Powerhouse Posted July 13, 2003 Report Share Posted July 13, 2003 I hope no one minds me asking the question, I was just curious. I haven't seen too much lately in my WOTC store but then again it reorganized to be more general games and cards. On the other hand, there seems to be a number of products that are planned. Personally, I am pulling for the line (I've bought the Hero 5th edition, Champions genre book, Champions Universe, and CKC with plans for others possibly) since it's a great system and the best to simulate super hero comics. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monolith Posted July 13, 2003 Report Share Posted July 13, 2003 DOJ does not release numbers or anything you might consider "firm" in regards to sales but my general understanding is that most of the products have sold fairly well; at least well enough that DOJ can continue to hire new people like Allen. I have heard that the scifi material is not selling as well as the superhero material, but I think that is to be expected due to the disparity of the fanbase and the fact that the HERO System is firmly rooted in the superhero market in most people's minds. I also have a feeling that the Fantasy material will also be a very good product for DOJ (fantasy being the largest and most played genre of them all). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 We don't release hard sales numbers. All I can tell you is, better than some game lines out there, not as well as we'd like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lupus Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 HERO's selling real well down in Australia. That's what I hear from one of the mainwholesalers here, anyway. Apparently, they can get 30 books in and sell out inside of a week - that's a lot better than any other line. I thought for ages that they just weren't stocking books, because I could never find a copy of Champions. Then I found out they /were/ getting in copies, they were just selling out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 The anecdotal evidence indicates that HEROs product is moving well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al_Beddow Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 Hero is doing well in Spokane WA even though D&D reigns supreme. Where HackMaster (formely the local #2 RPG) has slacked off considerably Hero 5th seems to remain steady. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Hiemforth Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 Originally posted by Monolith I have heard that the scifi material is not selling as well as the superhero material, but I think that is to be expected due to the disparity of the fanbase and the fact that the HERO System is firmly rooted in the superhero market in most people's minds. I also have a feeling that the Fantasy material will also be a very good product for DOJ (fantasy being the largest and most played genre of them all). I think the genres other than Supers and Fantasy will gradually attract more players as more and more of the other genres get genre books and support products released for them. In other words, the more the HERO System products look like a fully-fleshed out universal game system line, the more people will see the HERO System that way, and the better the other genre's products will sell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 Actually the last 3 new converts to the HERO System Ive talked to or corresponded with got involved with the system because of Star HERO. They glanced thru StarHERO in a store, went bug eyed, and bought into the game. The only complaint Ive heard from them was that to play StarHERO they also needed to buy FRED, which is funny to me in an ironic back-asswards sort of way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 Originally posted by Steve Long We don't release hard sales numbers. All I can tell you is, better than some game lines out there, not as well as we'd like. I expect you to say no comment to this (or just ignore it) How are you doing according to your plan? What I mean is are sales what you expected, less than expected, more than expected? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monolith Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 Originally posted by Derek Hiemforth I think the genres other than Supers and Fantasy will gradually attract more players as more and more of the other genres get genre books and support products released for them. In other words, the more the HERO System products look like a fully-fleshed out universal game system line, the more people will see the HERO System that way, and the better the other genre's products will sell. I agree completely. For many people, especially newbies, the more support material there is the greater likelihood that people will play the genre. It is always easier to scale something in a book up or down than it is to create it from scratch. Heck, I have been spending the last month trying to work out the best way to incorporate some of the new Fantasy Hero information into our Terran Empire game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Rotwang! Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 At my store, we sell it somewhat slowly, but my frequent, honest pimping of the game helps it out the door. For a while there, though, I couldn't get it back in. I was worried. But that problem's over. I expect to move more of 'em come Fall, when the students come rolling back into town with their quaint inablility to drive and their charming need to do something when they're not drinking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorpCommander Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 Originally posted by Dr Rotwang! I expect to move more of 'em come Fall, when the students come rolling back into town with their quaint inablility to drive and their charming need to do something when they're not drinking. Interesting. You seem to have the unusual notion that students will only play when they aren't drinking! While I've never played while drinking (actually I don't drink but I used to) I know it can be quite common to have a beverage or two on hand while playing. In my opinion drinking leads to bad die rolling. Don't drink and die. Or something like that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Rotwang! Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 [OT] Dungeons & Drunkards A bit of clarification: Indiana University (IU), here in Bloomington, IN, was recently voted "#1 Party School in the Whole Universe" or somesuch by A Very Important Periodical with a Masthead. Ergo the comment about students and their propensity towards slobbering, vomitous drunkenness, thing which I abhor in much the same way that bunnies hate lawnmowers. Or vice-versa. Bunnies, I like. Gooooooood buniiiiiiiies... POST OVER! