DungeonDelver wrote:My FLGS became an LGS, and now it's an LCS - Local Comic Store - again.  Games don't bring in any money, and they're losing shelf space back to sci-fi toys, comics, movie memorabilia and so forth.  Of course it doesn't help that they fired the guy who knew games, promoted them, and got people excited about buying and playing.

One of the problems with a lot of game stores, they sort of approach their business willy nilly.   In a lot of cases, the owner/manager is just someone who loves playing games, or reading comics, and doesn't have a game plan beyond that.  For example a lot of strategy in comics (and games) is to get kids hooked young, so they will grow up with good thoughts about games.  This means interesting them when they are tykes; unfortunately, many game stores are forboding places to kids, and are very "kid unfriendly".  These are the guys who wonder why they aren't making their rent every month.

Instead good stores interest kids in "gateway" games and comics, so they are basically working on a kid that will hopefully be a customer in 5+ years or so.  So many stores don't do this. Heck, I remember beging basically kicked out of game/comic stores when I was a kid "Hey, kid, you gonna read that or buy it?  If you aren't buying something, get out!" that type of stuff.  You think I didn't remember that?  Those places got NONE of my business when I became old enough to spend my
own money.  

If the brick and mortars want to stay in business, they are going to have to start providing some of the only things you can't get online (where they can't compete with the price, since they can never undercut the online dealers/sellers): customer service.  This is both in attitude and in presentation. That includes having gaming areas, putting on special events, or sponsoring gaming in their store. The idea you can just throw out a shingle with your store's name on it, fill it with comics and games, and make lots of money isn't viable anymore.

Mike B.

Mars wrote:
I don't think that the FLGS is responsible for selling their old stuff off cheap but the stores in the Toronto area that deimos refers too charge $35-$40 for X1 and a minimum of $30 for a 1st edition hardcover.  I have some bitterness for these particular stores as well.  I talked with the person responsible for buying old rpg stuff and was told that they would buy my extra stuff for 50% of what they sell the books for.  After lugging 4 boxes of stuff through the subway system to downtown Toronto they then decided to give me about $3 a book since I brought in so much stuff.

You took your stuff back home, right?  

FormCritic wrote:I would love to buy from my FLGS;

First, they do not run a consistent business and half the time I want to go there I find them closed in a pixie-like flare of randomness.  They participated in Free RPG Day last year, but did not grok the concept of "Free."  This year, they missed it entirely.

Some might remember my posts about "The Worst Game Store of all Time" (I can't remember which thread it was in). Sadly, most of them seem to follow this trend, of "We don't have to run our store like a REAL business because....WE SELL GAMES!!! WEEEEEEE!"  

Second, game products in general have gone out of sight in price.  Most of the time I do not even buy these products at Half Price Books, because half of way too much is still too much.  As a rule of thumb, everything for 3.0/3.5 was priced at double its value.

Amen brother.  I find myself passing up a LOT of goodies at HPB, because I'll wait for it to hit the discount shelf, or I won't get it at all. Just today, I saw a 3E module I though looked somewhat interesting (Red Hand of Doom, I believe). At HALF cover it was $12.50.....still too rich for my blood fora system I don't use.  And don't even get me started on the Hardbacks....all the HPBs in Dallas/FW have SHELVES of the 3/3.5 stuff, which are still mind numbing in price.  It's only frequent purges of the HB's at $1-$3 that keep them from completely overwhelming the entire store.

Third, my FLGS simply cannot keep everything in stock.  And everything is what I am used to choosing between online.

My FLGS does a fairly good job of stocking a variety of things, although I had to hound them to finally begin carrying DCC modules (which I collect), and recently, Castles and Crusades stuff.

Fourth, more and more places that used to be in the FLGS category no longer offer the clubhouse-like experience of a place to game and meet with other gamers to talk about gaming with games.  Most of them sell online instead.

So true. The FLGS cut their gaming room into about a quarter of what it was so they could display more merchandise; on top of that, anything but "current" games (the most recent D&D, for example, over early editions) is pretty much frowned upon because space is at a minimum now.  You can't get anyone to talk 1E or 2E, or really anything but the latest D&D edition or stuff like Battletech or Warhammer minis.  Too bad, really.

Mike B.

I agree in full that there is a significant percentage of bad game stores (or bad also - selling - games stores   ) but the fact stays that if there are no game stores this industry ceases to exist. Skeptics are free to not believing me, but I work with manufacturers and I listen what they say especially deluging us with the various OP programs in existence. Perhaps companies are foolishly attempting to help dinosaurs survive (WE are the dinosaurs of course    ) wasting time, money and personnel or they know a thing or two about selling their products. But I must say that collectors of out of print RPG products are not exactly our target audience    (myself included...)...

In retrospect I think I misspoke when called the FLGS an FLGS - there wasn't anything really "favorite" about it.  The owner is an irascible old prick who'll rip you off at the drop of a hat on buying collections, when I gamed there (as I found out after I took my group "home"), we were the favored group - because we'd watch the dumb punks who gamed back there alongside us (that was the assumption, anyway) and stop them from stealing or wrecking the place up.  

No, my truly favorite local gaming store wasn't a gaming store at all - or rather, they weren't gaming stores.  Best Used Books and Legible Leftovers.  I daresay I got more stuff there than at Acme Comics: at Legible, I picked up a couple of pastel modules, the 4th section of the Greyhawk map from Paizo (for free!) my true 1st DMG and MMs, many copies of other books as well...Best had an occasionally nice selection, too; I just missed the collection of boxed Grenadier minis someone dropped off, one day.  Never held too much nostalgia for those.  I'd rather play with Reapers' stuff and old AD&D rules.

Sadly, both stores are now gone.

Alexander1968 wrote:This is a store I'd really love to visit    

Well, if you ever find yourself in upstate NY, drop in and have a look:

http://www.fof.net/


And just to be fair, here's the site of the other "modern" game store.  They are good place to visit too:

http://edenstudios.net/zombieplanet/

FormCritic wrote:You took your stuff back home, right?  

At that point I wasn't about to start lugging it all back - I was dead tired.  It took me about an hour and a half to get it all to the store.  My trolley broke and for a fair distance I had to move one box at a time, 10 feet at time down the sidewalk.  In total it was well over 100 pounds of stuff.  Most of it was the stuff I probably couldn't sell but had accumulated for years.  Lots of 1st and 2nd edition hardcovers in poor shape or with writing inside, extras of common modules, etc.

I ended up with a couple hundred in store credit.  Since it was my first time to the store, I did surprisingly manage to find a couple items that were underpriced - shrink wrapped H1 for $20 (since their repriced $100 sticker had fallen off).

Believe it or not, we have a pretty good locally owned game store here in Boise.  They sell board games and new RPG material but no old out of print stuff (though I did get some Planescape box sets that they found in inventory).   

I try and support them as much as I can and pay full retail for items that I can get cheaper online.  In turn they have various game events in their large back room.  Hopefully they will be around for a long time.