Blog @ Canadian Geek

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Welcome to Canada, home of the over converted SRP and constantly fluctuating dollar. As we’ve all heard by now, the Canadian dollar is hovering at par with the US and publishers of comics, magazines, books and more choose not to either A) adjust their cover prices or B) just remove them all together. I guess it’s better to look silly than professional.

Many blogs and columns have addressed the issue with a lot of people who aren’t in the know trying to speculate why publishing houses are doing (or, more acurately, not doing) when it comes to cover prices. I won’t go there cause the only people that can answer that are the head honchos at Marvel, DC, Random House and more and currently, they refuse to do so. What I will touch on is what the people on the front line ARE doing about it.

In Edmonton about 3 weeks ago, a BIG news item came out talking about how Audrey’s Books was now charging the US cover price instead of the Canadian. A nice gesture, sure but not without it’s flaws.

First, they didn’t institute this policy until the dollar actually touched par. Why didn’t they feel the need to not overcharge customers when 3 weeks earlier the dollar was sitting at 1.04? Was the 4 cents too much to lose? Hard to image when you’re charging cover prices based on a 1.35 exchange rate. So, even though it was too late in the game they manged to get some media attention and look like darlings. (And I’m not meaning to pick just on them, many businesses did this - car and applicance dealers, etc. - but Audrey’s got a lot of media attention over it.)

The second issue is how they and several other businesses have decided to just start charging people the US cover price, basically giving people this huge discount against what they were paying the week previous (even though the week previous the dollar was only about 2 cents more costly). Again, a nice gesture but what happens in a month or 6 time when the dollar drops again? Will these stores just flip back to the overinflated Canadian price? Probably except the issue then becomes that the covers prices won’t be adjusted properly and stores will be taking a loss.

Charging the US price is a short term solution that only plays customers like a yo-yo which is why HH, who started discounting Cnd cover prices more than a year earlier, has adopted the policy of pricing all of their product based on the exchange rate they are billed at by their US distributors. Pepole pay what we pay. That seems fair.

And for full disclosure, this was not a concept we came up with. Kelly Dowd, owner of Red Skull Comics in Calgary, began this policy back in 1998, when the dollar was in the gutter and it was a gamble since he was then charging more for many books. Most publishers wouldn’t price comics with the actual Canadian exchange rate becasue it was so high. So if the dollar was sitting at 1.65, they would use 1.5 in hopes to keep more customers. Sadly, this cost retailers money but Kelly discovered that if you have a good store and your prices are fair and honest, it won’t matter what the price tag is, people will still come and buy from you.

So thank you Kelly for helping us help the Geeks of the world. Well, at least the Geeks in the Edmonton area.

* First Rant in a while and I’m a bit dreary so my apologies if this lacks it’s usual venom.

Welcome to the first installment of Experience Points, Canadian Geek’s new RPG centric column.  Without further ado, on to the article.

I started role-playing when I was in my pre-teens.  My ‘gateway drug’ was Star Wars d6 from West End Games – of the reasons I ended up playing this game, the biggest was because it was Star Wars.  My gaming groups weren’t larger than 3 or 4 and after my first few adventures, I ended up being the GM for everything.  Eventually, one of my friends came across a number of Dungeons and Dragons materials at a garage sale.  He picked them up and promptly handed me everything so that I could learn the system and run a game.  We ran one D&D session.  I really wasn’t interested in running a game in that system, which made it difficult for me to really provide a great game for my players. 

I was able to put together a few Star Wars games, but nothing that really lasted long-term.  Eventually, I began looking online for an online group to game with.  I eventually found an established Star Wars play-by-post community which I played with for a few years.  Again, because I was reliable, knew the rules, I was asked to GM.  I put together a few games, but unfortunately, with play-by-post, games with new players tend to die as the players go ‘poof’.  As time went on, I moved up the site’s administration ranks and took the reigns.  I made a number of changes that I felt would improve the community, which I feel it did.  What I did realize however, was that I was completely bored of Star Wars.  To this end, I founded a new community, to meet my need of ‘not-Star Wars’.  This community infused me with a new outlook on role-playing.

 With this newfound interest, I searched out more communities to find out what I could do to improve mine and improve my skills on both sides of the table.  I found a number of very interesting podcasts which gave me a number of thoughts.  Why do people shy away from role-playing?  Is it because they haven’t had an experience or a poor experience? What is the difference between a standard board game and a pen-and-paper RPG?

 As I thought about it, my opinion became such that I don’t believe that board games are any different than role-playing.  I asked my friends about it, and I did receive a number of responses that showed me that many of them had tried an RPG, but found the experience lacking in some way, compared to a board game.  The most common reason for not playing RPGs was the time.  Based on the knowledge of RPGs of the people involved, I completely understand the concern, but I think there are many other options available that do not require long-winded campaigns.  Another comment was the differing reward structures between RPGs and board games.  A direct quote: “RPGs reward effort, whereas board games reward strategic thinking”.  Again, I think this attitude comes from playing online in a D&D/Experience Points based system – there are plenty of other systems that emphasize the story rather than character advancement.  Does this enhance the strategy aspect of the game?  Maybe not, but other systems exist that provide more out to the players than just than dungeon-crawling.

There are so many different game systems available, in more settings than you can imagine.  So many great games like Mutants and Masterminds, Spirit of the Century, Star Wars: Saga, Dungeons and Dragons, and Vampire: The Requiem, to name a few.  If you’ve never played an RPG, I’d love to talk to you about it.  If you have and didn’t like it, I’d love to know why.  You’re reading this blog, so you’re not afraid of being called a geek.  So my question to you is, why not role-play?

The most obvious purpose of a movie trailer is to entice you to want to watch the movie. I doubt there’s a single trailer out there that didn’t entice at least one person you knew to go watch it, regardless of how horrible the movie may have looked to you. This is their purpose, and they are successful; but, of course, what often happens is the trailer contains the best parts of the movie, and you wonder why you saw the movie at all. Or the trailer actually manages to complete mislead you as to what the movie was actually about.

What? It could happen.

But what happens if a movie trailer is so fantastically, utterly impressive unto itself; what if it sets new levels of the mystery and suspense involved in watching a trailer; if it cannot live up to the standard that it is creating, because once the mystery is solved … you wish you were still left in the dark. The greatest example of “success” in this category, of course, is Blair Witch. They released a trailer (along with a large amount of viral marketing) that took hold of the world of entertainment for longer then most, grabbed a bunch of people, and threw them into theaters where they proceed to throw up. Well, some people did. It’s true!

But Blair Witch succeeded not because of the marketing, or the trailer, but because the movie DID NOT REVEAL what was chasing them. It stayed permanently in the unknown, and that was absolutely for the best. Blair Witch was a success. It SUCKED ASS, but it was a success. (Blair Witch 2, on the other hand, rocked my socks. Go figure. I am so in the minority on this.)

The trailer for Cloverfield is impressive. The teaser was also impressive. It has people talking, wondering, speculating: What IS it?

Setting aside the obvious answer that everyone is so inclined to put forth (me not excluded), is there ANY answer that would impress anyone? Just like, when the “monster” on LOST (also produced and created by JJ Abrams) is revealed, is there even the remotest chance that it will satisfy what anybody had in their mind?

Or will they go the Blair Godzilla route, and simply not reveal Godzilla at all.

Er, I mean… whatever the creature is.

Regardless. I enjoyed the trailer, you will too. Speculate away!

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