Free RPG Day Recap
Over at ICv2, Scott Thorne wrote a short summary of how Free RPG Day went down at his store Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois.
Overall, his impressions of how Free RPG Day affected his store are generally positive - he notes that he generated about three times as much store traffic, he tripled his average daily RPG sales, and his sales were up by 1/3 over last year's Free RPG Day sales. That's all great news for a game store retailer.
But, Scott also pointed out that he didn't really get a lot of new players that day for the demo sessions. He mentioned that most of the players who showed up were already members of their D&D Encounters or Pathfinder Society games, and that the kids there to play Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic: The Gathering, completely ignored the Free RPG Day sales rack.
I myself wasn't able to attend Free RPG Day this year because, as I noted, it was my wife's birthday. I was also annoyed that my local game store, Game Empire, didn't participate. I even asked them about it two or three times on their Facebook page, and they ignored me. I'm curious about those of you who did attend. What were your experiences like? What kind of stuff did you choose to pick up?
Overall, his impressions of how Free RPG Day affected his store are generally positive - he notes that he generated about three times as much store traffic, he tripled his average daily RPG sales, and his sales were up by 1/3 over last year's Free RPG Day sales. That's all great news for a game store retailer.
But, Scott also pointed out that he didn't really get a lot of new players that day for the demo sessions. He mentioned that most of the players who showed up were already members of their D&D Encounters or Pathfinder Society games, and that the kids there to play Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic: The Gathering, completely ignored the Free RPG Day sales rack.
I myself wasn't able to attend Free RPG Day this year because, as I noted, it was my wife's birthday. I was also annoyed that my local game store, Game Empire, didn't participate. I even asked them about it two or three times on their Facebook page, and they ignored me. I'm curious about those of you who did attend. What were your experiences like? What kind of stuff did you choose to pick up?
The only game shop between here and London closed earlier in the year, and the local comic shop -- which does sell board games and rpgs -- probably didn't take part. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteHey Martin! You've already read the recap on my blog, but here it is for anyone else who might be interested:
ReplyDeletehttp://unto-the-breach.blogspot.com/2011/06/free-rpg-day-and-other-stuff.html
@Kelvin - not having a local game store sucks. I'm so very lucky that mine is close enough to walk to (unheard of in Los Angeles!) and it's actually pretty decent, aside from the fact that they didn't participate in Free RPG Day.
ReplyDelete@Drance - thanks for sharing your link with my readers. I had obviously already read your post, but now hopefully the rest of my readers can check out your take on Free RPG Day.
Cheers!
My FreeRPGDay was most excellent indeed. I got a couple items and my father-in-law scored me a bunch more from his FLGS! Best part is, I'm gonna do a review of each one and send each booklet off to a different commenter on my blog, packofgnolls.blogspot.com!
ReplyDeleteHey - thanks for stopping by, @Sully, and for the link to your blog. I'm headed over there now.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea on giving away the product to your readers. Very cool!