Dave's Fanboy Sermon

I just heard the news today. Wargames West is shutting down after more than 20 years as a game distributor. About now you might be thinking "So? Who cares? Game stores come and go. Distributors come and go. What does it matter, as long as I get my stuff?" In fact, Wargames West is just one of many distributors who have either shut down or been absorbed into a larger distributor. If I do my job correctly, none of my customers will notice anything out of the ordinary and business will continue as it has before.

Wargames West has been my primary distributor for game product for more than eight years. In fact, I have had the same Sales Representative for that entire time. Every Tuesday for the last eight years, Chris Lombardo would call and inform me of every game release from that week. I'm not a gamer myself. What little I know about role playing games comes from years of selling them. I would never have survived my initial ignorance without Chris. He helped me establish a line of games in my store that help carry us when comics took a steep nose-dive in sales. In fact, it was almost eight years ago that Chris suggested that I try a new game that he felt would sell well for us if we made the effort to demonstrate it to our customers. Magic The Gathering not only sold well, it became a major sales line for our store. We were carrying it from the very beginning, before anyone else in the area. All because of personal service from our game distributor.

Which is the main reason behind my sadness at today's news. In both the comic and the game industry, consolidation has left us with only a handful of large distributors who pretty much control the market. If you want personal service, forget it. We're nothing more than an account number. With Diamond Comic Distributors alone I have had four Sales Reps in just the past two years. When I would have a problem, they would correct it if it could be easily done from their cubical in Baltimore, but otherwise I was on my own. When a customer would ask me why a certain overdue product wasn't available or when it might be, I knew that calling Diamond would get me no answer other than "That item hasn't shipped yet." I should be happy that Diamond still deigns to send us comics was the attitude I met most often.

Diamond wasn't alone. Without going into specific names, I can tell you that the service that I received from various hobby distributors consistently made it more difficult to do our business. Once, UPS mishandled two checks that went to both Diamond and another game distributor. A $2000.00 check written to Diamond went to a the game distributor and the $300.00 check meant for the game distributor went to Diamond. Needless to say, Diamond noticed the mistake immediately, but the game distributor deposited the incorrect check (even thought it was made out to Diamond). It took dozens of phone calls and even a few threats to finally get the balance back. Without pummeling you with additional horror stories, let's just say that this was not all that attypical.

Wargames West, on the other hand, treated us as if they genuinely wanted to keep our business. This was refreshing and sometimes even crucial for our self esteem. There would occasionally be a problem or mix up with Wargames West. We could call and tell them what it was and they would take care of it. And apologize. I cannot tell you how much difference it made to be treated with the respect that too many others simply didn't have the time to bother with. Did this engender any sense of loyalty in us? You bet it did.

I am going to miss those weekly sales calls. Chris Lombardo was a fellow baseball fan, and even a fellow Yankee's fan (sometimes I think that we are the only two). We would talk baseball in addition to the upcoming releases. As the industry continues to consolidate no one has the time for anything beyond basic business anymore. That is a sign of the times that we live in, I guess. Bigger, more impersonal conglomerates eat up the little guys and the people who suffer are the ones that had been used to personalized service.

Will it matter to any of you reading this? Hopefully it won't matter much, but it might. Without smaller distributors to push unusual games, innovations like Magic The Gathering would most likely have never gotten off the ground. The next innovative idea will have a lot more difficult time in todays more closed system. Still, things will change and everyone will adapt. For me, however, a new distributor will replace Wargames West in supplying me product, but most likely not in the kind of personalized service that I had grown accustomed to. I will miss those weekly call to discuss new game releases and baseball scores. In the end it may be progress, but it feels too much like losing a friend.

Illustration by Gerald Kelley