I had 2 LGS's within 15 minutes of my house. Both had SWM. At one the woman who ran the store (50% owner) was a total B- to me no matter how much time/money I spent in there. It wasnt just me either, she complained to all her customers that she couldnt pay the bills yada yada....

well I went in to play SWM on Wed like I normally do, they had a close sign up, so I thought that was wierd and went up the next day and same deal. So next week I went up on Wed again, and they had pulled up shop.

The 2nd LGS hasnt had as much stock on hand lately, and I am noticing the store owner hasnt been buying as much stuff lately.

I think that times are tough all over, and our LGS's are feeling the pain just like we [I am] are.

I'm sure LGS everywhere are feeling the crunch more than most, after all minis and RPGs are luxury items. No RPGer NEEDS to buy a RPG, they buy it for ease and laziness most of the time (well I do).

Still, it doesn't give the shops the right to be jerks with their customers. So I think you were right to take your business elsewhere Dean.


A couple of year back my LGS treated me badly, so I took my business elsewhere. Basically I had been a customer for years, then I joined a local RPG/Wargaming group and the same LGS offered 10% discount to members of the group. After a few weeks I went up with some mates to buy several books. My mates got their discount but I was refused because I had no membership card because they had ran out. The group organiser was coincidentally in the shop, but refused to acknowledge me even though I had paid my membership to him personally the night before.

I quit the group and I now buy from a local Comic & Toy shop and online (Miniature Market usually).
Bad for them, this was just the time when I started spending a lot of money on RPGs and especially SWM.

If shops want more custom why do they think they can get away with being jerks?

Well, I guess I am very lucky, for the last 10 years I have gamed at the same LGS, and though the owner does not make any sweet deals, especially on individual mini's. It is consistently running tournaments, and RPG's that are accessible to most people. Recently, however, Some of our group has gotten fed up with having to drive all the way into town, and has started playing at a local Coffee Shop on Thursday nights. I think that this has cut into the business at the LGS, because some of the people who meet at the coffee shop go less frequently to the LGS for gaming.

hey Dean:

can you PM me with your SWM plans this weekend and Christmas weekend?

I will be coming down both weekends, and might have free time to come and play.

later!

Chris

Sorry to hear about your bad experience Dean.

I'd like to relate my own.

For the past 2-3 months I haven't been able to play SWM because of grad school, but in August, after I came back from Gencon, I noticed a distinct change in attitude of my LGS owner too. Much more...disgruntled I should say? Last week I was finally able to make the normal Tuesday SWM tourney, and he was even more crabbier than before. It seems as if the teenagers are giving him a hard time. They're quite disrespectful to the other customers and players, but he relies on their business to keep afloat so he refuses to kick them out of the store.

Furthermore, he had apparently changed parts of how SWM tourney are run too. It was a sealed 100pt tourney, and he charged $34. Nine people participated. For my $34, I received ONE Clone Wars booster...period. Everyone made their 100pt squad, and if the total of your squad was under 100, you got to add any one mini from the Clone Wars set to get it as close to the 100 mark as possible. I ended up coming in 3rd place. Prize support consisted of: 1st place - One Clone Wars booster, 2nd place - the rare from one Clone Wars booster, 3rd place and on got to pick any one mini from the remainder of the 2nd place guy's booster.

I couldn't believe that I just paid $34, for a booster and an uncommon fig. If there was another gaming store within 100 miles that held SWM tourneys, I would be there all the time, but there isn't... so I'm forced to pay outrageous entry fee's (normal events are typically $10 entry) to continue to play SWM.

As for the cost of product, I do all my mini shopping online instead of my LGS, while he charges normal prices for boosters, I'd rather get singles of what I need. Plus there are much better deals online anyway.

Having known the LGS you are talking about, I can say this: when you've been a dick to everyone for 15+ years, no one ever wonders what your problem is.

Regarding my LGS, the owner has been really cool with us about the change in the situation. He started charging for SWM tournaments, but he still trusts the people running it, and has offered incentives to people that help him move product.

It sounds like there might be something more to the problem at your store, Dean.

34 bones?!?!

Damn dude, I probably would have turned around and left. I admire the dedication for sure... I guess it just goes to show how badly you wanted to play.

@Dean

Well, sounds like you've found yourself a way out with your wife being a tournament organizer now and purchasing minis online. And you're going to have 6 for the first one in your church's basement?? Wow. Good job, too bad for the d***head manager of your prior LGS. He just lost his swm players.

