For years now if you wanted to play a long campaign of D&D or Warhammer you had to go to a local hobby shop. Now retail giant Barnes & Noble may take a cut of revenue by luring loyal customers and in some cases even friends to their store for game night (see ICv2 story). Starting with lesser known games like “Splendor” and “King of Tokyo” and through giving away free promotional items that in many cases locally owned shops would not be able to obtain the rights to hand out.
In my opinion Barnes & Noble will not stop at small time but they are thirstily testing the waters. “Can we open our store to nerds with a designated playing space and get them to buy more merch by inviting them to stay for upwards to three hours a day once a week?” You also have to factor in “Magic the Gathering” now the DCI do not cut any special deals regardless of store size (well exclusivity wise) but that is not to stop Barnes & Noble from going that route if this tabletop thing takes off in a big way. I recently went to a Toys R Us “Pokemon” 20th anniversary TCG event. TRU has not done a Pokemon TCG event in a very long time. It makes me somewhat nervous for my friends in the local hobby shop business even though there is a chance the competition may be harmless maybe even co beneficial but hobby shops already have competition in the form of other locally owned hobby shops. When it comes down to it it all boils down to preference. Would you rather play where there is an abundance of product selection but the people running the things are prude and biased of your game decisions or would you rather play in place that is essentially the bar from “Cheers” where everybody in the store knows your name. Preference.. but Big box has the resources to make you think “If only I had that promo or sanctioned play mat or I need to pick up the latest issue of “The Walking Dead” anyway or maybe they have that bluray I have been looking for.”
I sat down with Adam McReynolds, a local hobby shop owner. He runs a magnificent store where you are free to come and go whilst testing out board games and play in both sanctioned Friday Night Magic events and Saturday “Yugioh” tourneys. As I walked in I even learned a little about a resource management game reminiscent of “Settlers of Catan” it was called “Caverna the Cave Farmers”. After slaughtering his friend in what I think was 96-40 in a very complicated in game point system Adam answered my question “Are you worried or nervous about Barnes & Noble going into TCGs and board games?” he replied with a surprising coolness on the subject “No, not worried I think it is wrong because game stores like this have been a staple in the community for such a long time. Not worried, good for them.”
I was actually intrigued to hear from him that some companies have even started to cut their own online sales by only offering new products to brick and mortar stores to already combat the competition of Amazon and Ebay resellers. He informed me “Asmodee the company that owns Fantasy Flight, the creators of the hit Xwing Star Wars miniature game has started only selling to brick and mortar stores like mine making it harder if not impossible to get the newest products through Amazon.” He also let on that far before this Barnes & Noble venture and or threat “Amazon has actually made a dent in local business for a while now but people still need somewhere to play.” I proceeded to ask if his feelings on the promo exclusivity. “Sucks for me, but I am not against it. If I had the chance to buy an exclusive promo I would jump on it in a heartbeat.” As I glanced down at Adam’s MTG T-shirt to see if the card depicted was the legendary Sliver King or Sliver Legion I noticed a more determined look on the shop owners features. “Besides it does not bother me because big box only has room for merchandise and consumers not for players. You come to a place like this to play we offer the stuff you want to buy if you want but we are here for you to play.” I came to my own conclusion on this Big Box may try to take over but in the long run fun will win over commerce.
Gamer’s Hall is located in Jackson (TN) 77 Carriage House Drive (if you are ever in the area you should go in with some free time and learn a new game.)
* images taken from Google search