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Whill
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Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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 Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 4:55 pm Post subject: Half-Price Update |
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Between last night and today, I visited the the 4 HPBs I ever go to for the 20% off everything in the store sale this weekend. I didn't buy any RPG stuff.
The $50.00 copy of R&E with the price sticker dated 2/18/15 at the Lane Ave HPB is still there. I didn't see any other WEG SW, but they did have an FFG EotE Beta book and a few WotC paperbacks. I hit all my other sections and didn't find anything to by there. I didn't buy or find anything at Bethel.
High St had no WEG SW but it had a good condition copy of The D6 System for a good price. I did buy a cheap copy the reprint of the original SW comic book adaptation compilation there.
State St had a good condition copy of Adventure Journal #3 for a good price. I was very pleased to buy a new condition hardback copy of The Star Wars comic series compilation (based on the rough draft for the original film) for only 50% of Amazon's already discounted price. A great deal. I also bought a little Ewok comic book compilation book for my son for dirt cheap, and a book on Buddhism.
Maybe garhkal can check out the Brice Rd HPB because I never go there (literally the opposite side of town from me).
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shootingwomprats
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Joined: 11 Sep 2013
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 11:19 pm Post subject: |
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HFB are a buncha f&*king turds. They offer literally pennies for the majority of their books, even the ones that have value. Then they have some minimum wage moron scour ebay for a price. They pick the highest price, regardless of condition and toss it out on the shelf. When I pointed this out once to a manager she looked at me like I was an idiot. When I further explained what someone is willing to pay is regional and that you should take that into consideration UNLESS your selling on eBay at the same time, which you are not. Again a blank look. Screw them people. Seriously.
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cynanbloodbane
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Joined: 05 Dec 2014
Posts: 410
Location: Cleveland, Go Tribe!
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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| shootingwomprats wrote: | | HFB are a buncha f&*king turds. They offer literally pennies for the majority of their books, even the ones that have value. Then they have some minimum wage moron scour ebay for a price. They pick the highest price, regardless of condition and toss it out on the shelf. When I pointed this out once to a manager she looked at me like I was an idiot. When I further explained what someone is willing to pay is regional and that you should take that into consideration UNLESS your selling on eBay at the same time, which you are not. Again a blank look. Screw them people. Seriously. |
Don't hold it in. Just tell us how you really feel!
Seriously though, I understand. If I didn't find so many gems over the years I wouldn't go back either. For now I limit myself to once or twice a year.
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jawa1138
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Joined: 09 May 2014
Posts: 96
Location: Norwalk, Ohio
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2015 3:52 pm Post subject: |
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| shootingwomprats wrote: | | HFB are a buncha f&*king turds. They offer literally pennies for the majority of their books, even the ones that have value. Then they have some minimum wage moron scour ebay for a price. They pick the highest price, regardless of condition and toss it out on the shelf. When I pointed this out once to a manager she looked at me like I was an idiot. When I further explained what someone is willing to pay is regional and that you should take that into consideration UNLESS your selling on eBay at the same time, which you are not. Again a blank look. Screw them people. Seriously. |
I agree that they have the worst pricing strategy ever, but I go there every chance I get and still manage to find some good deals. To be honest local game stores are not selling the out of print game books like they used too, and Half Price pretty much buys and sell anything. Of course I could find what I want on ebay, but I love the thrill of hanging out with my family searching for those random and unexpected finds.
I suggest a person be armed with the knowledge of what a book is worth or at least worth to them before they go to Half Price, but I never want to persuade somebody to stop shopping where they like. In defense of shopping for games in real stores, there are many games I would never have discovered if they hadn't been sitting on a shelf near the books I was shopping for. |
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Barrataria
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Joined: 28 Dec 2005
Posts: 295
Location: Republic of California
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| Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | I think maybe someone at Half-Price might have looked online and realized half-price was way under market so jacked it up to $50. If demand isn't lower, maybe it is higher due to the new trilogy coming out that is sequel to the trilogy the WEG game is based on? Maybe they even have a general policy pricing all Star Wars stuff higher due to a perceived or actual higher demand? |
I think it's a general, recent approach at Half Price, at least the one in Berkeley I frequent. Most of the RPG stuff on the shelf is now priced around Amazon/ebay prices, except the "new" things they obviously bought in big closeout lots that they price low ($5.99 or such, usually with multiple copies). I will say that this has had a beneficial side effect: I have been able to sell them things for more than I could have gotten from Noble Knight or other supposed RPG used "dealers".
