Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University.  This week, Thorne looks at WotC's new DCI Reporter, and checks out trends in other stores.
 
I have been "Ooohing" and "Aaaahing" over the upgrades WotC has done to its DCI Reporter over the past couple of months, and what they have done is great.
 
When you log in and open the software, the first thing you see are buttons showing you planned and promotional events for which stores can register in the near future, such as Friday Night Magic, Grand Prix Trials, Kaijudo Duel Days, D&D Game Days, etc.  Pretty much anything that needs to occur on a specified date appears on the left hand menu.  Store-created events appear on the right hand menus and can be created and sanctioned with a couple of clicks.  Clicking on "Run Events" shows you a calendar with all the events the store has already scheduled on it.  Clicking on one of those events launches the event for running. Wonderfully easy.  I am hoping other game companies that run OP and sanctioned events take a look at the new DCI Reporter and copy some (or many) ideas from it.
 
Of course, stores are never satisfied.  One thing I would like to see in the next upgrade is a way to remove planned and promotional events from the menu once a store registers for them.  Whenever I log in and still see the next month’s Friday Night Magic event on the planned and promotional menu, I want to double check and make sure I signed up for them.  While it is not a bad thing for me to double check, removing them from the screen after the store registers for them would ease my worry about it.
 
Speaking of "Ooohing" and "Ahhing," I took a few days off this week to visit friends and while I did, as is my wont, I stopped in at a couple of gaming stores in the area just to see if the trends we see in our store  get replicated in other stores.
 
One thing I was happy to see (hear actually) was a greeting from the store employees as I walked into each store as well as a request to let them know if I needed any help in finding anything.  While they certainly didn't work to strike up a conversation about games with me, 'twas a far cry from no acknowledgement at all because the staffer on duty cannot lift their eyes from their computer screen.  Thankfully, this sort of behavior appears less and less as stores get more and more "professional."
 
Another trend I noticed was the movement away from RPGs toward boardgames and TCGs.  One store had less than one shelf of RPGs, containing maybe a dozen different books, almost all Pathfinder and D&D.  The other one did have a pretty large selection of RPG books, four tall bookcases full; they were all used, marked half price or less and relegated to a side room off the main sales floor.  Once again, the only books I saw at full price out in the main trafficked area were Pathfinder titles.
 
The lack of variety of card sleeves was another thing that struck me.  Last time I counted, we stock at least eight different brands of card sleeves, while both of these stores only stocked 2-3.  I didn't inquire as to why, but did notice that each one stocked a "high end" and one or two mid-range brands.  We have always found our customers wanting a variety from which to choose, but maybe we offer them too many choices.  I have seen research saying that too many choices cause the customer to opt out of making a decision all together.  Something to consider. 
 
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.