Looney Labs Rabbits Mailing list Archive

Re: [Rabbits] Donate Games to Ziggurat Con in Iraq

  • From"Timothy Hunt" <games@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • DateThu, 19 Apr 2007 16:25:53 -0500
On 4/19/07, Rebiccola <rebiccola@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm confused. If you go to your FLGS, you have to drive and pay for gas to
get to the store, pay full price on games INCLUDING tax, drive and pay for
gas to get to the post office, and pay for shipping to an APO. What is the
benefit to do that other than wider selection? I don't want to start a war
here (no pun intended), but I'm just missing your point, I think.

My FLGS never said "hey, let's do something great for the soldiers"
and couch it in such a way that it appears at first glance that they
are doing something wonderful.

In any case, I have a good enough relationship with my FLGSs that I
can almost certainly get a discount from them for this.  And the post
office is always advertising how they'll pick up for free, so I could
call my store, get them to weigh it to find out how much the shipping
is, pay for the shipping too, and they can get the box shipped for me.


I am assuming (yeah, I know) that LL has enough sense to put in items to
balance out the order: if everyone buys treehouse, they'll probably throw in
some fluxx.

Sure if something is coordinated, it might be better. But that would take
time and May 5th is coming up fast. I don't see anything wrong with LL
charging retail - they are making a donation, and probably won't be
pocketing our "extra shipping".

They briefly mention that they'll be throwing in "some stuff games and
Happy Flowers" with no idea how much that would be.  So brief was the
mention, that when you said they are making a donation, I had to go
double check the announcement, because frankly, I missed it.  If the
announcement had been "We're giving some games to Ziggurat con, and
we'd like you to too" it would have come across much better.  That
said, I still think that if they gave a discount for this one purpose,
people would be much more likely to buy,  and the overall benefit
would be greater.

Wholesale prices (that which my FLGS pays) are typically less than 50%
of retail, and the distributor has already taken their cut at that
point.  If LL even gave a 20% discount, we feel better because we can
get their games to the soldiers with more bang for the buck, LL still
gets more than if we'd bought through the FLGS, and LL should be able
to use the opportunity to get some nice publicity.

I'm NOT trying to be cheap here, I'm simply saying that the surface
seems to be "we're doing something nice" and deeper down, it looks
more like "Hey, feel good about giving the soldiers some games, but
pay full retail so we can make money too".  It just appears mercenary.

I know LL is a small company, I've seen the videos, I've seen the
calls for investors.  But a 20% discount to buy direct from LL for
this one purpose only still nets LL more money than if we bought from
out FLGS.  It would be a win (us)-win (LL)-win (soldiers) situation.

The curious thing is, it's entirely possible that giving a 20%
discount would actually encourage more people to buy, and for those
that do, to buy more, that the total sales would actually result in a
greater profit for LL overall than by making this "offer" at retail,
and it wouldn't appear nearly as mercenary.

Besides, I'm so much happier knowing I'm specifically sending Martian
Coasters rather than just giving money for a box of LL games.


As with any donation, you can designate what yours goes to, and the
recipient is morally if not legally obliged to follow through.  So if
you say "I want my money to be for martian coasters", then that's what
your money is for.  They are then free to balance it out using the
money that others donate without having so designated.

Come on guys, these are people who are fighting for us, we want to be
able to give them the best for our money.

Timothy