A very disturbing trend has cropped up my contacts with retailers. Don't get me wrong: I have the deepest respect for full-service retailers, and the good ones are worth their weight in gold to the hobby as a whole. Those are the guys who know the industry and the games. The guys who bust their tails in the trenches every day to attract new gamers, who introduce existing gamers to good new games, and steer potential purchasers away from sub-standard products. All of these actions both help their store sales tremendously and the ability of the hobby as a whole to survive in its current manufacturerdistributor-retailer format. And that format is the most effective means we have in reaching large numbers of gamers.

The trend which disturbs me is not practiced by the excellent retailers mentioned above. I'm concerned about the stores which have let themselves become nothing more than catalog outlets. These guys have no stock of wargames on the shelf for the purchaser to peruse and make decisions on. What they have is a catalog, from which they will "special order" the game for you if you buy it from them.

The problems with this method of doing business are many. If you don't already know your wargames, you won't know what is available from whom and what is good or bad (typically, the guy who is only going to go far enough to show you a catalog is unlikely to have an in-depth knowledge of the games). Browsing and comparison shopping are impossible. New game companies have little means to get their games before the purchaser's eyes and therefore have a harder time getting through their early years. New customers will never "happen" upon games-even if they do accidentally walk in the guy's door.

The retailer typically gets more of the purchase price of the game than anyone-and as much as the distributor and manufacturer combined-since he must bear the costs of maintaining a storefront and an inventory. But the same retailer's portion of the game price goes to the guy running a "special order" outlet, even though he has assumed none of the risk of keeping up an inventory, and he gives you shoppers none of the benefits of seeing games on display.

The arguments these retailers give for doing business the way they do are also many. They don't want to tie up money in products that don't sell very well; and the few customers they have who buy games already know what they want, so there is no point in stocking games for them to examine before purchase. That is fine-if that is the way they want to do business. But I think the game player out there needs to know that this kind of retailing actually hurts the hobby. I feel buyers should not support this practice and should support the full-service game stores instead. These "catalog-only" guys are not doing the industry any favors, and your gaming dollar is far too important to waste on supporting their lack of effort.

Another change which is hurting the real retailers out there is the growth of discount houses. These are mail-order firms giving as much as 25% off the retail price. They can afford to do this as they have no store front at all to support, while they get games for the same discount as the guy who does have to pay for a shop and employees to staff it. The real retailer cannot afford to compete with the discount houses (it would ruin his business). The problem is the damage the cost-conscious game buyer does by diverting his hard-earned money from the full-service retailer to the discount place. Again, the discount place can't show games to new purchasers because they work out of a catalog. Meanwhile, the real retailer losses his sales to the discount house and is more likely to give up on carrying games (or become another catalog outlet).

None of these practices is good for the hobby's longterm health. They tend to shut off access to new gamers at the source Oust when the industry finally started to attract some new guys ... ). Consider how many of us have discovered a good game, a new publisher, or wargaming itself by browsing in a hobby shop.

The effects on manufacturers are already becoming obvious--a heavier emphasis on pre-publication offers and deep discounts where manufacturers (GMT has already done this) are attempting to compete with the discount houses directly. These are all short-term solutions which bode ill for the long-term growth of the industry. Heavy pre-ordering and catalog ordering help to reinforce the perception at the retail level that games don't sell, leading to more retailers dropping the lines (or not supporting them properly), and finally to distributors cutting back on their initial orders (as well as some distributors dropping games as an item not worth their effort).

The net result would be the death of the current distribution network which supports our style of game. Perhaps that is what will happen and manufacturers will be forced to become mail-order companies whether they want to or not. The better companies today can survive that transition (not all will), but the long-terrn effects of such a change won't be good at all. As the concerned game-buyer, the choice is yours...