I’m a boardgamer. I play board games; It’s my hobby. Not Monopoly and Candyland mind you, but real games designed for real adults, the vast majority of which come in from overseas, mainly from Germany. There are a number of companies here in the us which service the hobby by translating and releasing some of the games in English. Recently, one of those companies has decided to institute a similar protectionist policy. What they have said is that no retailer may sell their products at more than 20% off their MSRP, or risk losing their right to carry the merchandise. People within the hobby have been shaking their heads, but apparantly they mean to go through with it. Online discounts have traditionally been in the 30-35% range for these kinds of items. Here’s a link to an article on BoardGameNews about it.

In the U.S., we should outlaw all small independent retailers and only allow big-box stores.

That way, everyone would get the cheapest prices, because that’s all that’s important – cheap!

To hell with culture, customer service and innovation – they’re overrated.

jhunter/Professor and anyone else on the same boat,

I couldn’t agree more on your comments. Socialist education is spreading everywhere producing mush brained, blind, gullable, unaccountable, irresponsible, utopian fools.

I think almost every post here is missing the point. French publishers receive huge subsidies from the government in order to preserve French literary culture. Its the same with TV and films. Look at Canal+ it almost a branch of the government and is obliged to direct the profits it makes from football coverage into making quirky, offbeat films that no Hollywood studio would touch with a barge pole.

Don’t forget that the French people are not oppressed soviet style huddled masses. They enjoy a broad range of rich and varied culture, supported by a government they voted for. If your country is lacking something similar then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate what is import in your life. Cheap stuff or good stuff, they’re mutually exclusive.

Amazon’s big and like most big retailers they tell us that they are cheaper… but how long does the low price last? Is it true that they are cheaper or have decades of marketing convinced us to just believe their advertising? The French government does indeed assist their ‘culture’– and many French feel that their culture is in danger. That support includes protection of traditional local business as part of a diverse economy.

It’s in the interest of all governments to slow down the shift to non-local supply of goods– non-local means wages and profits (and taxes) leaving. You only have to look at any small town in the US that formerly had a ‘superstore’ to see that the former competitors to the big box didn’t survive. What happens when the whim of big business disrupts supply by leaving the market? After all, two or three comments here on this page just suggested that Amazon abandon France. What if this happened after the stores were gone? Local retail doesn’t abandon markets– big business sometimes does.

It seems that Amazon in particular could work better with local sources by offering to match up buyers directly with a locally offered product. A big part of Amazon’s business is just to act as a sales agent. Other retailers offer buy online then pick up in store… why not Amazon? Surely this must just be a few lines of code to match up zip codes and offer a “buy it local” button.

Guys, no need to start a French bashing campaign over this.

The reason why this law was passed initially was to prevent national chains from killing the small local bookstores. This has worked quite effectively.

Then, from there, it’s only logical to prohibit commercial practices that would workaround the regulation.