As to the rest, there seems to be a decent market for tabletop games, and I imagine bigger yet in the midwest, but good luck to those starting retail locations. I imagine there are ways to make it work but absent some innovative crossover it's hard to see a lucrative future in selling RPGs.
On a D&D board one poster and model train enthusiast compared RPGs to that hobby. A niche product, with new product available at high cost in online outlets only.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2015 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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I just went to Origins Game Fair (convention), and I walked all the way through the very large vendor hall both Thursday and Friday. I was depressed that for the second year in a row, there were much less RPGs and much more board games. Like last year, out-of-print games were almost entirely absent from the Origins vendor hall. Nothing against board games, but it's depressing that good ol' fashion tabletop pen & paper RPGs are on such a severe decline.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 11:57 pm Post subject: |
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Agreed. Heck i can only remember 2 booths that were selling old rpg books this year, compared to 4 or 5 last.
Though i did like some of those booths selling those wooden dice boxes (and dice towers etc).
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cheshire
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2015 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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Now that does seem to be a growing trend among gamers. When I first started into the gaming arena it seemed like we had a few good board and card games that we would sometimes use to fill the time between sessions if everyone couldn't make it, or we might have broken off the occasional game on an off-night. But it seems like the selection of quality board and card games (quality as in paying solid attention to balanced and interesting mechanics) has grown considerably since then.
The shelf space at the FLGS has more committed to board and card games than it does to rpgs. I was just talking to the owner today, and I really wish I'd asked him about how they did their calculations as to how much space they dedicated to which segment of the hobby.
But, somehow the board game side of the industry seems to be doing quite well. Even some of the more "gamer games" are spilling over into the mainstream market. You can see Catan on nearly everyone's game shelf. Even Target is dedicating shelf space to "gamer games" like King of Tokyo, Dixit, Munchkin, and Forbidden Island.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2015 10:19 pm Post subject: |
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Out of those you mentioned I've only even heard of Catan. The only "gamer games" I own? Star Wars Assault On Hoth and Junta, both by WEG. My Junta is actually the newest 2005 edition that I bought to replace the 1985 edition I had when I was a kid and gave away to fraternity brother in college (he still has it). My current copy of Junta hasn't even been opened yet so it is still in the wrapper, but available on the shelf for whenever I feel inspired to pay it. I'm just not that much of a non-RPG gamer. I only recently got out Dungeon! to play with my 5 year-old son as a stepping stone to RPGs (you roll 2d6 and try to get a difficulty number that varies depending on the character type you are and the monster you are fighting).
I'm not quite to the point of having an irrational hatred of board games, but I can't help but be depressed that their popularity is impacting retail RPG availability to me and replacing roleplaying among gamers at large. The fun of playing roles, and creating stories and ongoing narratives just blows board games away to me. There's just no comparison.
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jawa1138
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2015 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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We do a lot of board games with the kids and our secondary gaming group. RPG's have the problem with rolling over into multiple game sessions. Being adults with kids and jobs our secondary group has little time to play so we tend toward board games. I have never played Catan but we love Munchkin, Boss Monster, Cards Against Humanity, King of Tokyo, Flux, Battle Master, Heroquest and a couple dozen others.
The problem still is that board games tend to take most of the room in gaming stores lately, and there is very little in the way of rgp selection. I actually find it quite amazing due to the prices that many of the out of print games bring on ebay. Although that could be the cause of the problem to begin with, the amount of games being brought and sold to the stores could be diminished by people ebaying thier own stuff. |
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shootingwomprats
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2015 10:56 am Post subject: |
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Well I certainly understand having the books, but if R&E is running at $50 for a copy, why not just order a copy of REUP from Lulu? The same information and more. Hardback with b&w interior ~$32. Softcover with b&w interior ~$15.
