If anyone lives near Lost Ark Video Games in Greensboro, I can highly recommend that place. Great Retro Arcade/Game Store/even now a board game store (only one in the area)
You guys make my free time mysteriously vanish :)
To note, over the last few years, it’s my understanding that Magic has experienced an enormous resurgence in popularity which, alongside the rebirth of D&D + a handful of newly popular tournament-friendly miniatures games like X Wing, tabletop-focused hobbyshops are in pretty okay shape, overall. WotC plays hardball on a lot of stuff that can be annoying for them, but if you’re the WotC-Preferred Vendor for your region (or whatever the term is), rocking out official Friday Night Magic Promos, D&D Encounters materials, etc., you can draw a real crowd exclusively for that stuff several nights a week. Throw in an X-Wing night, free-play board games night, and maybe hook up with a local nerdy Meetup group (as some of our local stores do with the enormous RPG Meetup, RTR) for their event, and you’ve got a 30+ crowd hanging around every night of the week. Add in a snacks-and-drinks stand at modest markup and keep a healthy supply of card protectors, dice accessories, and RPG accoutrements and you’re doing okay. Not, like, amazing, and margins are thin on a lot of the main products, but it’s not a financial tragedy!
The main issue, even for Wizards Play Network stores (which is probably 95% of dedicated tabletop gaming stores that carry sealed Magic product), is that board games are so often a losing proposition (look at something like Seafall, an $80 MSRP box that’s already been discounted to less than $30 in some places and that’s still sitting at full price on my local shop’s shelf), and having to make your money off Magic singles (it’s only ever Magic singles; Pokémon singles are too dependent on a local playerbase that isn’t just ten-year-olds, Konami has gone out of their way to ensure Yu-Gi-Oh! doesn’t have a reliable singles market, and no one cares about other TCGs, except in very small pockets on the coasts) and TCG accessories is unsustainable in the long term unless you have a very loyal playerbase buying stuff from you and/or you do very well with online sales.
My local store does the Magic thing, has an active Pokémon group, and does well off of Xwing. The owner says he does some $600 on Xwing every two weeks. Whenever I go for Xwing there is usually some 6-10 people playing some form of card game, and reliably 3-4 boxes (I.e. Traditional) games per hour.
Not great, but doing alright. Having a play space is critical, that drives repeat business.
It’s a cliché already but I definitely buy games at my local that I could get cheaper elsewhere. It’s so nice to have a play space for new people without having to invite them all to my house.
I’m pretty sure I’ve spent more time in one of my local game stores, The Gamer’s Armory, than in any other single store in the area, including my weekly grocery trips. I’ve run two campaigns out of that place and participated in a dozen or so daylong activities organized by RTR.
After clearing my tab yesterday as we wrapped up the ten table, forty gamer RPG extravaganza I organized, I was informed I’d just cleared the threshold for a $10 in store reward from my frequent purchases. I did not ask what the dollar amount I must have spent to hit that was, cuz I’m pretty sure 10 divides easily into it and the thought of spending that much money on dice, battle mats, and especially candy and soda, even over a period of a few years, is kind of terrifying…
And when I’m there, I’ve generally brought six other players with me!
I’m all for buying games locally that I can get for less online, but the price differences on a lot of the games I’ve bought in the past couple of years haven’t worked out well for that - buying a Pixel Tactics set for $15 in-store instead of $10 online is no big deal (and is actually the same price if I don’t buy a bunch of other stuff in the same order online, thanks to shipping), but buying Firefly for $24 online instead of $50 in-store is going to win every time. That’s not even counting all the games that just aren’t available locally, particularly every tabletop game I’ve backed on Kickstarter.
That said, I’ve been making an active effort to purchase Magic singles and general TCG accessories locally when possible before turning to the Internet, but even that only goes so far, especially when a card is popular in the local meta or relevant in multiple formats.
One of my friends occasionally goes there to pick up her Gunpla kits, if it’s the place I’m thinking it is.
