FreeRPG Day Question re: a FLGS

[jreyst]

email from local gaming store wrote:

"Per usual, our supply on FREE RPG Day items is limited and as a store with a strong RPG customer base, we have to put some reasonable limits on what we can give away to insure as many of our customers as possible can get items they are interested in. On FREE RPG Day any Gamer Rewards customer may come and recieve two FREE RPG Day items, absolutely no purchase necessary. You are free to chose your two items, but in order to balance out supply vs demand, items we expect to run out of more quickly have been assigned a token number of Gamer Rewards Points in order to redeem them."

At this particular store you join this "Gamer Rewards" program. Every purchase you make earns you Gamer Rewards points which can be saved and later "spent" to get discounts on purchases.

So...

To get any FreeRPG day stuff:

a) You have to have a Gamer Rewards account to get anything
b) You have to spend Gamer Rewards points to get the more popular stuff

Kosher?

[Jeremy Smith]

The issue I as a publisher have with Free RPG Day is not the concept - I think it's a great concept - but that the B&M stores can't easily hook into the electronic market. Copies for 600 retail locations - possibly multiple copies a location - is an extremely expensive endeavor. Especially since you typically have to put together some type of bound product, which usually means a minimum cost threshold of about $2 per item. That's not factoring in the cost of artwork / writing / etc - that's just printing.

So just to get in the door is typically over a thousand dollars unless you want to go with a cheap product, which just shows customers that you make cheap products.

While I appreciate that it can be written off as "marketing", that's an extremely high cost per person reached.

So based on that, I can see why there's limited supply and high demand, which gives retailers limited solutions on how to handle it. Someone is going to get pissed off, the trick is figuring out a solution that pisses off the fewest people.

[James0235]

jreyst wrote:

Kosher?

Yep, I think so.

I believe stores are free to choose any manner of distributing the material and place any restrictions they desire as long as they don't directly charge for it.

[jreyst]

The thing is that "spending" these virtual points reduces the amount you can later spend on discounts for other purchases, a net effect of in a way actually costing you money. Why not just say "One per customer, bub." instead?

[Terquem]

As Richard Pryor used to say, "The Book is FREE, the Book is Free, the cover is eleven nighty-five."

[carmachu]

meh. I'm not fond of it. Some stores do a great job. Some lord it over folks instead of what its suppose to. Not fond of gamer reward programs. If you were good enough I would show up and buy from you without it.

I usually just buy what I need later on.

[Wingnut]

This is brought up every year about Guild of Blades in Michigan. It is definitely a fine line, but the requirement is that every store give any person that walks in ONE free item (though they can choose what it is). Now, the argument with the owner is that their Gamer Rewards program is free to sign up, thus, I did not find it that big of a deal...especially because there are always a lot of folks that just go out to find stores to grab what they can. The event is meant to reward the customers that have supported the store and/or support the store the day of the event.

In the end, they pretty much follow the rule, but again, we've discussed it with them, and since the store pays money for these kits, I felt in this case their system was justified.

At the same time, you, as a consumer, always have a choice where you shop or visit for FRD.

Hope that helps. If anyone has questions or comments, please email me at [e-mail].

Best,
Aldo Ghiozzi
Owner
Impressions
Organizers of Free RPG Day

jreyst wrote:

email from local gaming store wrote:

"Per usual, our supply on FREE RPG Day items is limited and as a store with a strong RPG customer base, we have to put some reasonable limits on what we can give away to insure as many of our customers as possible can get items they are interested in. On FREE RPG Day any Gamer Rewards customer may come and recieve two FREE RPG Day items, absolutely no purchase necessary. You are free to chose your two items, but in order to balance out supply vs demand, items we expect to run out of more quickly have been assigned a token number of Gamer Rewards Points in order to redeem them."

At this particular store you join this "Gamer Rewards" program. Every purchase you make earns you Gamer Rewards points which can be saved and later "spent" to get discounts on purchases.

So...

To get any FreeRPG day stuff:

a) You have to have a Gamer Rewards account to get anything
b) You have to spend Gamer Rewards points to get the more popular stuff

Kosher?

[jreyst]

Wingnut wrote:

Hope that helps. If anyone has questions or comments, please email me at [e-mail].

Best,
Aldo Ghiozzi
Owner
Impressions
Organizers of Free RPG Day

Thanks Aldo. As it happens I am a member of the program in question, and I have more than enough reward points backed up, but it just seemed... not kosher to me.

Meh.