FLGS - Friendly Local Game Store

So this question came from a viewer a little while back during an episode of the Every Other Sunday show where I asked about, And this one, the question goes My local game store manager and players have a very insular click mentality and are not welcoming to new players. Also, it's the only store in town. Well, in those situations, Now, a n But, ciao. And I still believe it. Now, a lot of comments in that particular video were very interesting because they would start with things So why would I support it? Maybe exaggerating t Well, why would I support it? Well, you wouldn't. Actually, the point of that whole video was if you go to your local game store all the time to play miniatures games with your friends or people that you meet on some sort of online service and whatnot, Then, You buy all your stuff online or you buy it wherever. But you play at that was the point of that video is that if you want that store to be available to you so you can keep playing at that store and you Now, there's a difference between not welcoming and maybe not great at retail. Those are two different there are many, many game store owners who are gamers. Actually, the majority of them are. Many of them, as it turns out, to be perfectly honest, are gamers first and business people, retail experts, whatnot. Second. So if you walk into a local shop and person at the counter looks up at you and is Let me know if you need anyt That's just not great retail. That's a person who's maybe a bit shy, but they still run t And or maybe they're just one of those people that doesn't want to And so that's just the way that they've kind of designed their store. Now, to some folks who walk into that store, they can look at that as being unwelcoming because the person just barely in their mind, So if you look around for a while and then you come over and you ask them about, Or if you're, You may find that they are very, They can help you make great decisions. And that's one of the big benefits, again, of a brick and mortar store versus going online. But you may have to tease it out a little bit. Okay. So that'somet Now, as I mentioned the word manager, in that question that was asked that I started off the episode with, the person was talking about the manager and their click. So one of the things that you can do in this situation, if the manager and the click of their friends are beyond, If the manager is doing t And so I'm not telling you, you need to tattle on t Don't get me wrong. But the manager would, or sorry, the owner would really probably So figure out if there'some sort of time when the owner is in the store, pretty much every store owner in most situations is usually in the store at some point. Sometimes it's maybe earlier in the day or whatever. But try to find out when the owner is there and try to stop in and say, look, I just wanted to talk to you and let I don't know if you're, Now, if the owner says, okay, well, I really appreciate that. That's very interesting and seems, Then hopefully they're going to have a talk with the manager. Now, we're not trying to get anybody fired here, but we do, Drive everybody else away. That makes the business go away more often than not. So the owner wants to know t So if the owner can go to the manager and go, look, t You need to do then at that point, the manager can make a decision. They either say, okay, I'll try to do that. Or they can say, well, I don't like to be welcoming to people and they can, So in t So, Now, however, you might get a different response. You might get the response where you tell the owner t Now, at that point, you've discovered somet You've discovered that the owner and probably the manager and the click, they Yet they probably also complain when there's not enough business. So in that situation, when you get a owner who says to you, I don't really believe what you're saying. And I don'that point, you can then decide it's time for me probably not to come back to t So what do you do in that situation when you've got a store in your town that and as in the question originally, it said, t What do you do when t And they just don't want people there from owners They just don't want people, whatever the problem is, people who play Whatever the problem is, when they're not being welcoming and inclusive into the industry. And So what do you do? Well, obviously, Now, admittedly, that's a little bit more travel than you'd But if you want to be able to play at game stores, especially if you're meeting new people, t Because, as I've said in the past, it's frequently you don't want to have somebody that you've never met before come over to your house. So if you find somebody, whether it's online, If they say, oh, hey, Well, then you can either explain it to them and say, well, And these are the reasons why if that person's Now you've learned another t You've learned that t If they go, I've had that same sort of feeling when I've gone into that store. Now, at least you seem to be on the same wavelength. And then maybe the two of you meet someplace else, just to hang out and whatever, not even play. Do you just talk, And then once you've met and gotten used to it to each other, then maybe you get together and play over at your house or at their house or something Or do go to the next city over and play at that shop that seems to be more welcoming than the one in your own town. In board gaming, generally you're playing with your friends because just one person brings out the board and, When you are playing in miniatures, it's me. It's about me having my stuff and you having your stuff. And then we have to kind of get our stuff together and meet someplace. And it's just very convenient to meet at a great, friendly local game store because they usually have tables set aside. They usually have terrain, And so it's really useful, especially for the first couple of times that Over time, Use your own terrain. Maybe have some adult beverages w But, First talk to, if it's, say, the manager that's doing it, first of all, talk to them and say, look, t And I just wanted to have t If they're super defensive and they're the manager, then maybe you want to talk to the owner. If the owner's like, And then somet But if the owner says, I kind of think that my manager's doing a great job keeping people out of the store because I don'then at that point, you've got to kind of decide to figure out somet And it's okay if you don't play at your local store, And then eventually the problem might just fix itself.