Well, I can't relate in the duration of playing at a store. I know that JHC knows the same little problems (may have changed since I left) about prize support at his LGS when we played tournaments without any boosters. And when we had a sealed booster, there were some people making runs to the local BAM for their boosters to run the tournament. Not to drag you into this JHC, but has the owner gotten better?

But, in my area, the worst experience is having someone change the rules for notification after getting an agreement. I haven't ran any pure tournaments. Most of mine are more or less get-togethers to play with the hopes of getting sanctioned events. Well, the first meeting wasn't formalized as I thought it was. I told them, while running a demo during the 4th of July to set me up on a day. The owner agreed but he was very busy. So, when I arrived he made sure to emphasize that I cleared it with him and to have a handshake agreement for the gathering. Its a comic shop and the owner is a comic shop owner. You can take that for what its worth. We then fast forward to September and I was out and about so I couldn't finalize a new date. So, I come in and ask about a certain weekend in November (week before the CW release) to his subordinate. I told him I would finalize things with the owner. So, I assume that unless I verbally notify the owner, it isn't set in stone. See the previous conversation. So, I come on a Tuesday and buy a couple of packs and the owner asks me if I was ready for the game Saturday. I'm shocked. I had to go out of town that weekend. I never finalized the details and never said what scale or setting the game would be. I didn't notify him formally as per his original instructions to solidify the date. I am not a person to get mad very often unless my dice are dorking me over (JHC can attest to that) but the comment that made me leave is that "It takes 2 seconds to make a phone call" got me upset. I had to cancel the game 4 days before it was scheduled. He also told me to come in personally on a weekend and talk to him about another date. I just left. I haven't returned there at all. I won't mention the location or the owner because I don't want to stir up problems. I may have handled it badly but I figured I was fair and gave him ample time to cancel. So, LSS, I have to go and fine a new venue and some new players.

The Search continues....

Oh yeah, some things never change. For the most part Paul hides boosters and brings em out so we have some prize support. But yeah, things are still the same. But we have a new, sanctioned place we play now. Rebel Base Comics. It's only held on the third saturday of the month, but prize support has been awesome and its dci reported. So whenever you venture down here...make sure it's over the third weekend of the month.

I know the Omaha people had a hard time with their LGS owner a couple years ago. They stopped going there and go somewhere else now.

Here in Des Moines, the LGS doesn't just do minis, but also sells a lot of CD/DVD's, video games, Action Figures, etc, so he's actually been doing quite well. He opened up a satellite shop in one of the local malls for Christmas. Granted, the only person in that store who even cares about making sure the minis look good is...me, and I don't even work there. He's been really good to us as far as prize support (Lady H and I each have our own promo rakghouls, hehehehe). He takes care of us because he knows we've been there for years. We've managed to drive out some of the, how shall I say, more irritating players, and have a good core group usually every Sunday. The trouble is, even though he's sanctioned through DCI, we haven't had a tourney reported in over a year because of some snafu with his wotc rep or something. Kinda sucks playing so much and yet get nothing DCI from it, but oh well.

Wow, Dean and everyone else talking about "disgruntled" store owners hits home for me too. SWM is dead in my half of Maine now due to the store owner and one of the players. About the same time as the rest of you (the last few months since GenCon) my store owner has been very short with us and seems like he doesnt even care if we play there or not. He started playing a no-name MMORPG and will actually make you wait for him to kill his mob before he'll let you buy something, ect. So starting about two months ago now, he started having "problems" with his DCI reporting software. All his events, Magic, SWM, ect, were all not getting reported and going delinquent. I asked him about that and he said it was something on DCI's end and he promised he'd get it fixed. Well, they're still all delinquent.

Also, I have moved about an hour from where I used to play to go back to college for grad school. I had been driving to the LGS on saturdays to play until all this started. I found a new store near school that just opened that does all kinds of tabletop games. I've gotten into 40k and still play SWM for fun, but no one wants to play competitively anymore because of how put off our old store owner made us. This new store owner is great and just enjoys having people in the store playing the games. He knows that we will pay a few dollars extra and buy from him if we feel supported and have a reason to buy from him. So I got a case of CW from him instead of my other LGS, and everyone who played SWM now does the hour or so drive to play 40k 3 times a week.

The disgruntled store owner has also lost almost all of his magic crowd. I saw a few of his regulars in my new LGS Friday for FNM. I asked them why they weren't at the other place and they told me they couldn't stand him anymore either, and that he has lost more than half of his FNM players in the last month or so. My old LGS used to be the #1 magic shop in this half of the state before all this started, and now he's lost a large chunk of his following.