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 How are you doing according to your plan? What I mean is are sales what you expected, less than expected, more than expected? I'll give you the answer you expect: No Comment. At my store, we sell it somewhat slowly, but my frequent, honest pimping of the game helps it out the door. In my experience, this is true with just about any game. A retailer who knows and genuinely likes a game can convey his enthusiasm to customers and convince them to buy it. My local game store did bang-up business in Deadlands products for a while a few years ago because one of the employees as a big DL fan and pushed the game. So, it's good to know at least one retailer out there is on our side! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkusDark Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 my hardest problem is trying to make the owner of my FLGS understand WHAT products to buy. He purchased just two copies of FReD without any of the cool support materials. I FINALLY got him to purchase CKC and USPD which, I feel, really helps to sell the game - seeing the examples and such things. He's absorbed into the Clix market at the moment so I have to use a soft baseball bat to get things across. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightshade Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 My brother owns a gaming store and he has stated that HERO was actually outselling d20 for a while. Of course, he and his business partner pretty much only play HERO, so that may have had something to do with it... Nightshade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ndreare Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 Game stor owners can also destroy a market. Here in Burlington the owner of the local game stor speeks ill of HERO and only has one HERO book on his shelf the Champions Source book. So I imagine that the sales here will suck. While in Musoula Montana I found a game store owner who liked the game and as such recamended books to people and things like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Hiemforth Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 Originally posted by Ndreare Game stor owners can also destroy a market. Here in Burlington the owner of the local game stor speeks ill of HERO and only has one HERO book on his shelf the Champions Source book. So I imagine that the sales here will suck. While in Musoula Montana I found a game store owner who liked the game and as such recamended books to people and things like that. To be perfectly blunt, this just seems mind-numbingly stupid to me. If I was a game store owner, I'd endeavor to find something worthwhile to say about every book I carried. I'm not saying I'd try to pass off junk as gold or anything, but almost no books are worthless, and I'd try try to emphasize the worth in all of them. Why on earth would a game store owner want to convince people not to buy his merchandise? And yet, this does indeed happen frequently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 It happens because many game store owners, like many comic store owners, aren't businessmen -- they're hobbyists who decided to try to turn their hobby into their job (often with no more real business plan than "I can get all that cool stuff I buy for wholesale prices!"). Not being businessmen, they don't understand how to run a retail business professionally -- for example, they don't grasp that running down a product line, or failing to carry it, simply because you don't like it personally is, generally speaking, a poor business decision. There are many highly professional, very cool game store owner/operators out there who don't do this sort of stupid stuff. Sadly, they're not nearly as common as they ought to be; if they were, I suspect the gaming industry would be in at least a little better shape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkusDark Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 My FLGS is a Gaming Store/Comic Book Store/Gaming Center hybrid. The back third of the store is for the Gaming Center, leaving the front two thirds for the games and comics. He has VERY limited shelf space so he needs to pick what will sell and what won't. Luckily, the game I play in/run is just two blocks from this store so I have managed to talk a couple of my friends into buying from him as well. Hopefully, this will boost more sales and thereby have a nice stock in stock. The trouble with a new store is that they usually will only buy what sells and I had to guarantee them (with a deposit) that I was going to buy Fantasy Hero before they would order it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Neilson Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 Nothing sells like success. If the retailer orders it, and it sits on the shelf, why would he order more of it? Get your friends, your co-gamers, etc. to ask for the product. Then buy it when it comes in. Hero is at a disadvantage here, in my opinion. They produce HUGE books, which is great for you and me because we get lots of material. It's not great for the store owner because it means higher cost, which means a bigger risk if it sits on the shelf. The store I patronize stocks comics and games, and RPG's are not their main line of business. I go on the Hero web site, and give the owner a list of the product I'd like when it comes out. He knows I'll buy it, so he brings it in. And he gives me a pretty fair discount, since he knows whatever he orders on my behalf will be cash in his hand within a week of receipt. I could order it off the website, but that doesn't give my game store much reason to stock the product, does it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 I've done something similar. I just told the owner of the FLGS I frequent, to just order me one of each Hero product that comes out. I made it simple for him that way. Hope Steve doesn't mind me taking the easy way out. Tim S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Seeman Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 Originally posted by Hugh Neilson I could order it off the website, but that doesn't give my game store much reason to stock the product, does it? That's one of the main reasons we wait at least a month after shipping to sell our new books online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kara Zor-El Posted July 14, 2003 Report Share Posted July 14, 2003 How is HERO Selling? Ummmm, retail, I assume. Hah! Like anyone reads my posts since I've gotten the new avatar! lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aylwin13 Posted July 15, 2003 Report Share Posted July 15, 2003 Re: How is HERO Selling? Originally posted by Kara Zor-El Hah! Like anyone reads my posts since I've gotten the new avatar! lol I..... read..... them...., every.... word.... < I end up only being able to read one word between each bounce. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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