Thanks @Telefrog for posting the link to that thread. I had not seen that before, and it was a fascinating read. And kudos to @noun for taking the time to write all of those articles (and/or stories).
Another link for anyone who missed it up above there. I imagine most people interested here will have read it by now, but it really should not be missed for anyone with even a passing interest in the subject (like me) who happed to miss it until now.
It’s $10 for every $100, which is a pretty good deal. I still try to preferentially order from Scott’s online store now that I can’t buy there personally.
Well now I feel dumb for not making sure they’re logging stuff to my account there more often, cuz I’m dropping like $5-10/visit there at some points…
I’m all for stories of independent video game stores near you guys in other parts of the country. We’re pretty lucky around here with a lot of options. I search them out whenever I can. Microplay is very close to me and it used to be a chain but now it’s just a store. The place is a hole, but they have so much new old stock it’s kind of ridiculous. It’s almost like a museum instead of a store. I just struggle to shop there because the employees are d-bags and I feel so dirty when I go in there.
Just Press Play in the Lancaster/York area is phenomenal. Apparently Spenser was an employee of theirs (and I’ve heard there’s some bad blood…) before starting Complete In Box. There are four JPP stores now. http://www.justpressplayonline.com They carry Neo Geo carts so I swing by there to gawk and sometimes buy. This is the polar opposite of Microplay from a cleanliness and enjoyable shopping experience standpoint.
I’ve found places in the Philly burbs I like. Jay Street Videogames at King of Prussia and Plymouth Meeting is pretty cool. I’ve also been to Classic Game Junkie in Glenside. That place is recommended highly. Game Fixx on Bustleton Ave. was small but cool. Lots of good NES stock there among other retro consoles. I need to make a concerted effort to suss out what’s in Allentown, PA also. OH! In Harrisburg, you absolutely have to go to http://2ndandcharles.com at the Harrisburg East Mall. HUGE selection of games, books, comics, CDs, movies, toys… I have spent a lot of time browsing there. Their retro game selection is very eclectic but comic fans would have a field day on used graphic novels.
For comics here in Reading, Golden Eagle and 1UP Collectibles are the places to go.
Man, I love these stores. I almost love finding them as much as I love visiting them.
There’s hardly any real independent stores left in the UK at this point. There weren’t many to begin with, frankly. Even before the internet ate them all and the non-independent ones, they were driven out of business by the likes of HMV. There are second hand stores (CEX) but they’re not exactly mom-and-pop and they do all sorts of electronics and media. There was one independent store I’d go to on Goodge Street in London for import DS games, but it shut five years ago.
It’s easy to have a look for them. Just put “video game stores” into Google Maps wherever you are. You might be surprised at some corner shops you didn’t even know were there!
And when you do that in London, you get a sea of Games and CEXs. A few promising leads turn out to be the offices of game developers or experience venues, not shops.
Try these…
Retro Game Base
430 Streatham High Rd, London, SW16 3PX, UK
N1 Games
25 Baron St, London, N1 9ET, UK
Awesome Games
231 High St, Walthamstow, London, E17 7BH, UK
Crazy Thumbs
100 Mitcham Rd, London, SW17 9NG, UK
PlayNation
17 High St, Croydon, CR0 1QB, UK
The one near me has a small toy section. Didn’t even think to check for games. Most likely the games are geared toward younger kids though, with maybe a LEGO or Sesame Street game or whatever.
As accurate as that image is, it speaks to how hard any secondary market is to operate, and how bad the acquisition side necessarily has to look from a consumer side if the sales side is to be remotely attractive.
There are only really two options from a store’s standpoint: buy product at low prices (or exclusively give store credit for trade-ins) and sell it at reasonable prices, or buy product at reasonable prices and sell it at exorbitant prices. No other combination is remotely sustainable, and selling at high prices doesn’t work unless you’re dealing in legitimately collectible items (more CIB EarthBound and less disc-only LEGO Batman 2) and have a market for them, which is basically impossible if you aren’t selling online.
Put another way, there’s a very good reason you don’t hear success stories about game stores that went against the GameStop model.