Rough year for gaming

[Markdoc]

Dude as long as you're dreaming...dream about paying someone with artistic ability to paint it for you!

Hey, izza no problem! There are (and I kid you not) companies in Sri Lanka that will paint your figures for you and they do a pretty good job (they should, they're professionals after all) relatively cheaply.

You can even send them the catalogue numbers and they'll buy the figures (thus getting them at discount, as a retailer). I have a couple of friends who use (I think) a company called Fernando Enterprises and another who uses a different company.

Dunno about the implications of off-shoring your hobby, though....

cheers, Mark

[GothKidSamurai]

Funny, in Asheville two more opened up in 2005. I won't have anything to do with them but I find it odd that they are down elsewhere but opening up more here.

Two game stores or two game companies?

[sinanju]

The problem with a great many of the FLGSs is their business plan (and coincidentally its the same problem with comic shops). You see a normal everyday person isn't going to open an FLGS (or comic shop...and going forward I'll roll comic shops into FLGS land for discussion purposes). I mean, those people are weird, neh?

So who does open one? Why we do of course. Fanboys (for lack of a better term). I can't tell you the number of people with NO business experience at all but avid RPG fans have opened stores. Its good to do something you love and all but you need some ability...and you HAVE to have a plan.

My FLGS, Bridgetown Hobbies, seems to be run by professionals, I'm happy to say. Fully half the floor space is filled with models. Model cars, model planes, model trains, etc. Various scales, lots of painting supplies. That part of the store is also home to model rocketry supplies.

Only the OTHER half is devoted to gaming. I very seldom venture into the models area, but clearly it's a big part of their income. So I think they're doing a good job of running the place.

[Super Squirrel]

Two game stores or two game companies?

FLGS.

[arcady]

Then this summer, one in Winston (Hobbytown) closed. OK, no big deal, should just give the other one more business. Then the other Winston store closed beginning of December. Then one in Greensboro (the longest-running one in the area) announces it's going to close by January. Lastly, the new hole-in-the-wall shop in Greensboro announces a week later that it's closing at the end of December.

So, at the moment, nothin'.

Sounds like over competition. In effect, they all mutually drove each other out of business. If a market is too small competition will just destroy it buy leaving even the player who does best too small a piece of the pie to survive.

If one of them was able to hold out a few more months past the loss of the others, it would be better off, but likely there are bills to pay.

[John Desmarais]

Sounds like over competition. In effect, they all mutually drove each other out of business. If a market is too small competition will just destroy it buy leaving even the player who does best too small a piece of the pie to survive.

Not directly so - the area should be able to support a couple of store. The Piedmont-Triad area has a pretty large population and these stores were all pretty far from each other. This area just seems has a suprisingly small gamer population for it's size (also a small comic audience and general "read for pleasure" audience). It's deeply depressing (my Champions game went away after the most recent Winston closing - I'm once again gameless.)

If one of them was able to hold out a few more months past the loss of the others, it would be better off, but likely there are bills to pay.

That's kind of what I thought after Game Haven closed - leaving only one game store in Winston-Salem. Now that store has closed as well (leaving no games stores in Winston).

[GothKidSamurai]

FLGS.

I haven't spent much time in Craftish Geeks but Kringle's Place is pretty cool. Or maybe I just like it there because I get a decent discount on everything.

[hancock.tom]

It would probably be a prohibitively long drive (like an hour each way if I remember) but Chapel Hill, NC has at least one big game store with a big HERO following called Cerebral Hobbies.

Its where I got my HERO start, way back in my college days.

[GothKidSamurai]

It would probably be a prohibitively long drive (like an hour each way if I remember) but Chapel Hill, NC has at least one big game store with a big HERO following called Cerebral Hobbies.

Its where I got my HERO start, way back in my college days.

I spend most of my time in Greenville, SC actually. There's a little game store in the mall there that carries HERO stuff actually.

[Beetle]

And I have to wonder about the industry in general.

<snip>

Could it be there are less RPers than there used to be? Have the proto-RPers (the being we all were before we discovered what was most likely Dungeons & Dragons) been shunted into console and computer games instead? I know a rather large contingent of MUDders and Online RPGers and even console RPGers that consider themselves RPGers that none of us would consider anything but hack-and-slash Doom freaks.

Unfortunately, I think I have to agree with you. I fear that the store closings and troubles of game companies are the symptom, not the disease. The root cause is not enough new blood coming into the market to keep the industry vital. Especially since we old timers end up with more pressing things to spend money on (spouses, kids, houses, etc.), or drop out of gaming due to an inability to find games.

[Evil Steve]

I'm from Vancouver, Canada, and as far as I can tell, the shops here are holding on nicely. Mind you, there aren't that many to begin with. We had a big purge years ago, but I doubt that's related.

Anyone from any other countries or provinces experiencing anything similar to our southern neighbours?

[hancock.tom]

I spend most of my time in Greenville, SC actually. There's a little game store in the mall there that carries HERO stuff actually.

I was actually talking to the guy from greensboro........ sorry I should have been more clear.

Locally, the struggling game store refuses to stock (or special order) HERO products and though I can get them special ordered through the comic book store, I usually just order from the online store here.

Fortunately, I'm planning on moving in about a year and a half. Unfortunately, the place I'm moving to is only slightly better

Makes me genuinely miss my days living in North Carolina

I have a friend who thinks FLGS death is partially due to the rise of D20 products since D20 can be bought at big national bookchains, where the 10% off card is practically free. I disagree with this, but it will be interesting to see if this current slump is just another fluctuation in the industry or if it is something more permanent that has something to do with how the industry has changed since D20/OGL changed the industry.

[Vondy]

A lot of RPG stores would probably done well to be a book store that has a large hobby section, but with the advent of the super-book-store that might be a losing proposition today.

[bigdamnhero]

You all make me even happier that I moved to Denver. We've got 5 or 6 FLGSes right in the metro area, not counting Boulder, and places farther out. A couple are all games, a couple combine models & similar hobbies. They all seem to be doing fine... [Resists urge to run out and buy something right now.] And all but one seem to always have a pretty good crowd whenever I'm there; demos, special events, pick-up games, what have you. But then there are also several local gaming groups that make it a point to meet & play at the FLGS regularly.


bigdamnhero
"To you, Baldrick, the Renaissance was just something that happened to other people, wasn't it?"

[Thia Halmades]

Hmm... the super book store offers books at a discount, but no place to play. Of course, I don't know that the hobby stores can survive just by charging 'rent' to people who want to play, but may have more luck by charging admission fees for competitions.

Ultimately, I think the goal was always "Let them play for free and they'll buy what they need." Our FLGS (putting the effing back in the F! - j/k, I like mine, but that's the exception, not the rule) covers everything from models on through books & accessories. Has a whole military mini section, the nines. There's always people playing magic, and they have a comics section as well, including a giant wall of nothing but board games.

I think it succeeds because it doesn't ever attempt to niche itself. There's even PCs for people to play WOW on for a charge.