can't help but wonder if some similar system would work now. Suppose you had a printer in Canada instead of a distributor and that printer shipped to Canadian stores.
 
We should start a charity, Joueurs Sans Frontièrs! :grin: "For as little as a cup of coffee a day you can change the life of a middle aged gamer stuck with a big shipping bill yet nothing to show for their confiscated bits of entertainment ..." /pic of sad, bearded man in threadbare business suit with a fly walking on their face

:hehe: It's a way to raise money, get a tax write-off, and buy more games! It does everything this topic could ask for!
 
hmmm...where's the line between cheap gaming and making money on gaming I wonder. I do know a store owner who views it as a tax write off. I don't know how he does it. When I've asked accountants they say you have to have a "reasonable expectation of profit" to claim a loss as a write off. That hurt the first couple times :grin:

Anyhow, the only way to make cheap profitable is volume. How do you get the volume to be cheap?

I did have the notion of a really high value miniatures package with 4 - 6 armies set up on a single sprue. So say you have, medieval humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, and undead on each sprue. Depending on the budget, you would have maybe 3 poses much like the old Fantasy Warriors range though I'd probably try to make head and weapon swaps more viable so you could get some variety in units. Ideally you'd have some mounts but some of the armies could use the same mount so you'd have maybe a horse, an ostrich lizard, and a wolf on there. I know, at this point you're probably looking at 2-3 sprues. For the single sprue you could do two armies and one shared mount with one of the poses being easy to use for a rider. The thing is you get 20 sprues in the box, enough to do armies for all your group. A higher budget approach would be one sprue per army. But the idea is the "Battle Brick" every thing you need to play fantasy battles. At the top end you could throw in a sprue of monsters with a dragon, an ogre, and maybe a chimera or manticore. Then you could do a fantasy rpg starter with maybe 1 of each sprue. Ah well, I ramble but the rules should be under 12 pages and use d6s.

I had a plan for a one sprue Mutant Chronicles set. Basic heavy body armour in four poses with a set of shoulder pads, helmets, and rifles for each corporation. Ideally you could get a zombie head and a Kracatch on there as well so it would be useful for the Dark Legion. If you had a second sprue it would be for the Dark Legion, Necromutants, a Razide, a generic zombie body that you could throw corporation parts on with one set of legion bits, and a Nepharite, maybe even some armour plates and a templar of Illian head to convert the necromutants if so desired. I've suggested it to the latest license holders time and again because it keeps the amount of tooling down while doing something for everyone but Brotherhood fanatics.

I guess the real questions are, "are there enough cheap gamers to create a viable market for cheaper games? Would people go back to black and white books to save a buck? What about staple bound newsprint? Would retailers carry a magazine that presented an indie game each issue in an affordable format?"
 
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