It just perplexes me as to why he would shoot himself in the foot like that, unless he really doesn't want to run his shop anymore and is looking for a reason to close the doors. I can understand the poor economy angle, except for the fact that he new LGS that opened had moved from another part of the state into the city where I go to school. His business is way up from previous years and he is adamant that gaming stores that are properly run are recession proof because the gamers will always want a way to unwind and relax.

Anyway, you all are not alone. Just thought I'd share my horror story too.

Sorry to hear about the drama, Dean. It was a pleasant atmosphere last year when I would come and visit.

I've played at well over 100 different gaming stores in the 2 decades I have been involved in table-top gaming. These stores have been scattered over 8 different states, mostly in the Midwest but some on the West Coast. Many of them have failed, but just as many were a success. There are several lessons about dealing with table-top gaming in the store that I have taken away.

Stores that support only gaming generally die. Gaming does not provide enough steady revenue to keep a store open. In the heyday of Magic, it was ALMOST enough. It is the stores that have gaming, but also some other commodity- comics & books, darts/pool/poker, collectables, etc- that can survive. Gaming revenue is cyclical, rising and falling as new sets/items are released. With fixed monthly expenses, it is difficult, frustrating, and risky to base a business on gaming revenue- feast or famine.

I have seen too many stores that try to cram too many tables into some small corner of their shop in order to bring in the table-top crowd. This can drive gamers away. Alternatively, I have seen too much space dedicated to gaming. When not being used, the store owner is paying to light/heat/rent space not generating revenue. This needs to be balanced. You want your gaming crowd to feel welcomed in the shop, and have freedom to play. At the same time, you do not want them disrupting the people who are there to buy things. Gaming tends to be a loud activity, with lots of yelling, laughing, groaning, and sometimes swearing {sorry Dean, my bad}. It should be. But store owners need to take into account what it makes the store feel like overall.

Stores need to get out there and tell their story. Word of mouth and advertising in the phone book is not enough. The stores that are successful at attracting a good gaming crowd are the ones that people from all over know about. They have a internet presense, they send people to local cons, they prominently display a regular schedule of events, and run clinics on games. I even saw one store that went so far as to put small post-its on each box of Rebel Storm when it came out. It said “Learn to play for free! Every Saturday at 2pm”. That is drawing in a fan base. Even DCI works, to some degree.

LGS are in business to make money. And running events is, at best, a revenue neutral event. The best LGS have developed ways to get gamers to spend more money while they are there. For example: 10% off during events, tax-free sales, vending machines, pizza sales, etc. I know of one gaming shop that worked a deal with the deli next door- they would fax orders over, and get a 10% discount, then “sell” it to the gamers at a 5% discount. Everyone benefitted. I know of another that ran an on-line store. He offered a discount for the first 10 days some single was on display. After 60 days, he sold it off on E-bay. That kept is in-store stock fresh, and supported the in-store gamers, while still getting revenue in.

In addition to this, there is the “loss” issue, theft/damage. Let’s face it, not all gamers are decent honest people. There are some jerks who would damage things or steal from the LGS. This leads me to my final point. If an LGS wants to develop and keep a gaming community, then it needs to be open and honest. If there are issues, the community needs to know. I saw one store stop supporting in-store gaming because some joker kept plugging up the toilet. It was costing the store owner more to pay someone to snake the toilets than they were making in sales. But he didn’t tell anyone until he was fed up.

Generally, it is one of these above that cause an end to the LGS. Perhaps one of these has afflicted the store Dean used to play at. I have played there many times, so I suspect that revenue issues are at the base of it. They had almost everything else going for it.

My LGS is still relativly the same. The owner has always been a relitivly nice guy, and enjoys hosting minis games on Fridays. He makes money of the group, so he doesn't mind. I might be that he moved out of his older (and crappier) store, and into a newer, brighter, cleaner one.

The only thing that sucks is that most of the older guys went to college in florida, so we lost 2 of our better players, and 1 that was alright.

Otherwise, it just sounds like you LGS owner is just having some rough times. Mabe it's a personal issue or somthing that's bothering him, as well as the decrease in sales.

And that is why, class, capitalism is awesome. Hurray for choice!

So its not just me.. I thought all those things were just stuff that I had to deal with daily at my LGS and every owner is like that.