By Alton Jerome McFarland
DO or DICE (located at http://www.doordice.com)
is an online store that offers "RPGs, Wargames, CCGs, Miniatures
and More!". A haven for people who love interactive games, the
site carries enough games and game paraphernalia to satisfy even the
most fanatical player.
The first thing I noticed upon visiting DO or DICE, was the site's
minimalist nature. Although the main page had a few pictures from
recent games, the overall style was very simplistic. As I explored
further, I realized that the entire site (excluding the section selling
miniatures), relied a lot more on text than on graphics. It seemed
that the text descriptions of the games were given a lot more importance
than the pictures. The fantastic blurbs describing how only "you"
can stop the enemy hordes, or how "you" should try and save
the princess are the most entertaining part of the site. It comes
as no surprise that a site offering role-playing games might rely
on text a lot more than other online stores. The potential customers
for the merchandise available on DO or DICE are presumably people
who enjoy a complicated story. In response to those customers, DO
or DICE gives glimpses into those stories to entice visitors to buy
the games. To go with the multitude of games they offer, DO or DICE
also carries miniatures from those games. The site attempts to capitalize
on the fanaticism of the RPG subculture by offering these tangible
representations of the games. A player can now purchase a physical
incarnation of something that previously only existed in his imagination.
The entire DO or DICE site is devoted to the celebration of, and
sale of paraphernalia related to, role-playing games. In keeping with
the audience to which they are selling, the site tries to market each
product by drawing its visitors into a different adventure. The creators
of DO or DICE certainly know their audience and through the site's
design, they try to make it clear that they also know their RPGs.