My non-vulgar perspective on GameSalute....

All I can add is this--there is no maliciousness on Dan's part. One of the most genuine, "Gee whiz, games are pretty freaking awesome" dudes I've had the pleasure of dealing with. He's also always been very supportive of Fortress: AT, mostly because of its smaller community--but also because we're known to be people that really love our games.

I think there's some truth to the notion that Dan is not purely trying to optimize his profit numbers but wants to (and believes he is) helping local game stores. I can definitely believe that.

It's also true that if someone has my friendship, I'm more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt and cut them slack, so take this with a grain of salt.

I don't think anyone but the most ridiculous believe this is some sort of malicious cash grab. For one, as cash grabs go, it's a pretty stupid way to do it. Look to MayDay for insights on how to REALLY do a cash grab.

I think they probably want to help game stores a lot, but the problem is too complex to be solved by exclusivity deals. The problem lies in the fact that many game stores are were started by people with little business acumen, and are undercapitalized.

Pair that with the fact that mostly Magic, RPG, and Tabletop guys use their services the most, and then you've got a situation where they're asking people to pay the highest price in the market for any given product for no real reason.

Then pair all of that with the fact that most game stores don't stock a whole lot of any one thing, so you're really, as a consumer, better off simply ordering from Amazon (which many credit card companies like Chase offer points for purchases deals) and now the FLGSs that were supposed to be helped are competing with the publisher on an apples-to-apples basis, but the publisher is stocking and can ship it to you in 2-3 days where you need to order from the FLGS, wait a week or two, drive back and pick it up.

It's a complex problem, and really, the move towards more and more online shopping is putting nails in the coffin of the FLGSs by and large. Game stores like some of the bigger ones I've frequented offer painting seminars, have a wide selection of things other than games, and have a lot of space for tournaments and whatnot. If you don't want those services, there's simply no reason at all to do business with them, and if you have to wait longer to get the games than going direct, there really is no plausible reason to do business with them.

I can literally count on two hands how many games I've got at a store in my lifetime. Most of the people I know and game with are in similar positions. So, maybe I'm an outsider looking in, but it just seems like shopping at a game store is a thing of the past. Or at least, on its way there.

Why not leave it to the game stores to help themselves? I've recently moved over to shopping exclusively at a local store, and not because of the prices (although the prices pretty much match online retailers).

What this places offers is an area to just sit down and play a board game from a huge library while sipping on beer or coffee. And hey, they just happen to sell board games too. The place probably makes more money off of food and beverage sales, though they sell a shit ton of games. If it takes a few weeks to order something in, no problem. I like going there anyways to just chill and have a few games.

Maybe if more game stores took this legitimately friendly approach and kept out the awkward nerds with BO, more people would shop at them. As a side benefit, this place is extremely popular with the types of people you would never see at a typical hobby store. Regular people who come in to have fun and drink coffee with friends and leaving with a designer board game from a niche hobby.

Maybe it's time the typical FLGS dies off while better businesses take their place. Prices are the least of the problems with their way of operating.

My local game store has more constraints than you're identifying SaMoKo. They're not allowed to sell food because the restaurants in their rental space complained, and they are required to be open hours when there no sales occur or they pay a rental penalty. They have great game space and a good selection of materials, they run tournaments and are the local Mecca for the gaming scene. The clientele is as all-American as it gets. Their Christmas rush consists of people coming into the store to take photographs of the games they want to order online later in the day. During Pokemon last Saturday I watched the owner look at his customers and he wasn't smiling. His sales are often sympathy-driven and that does not please him.

Richard Garfield visited the store a year back when he was passing through the area and raved about it. He literally said "this is what all game stores should look like." But the store has to pay rent and has to play nice with other retailers. It's a requirement to reach a broader audience. Those are anchor chains not so easily thrown off.

This isn't a game issue. This is the entire U.S. economy. Best Buy is getting put out of business. The retail book industry is essentially there though B&N is putting up a noble fight. Tools, spare parts, pretty much anything that doesn't need to be fitted or otherwise customized is due for complete removal from the local retail scene. It's just part of the reality of the modern economy.

If you're providing a differentiable product you can thrive. That's where GameSalute comes in. In my opinion the only way to compete with online sales is online sales. I think it's as viable as any other option. But it depends on having an in-demand product that can't be purchased at a better price somewhere else. Part 1 of that last sentence is the hard part.

S.

So, maybe the "new FLGS" of the future is actually a bar, restaurant, eatery, or coffee shop that also sells board games, and then the "tabletop" hobby stores that exist today remain primarily comic/collectible/hobby stores with less emphasis on buying games. Maybe those shops are where the Magic happens, so to speak, regarding tournaments.

