1. I played more games than I do now, or spent more time playing them
2. I purchased more games per year

As it is now, I have far more games in the ol’ game closet (it is cool to have them in their own closet now!) than our group seems to ever be able to play. Thus adding new games is something of a luxury and if one bombs we still have tons of backups to try, not to mention tried-and-tested successes to fall back on.

But there’s also that little element of emotion in my games shopping; normally I’m a highly rational person, but shopping for games is one of those rare situations where I let my emotional weighting processes take front-seat in my decisions.

Overall, probably not something I’m likely to change all that soon, even if I can see the point and respect the notion of researching games before a purchase.

Yet games, even video games (in part for different reasons), I still seek out in local stores most of the time. I guess I really like to browse the boxes, feel their weight, and get into the tactile side of it. The fantastic packaging that some games have received in recent years makes a much bigger impact in person.

I often choose games for two reasons: one, I remember having played a game in the past when I tried it out with Josh or others. Reason two? Basically on a whim… and those decisions are made much more readily while I’m browsing physical shelves of games than any site I’ve come across.

In short, local game stores still provide me a better shopping experience, and as long as that’s the case I’ll continue to visit them.

I did mention that some of the games I was looking at were the same or perhaps even more expensive through Amazon, Galaxy Trucker being the only majorly discounted game I noticed on quick inspection. Interestingly (or perhaps not…) the expansion for GT was more expensive on Amazon than in the local store.

The kind of things you described your store doing are exactly what I imagined my own store doing which is cool but I am uncertain how good I would be at any of it.

Heh, one major thing for me to consider is my wife. She is very understanding of my game craziness but she is also a very frugal person.

Again thanks for stopping by, I certainly can’t disagree with your points.

If you’re gonna price shop, actually check your prices locally, don’t just trust some online store’s claims of what the manufacturer’s price is, and how much of a discount they’re offering. I have a specific recurring anecdote that provokes this statement.

While I was managing the game store, the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price on Settlers of Catan was $38. During nearly that entire time, one of the major online sellers (Funagain, if I remember correctly, but I could be mistaken) was selling it for $38, the same as we were. However, that site would mark it as being “on sale” at $38, with written to the side “originally $45″ and some meaningless text about how much you were saving. They were selling at MSRP, just like the brick and mortar stores, but claiming it was a savings of $7 off. For nearly 5 years they did that, and it worked. I know, because it (and similar items) would come up when customers complained about our prices (which were never above MSRP unless the item was out-of-print and very collectible). People would say “I saw this cheaper at *blank*” and I’d go look it up. Admittedly, often they were right, but it was also very common for online places to mark things up, then discount them to create the illusion of greater savings.

It was also pretty common for someone to just misremember a price – I’d show them the site they’d mentioned, and discover the item in question was $29.95, not $20 like they’d said it was. Sometimes this would work in our favor as well – someone would buy a game, saying “I haven’t seen that this cheap before” to something that had an MSRP printed on the cover.

All that work comes at a cost, as does just keeping the lights on and the floor staffed for long hours. The time most people want to game (evenings) is not the same as peak buying hours (lunchbreak and just after school), but a gamestore that provides gaming space has to be open for both. So it’s only natural that your local game store often gets undercut on price by the online retailer or auction seller, who quite often does it as a second job for a couple hours a night, and has no employees or overhead.

At this point in the explanation, the most common response was “So? I don’t need that crap you do. I’ve already got a gaming group, and we play at my place. I’m not interested in tournaments, I just play for fun.” Arguing against that is tough.
At best, I could just ask them to remember what it was like back when they were the geeky teenager that had just discovered D&D and didn’t really have anyone to play with yet. Or had a group to play with, but those people cheated or powergamed, and you desperately wanted to play with a different group, but you didn’t know anyone else that gamed. People in those positions, teenagers and folks who just moved to town, are the ones who get the most benefit from gamestores.

For those of us who have established friends, have figured out what we like in games, and don’t plan to move across the country any time soon, it can seem like there’s no benefit to us if we shop local over online. But that’s exactly the point: it’s just like shopping at the local mom & pop over wal-mart. You’re putting your money where it helps not just the local economy (important now that we seem to be on the cusp of Great Depression II), but also helps build the community. To me, that’s what it was all about. I wanted to help the next generation of gamers, enable them to connect and learn in ways I never had the opportunity at their age, making them feel a part of something, and not just a freak on the sidelines of society.

But that’s not to say all game stores are about that. Some are just a hole-in-the-wall, where some guy realized he could finance his hobby and avoid getting “a real job”. The only significant difference between that and the online part-time store is rent.

So the trick, I think, is to figure out what (if anything) the local store is doing for the local gaming community. If it’s trying to grow or support that community, it’s probably worth a little extra money in the long run as a form of geek charity. If, on the other hand, it’s just another business, then price is a more important factor in whether or not its worth shopping there.