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cheshire
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2015 12:10 pm Post subject: |
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| shootingwomprats wrote: | | Well I certainly understand having the books, but if R&E is running at $50 for a copy, why not just order a copy of REUP from Lulu? The same information and more. Hardback with b&w interior ~$32. Softcover with b&w interior ~$15. |
BAH! I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I hate it when dealers decide to look at what each other are LISTING the books for, rather than what they are actually SELLING for. It makes me want to grip them by the shoulders, shake, and scream, "If they're still listed at that price, then they're not selling at that price!"
The range of SOLD copies of the R&E range from $12-$40.
Still, you're right, the Lulu copies of the REUP are a real deal.
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jawa1138
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2015 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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| shootingwomprats wrote: | | Well I certainly understand having the books, but if R&E is running at $50 for a copy, why not just order a copy of REUP from Lulu? The same information and more. Hardback with b&w interior ~$32. Softcover with b&w interior ~$15. |
It's not just R&E, I collect and play many games. I also enjoy finding a real copy of a book that I can open, inspect and sometimes oddly even smell before buying. I am also more likely to pick up a book in an actual store than buy it on ebay, as it might not be high on my priority list but still a fun treasure to find.
BTW, I have a R&E in great shape and still plan to eventually print a REUP. Although a color REUP is around 100 I think which is out of my price range currently. |
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Whill
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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This past Wednesday I was over in the area so went back to the State St. Half-Price. They still had that copy of SW Adventure Journal #3 in great condition for $7. I bought a cheap Attack of the Clones activity book for my son but didn't find anything for myself. Yesterday after a record show on Morse Rd., I was close to comic shop I hadn't been to in years that had an RPG section, so I stopped in. The RPGs were all gone, but they also had no board games. They had cases and cases and cases of Magic the card game. There was also a Magic tournament going on, but I don't think their retail space devotion to one single card game was only temporary. Everything I saw made me believe they had made their choice of what to use their non-comic space for and went all out with it. Hosting tournaments would help sell cards. Finally I went up Karl Rd. to Ravenstone Games, which I also hadn't been to in a couple years, and was very sad to see that they had a Pathfinder section, one D&D rack and a few Shadowrun books. They still had a wall of mini figs, and a section on mini games like FFG Star Wars and Warhammer. They had a couple table of the SW mini game being played. The rest of the little store was devoted to board games. Sad.
| jawa1138 wrote: | | It's not just R&E, I collect and play many games. I also enjoy finding a real copy of a book that I can open, inspect and sometimes oddly even smell before buying. I am also more likely to pick up a book in an actual store than buy it on ebay, as it might not be high on my priority list but still a fun treasure to find. |
I also enjoy going to retail location, being able to flip through a book and better examine the condition before deciding to purchase, and I know for sure that has sold me on something more than turned me away from buying something.
| jawa1138 wrote: | | RPG's have the problem with rolling over into multiple game sessions. Being adults with kids and jobs our secondary group has little time to play so we tend toward board games. |
Having a family myself I can appreciate the inability to devote a lot of free time to roleplaying. As a high school student I didn't spend much time on school work (instead just skating by on my intelligence when I should have been studying), so had a lot of time to roleplaying. For a few months I was GM of three gaming groups, running three separate campaigns simultaneously. In college, where I applied myself much more (plus had new distractions), I still ran one loosely connected campaign with a revolving door of PCs over the course of 4 years. Since then, I've ran several other campaigns but none lasting more than 2 years. A lot of those adventures in all those campaigns took more than one game session.
However I still do not view RPG adventures taking multiple sessions to complete as a "problem" except for gamers with short attention spans. For me, the joy of creating an overall narrative, even when individual episodes of that narrative can sometimes take multiple game session to complete, greatly outweighs any fun had by a bunch of single board game nights. Heck even one-shot adventures that take place over two game nights are still more fund than playing a board game. The multiple gaming session aspect of RPGs is not a deterrent to roleplaying for me in the slightest. Perhaps the trend towards board games is partially driven by the decreasing attention span of gamers in general?
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Whill
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| Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 12:05 am Post subject: Re: Half-Price Update |
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| Whill wrote: | | The $50.00 copy of R&E with the price sticker dated 2/18/15 at the Lane Ave HPB is still there. |
Unless someone hid it somewhere in the store, someone chunked down cash pay for that $50.00 copy of R&E. Sad. I hope to the Force that at least there is a group having a blast playing Star Wars D6.
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