Really, the ecology of gaming stores would benefit from these sorts of things as restaurants that HAPPEN to also be places where gamers gather allows new people into the scene, and with the hobby shops becoming the "tabletop and card store", the old warmongers and stinky Magic players can really take over the places.

The RPG guys...well...they can do what they've always done - go to Starbucks and camp out for 6 hours at a spell fueled by biscotti and coffee?

Sag, I hope the game store you're talking about is not The Family Game Store at Savage Mill. I try to visit there at least once a year, and can say it doesn't feel (or smell) like a nerd store at all.

It seems most game stores are situated at older, more rundown shopping centers (not indoor malls). They seem to have been there for decades, but they don't get the foot traffic of regular parents who want to shop for their kids. And most don't care to 'clean up' their look to entice either.

Years ago, before I knew of this hobby, the ONLY place I thought of for board games was Toys R Us. If you go there now, it seems to be a sad affair with 49 flavors of Monopoly.

I wish FLGSs would thrive, but it doesn't help that many of them don't seem inviting to people outside the hobby already.

Having an eatery/FLGS just seems like a huge recipe for disaster. It would be taking two business that normally fail and expect them both to somehow support each other. You're asking a tall order because the food would have to be bangin' and relatively cost-effective. If not, you'd just have people go play games and then later eat at the Taco Bell. You could force a minimum purchase rule, but I think that would just further upset the players. They'd probably find an owner that wasn't such a dick. This is not to mention that you'd have to compete with the other restaurants in town. On the other side, you're having to compete with online retailers selling games at a much cheaper price. I think that kind of store front, while possible to succeed, is just trying to please two masters.

To further complicate matters, I don't want to bring my games in for other people to play. Some players have no regard for other people's stuff. All it takes is one player eating a greasy cheeseburger and playing one of your games. Someone clumsy enough might accidentally spill their drink on your game. If the price is right, I might buy a game from you, but I'm sure as hell thinking twice before I play that game in your store.

You might be able to make a better case for a coffee shop, but in the end you still need to pick whether you're going to be a coffee shop or a game store. Still doesn't seem like you can be both.

Actually, my favorite model for an FLGS is The Guardtower in Columbus, OH. They are in a tiny slightly rundown strip mall which looks completely like a pre-fab building.

Inside is lots and lots of shelves, two gaming tables, and the place is scrupulously clean. They also stock quite a bit of stuff, and specialize in digging up obscure things that I've NEVER heard of.

If I'm in Columbus, I go there just to look around, and I ALWAYS end up buying something. It is a destination store worthy of the name, and their rent is cheap. They don't expect walk-by traffic (which doesn't happen so much), and then they also don't have to deal with having to babysit kids dropped off at the "toy store".

I suspect that somehow people magically expect the FLGS to get new gamers into the hobby. That's our job--the stores just make it easier.

This is also the OLD model for a game store. You do need enough space for a few people to congregate and play. But then you need staff who are actually going to be customer focused (and not spend all their time playing games.) I suspect Factory Games had the right balance as well, but you also need REALLY cheap rent. The other game stores I know that failed were thanks to rent costs.

Million Dollar Mimring wrote: Having an eatery/FLGS just seems like a huge recipe for disaster. It would be taking two business that normally fail and expect them both to somehow support each other. You're asking a tall order because the food would have to be bangin' and relatively cost-effective. If not, you'd just have people go play games and then later eat at the Taco Bell. You could force a minimum purchase rule, but I think that would just further upset the players. They'd probably find an owner that wasn't such a dick. This is not to mention that you'd have to compete with the other restaurants in town. On the other side, you're having to compete with online retailers selling games at a much cheaper price. I think that kind of store front, while possible to succeed, is just trying to please two masters.

To further complicate matters, I don't want to bring my games in for other people to play. Some players have no regard for other people's stuff. All it takes is one player eating a greasy cheeseburger and playing one of your games. Someone clumsy enough might accidentally spill their drink on your game. If the price is right, I might buy a game from you, but I'm sure as hell thinking twice before I play that game in your store.

You might be able to make a better case for a coffee shop, but in the end you still need to pick whether you're going to be a coffee shop or a game store. Still doesn't seem like you can be both.

Um, this isn't a hypothetical business idea facing a panel of internet experts. Snakes and Lattes is an actual business in Toronto. The place is thriving so much they bought out the store next to them to accommodate the people lining up for the board game cafe. Even with the expansion the place is packed. Oddly enough, this place didn't even sell games when they first opened. It was a cafe that just happened to be packed with a silly amount of designer and classic boardgames. The game sales came later because there was demand for it.

You don't need to bring your own games because they have a rather sizable library that you can just pluck from the wall and use. There's a $5 cover fee, which does rather well to keep the typical hobby gamer out (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). In just about every way, this seems to be the future of board game retail. The old business model has been less than successful, so something new came along and cleaned up.

$5 each time you're there? That is balls (I am a poor).