Support you local game store!
I have been mulling this over and umming and ahhing over whether to publish it. In the meantime, Gary Ray over at Black Diamond Games – author of the excellent book "Friendly Local Gamestore" – published a piece over on his blog "Quest for Fun" that summarises and expands on my own thoughts much more eloquantly. I suggest you read that too for a more experienced look atg how COVID-19 is affecting the games industry. He's also written a follow up looking into problems and solutions which is also a good read for those interested!
Welcome back to my (highly!) sporadic posts on gaming and other myriad stuff. This post is written at a strange time – the COVID-19 pandemic is in full swing and here in the UK we're in lockdown. Most physical stores, except for those deemed essential, have been closed. Employees have been laid off in some cases, furloughed in others (as in mine!) or instructed to work from home where possible. The government has whipped up one of the largest monetary packages to try and help the countries workforce and businesses through these uncertain times...
For those of us who are members of the tabletop gaming industry/hobby, we can no longer meet up with friends to play games, roll dice and chat about our interested. However, being an industrious group, we've turned to virtual experiences to obtain our gaming fixes – there have been stories of wargames played remotely over Skype, Magic: The Gathering being played online via webcam, and RPGs run on a variety of services, ranging from Discord to Roll20 (to the extent that there has been visible slow down in the latter!).
Publishers have been hit by distributors closing down operations in the short term, meaning that products aren't getting out, though many have stated that they can sell direct to customers through their own warehouses or, in the case of RPGs and book-based games, can offer digital formats like PDF. However, it is the bottom rung of the distribution chain that may be hit the hardest in this climate - the FLGS or friendly local game store.
Local game stores often form the crux of local gaming communities – it's where you go to pick up the latest games and where you meet friends to play games, take part in competitions or just chat about the latest releases that you're into. They offer the space to play our favourite games and organise events, such as Friday Night Magic, wargames or RPG nights. But now they are closed. Those spaces are unavailable. And in FLGSs everywhere, income streams are going to be rocky over the coming months when they aren't seeing their usual crowds come to store to browse, play games and socialise.
Last year, I landed a dream job - working as the manager at my local game store. While I'm trained as an archaeologist and have attempted working in that field, gaming has always been a huge part of my life and running a game store a secret fantasy. Now the fantasy is real. I got stuck into the task of ramping up social media output, trying to institute some new events, getting sucked back into playing Magic: The Gathering to help chat to out Magic community better... So far the store has had one of it's best years. Up until March, that is. We initially saw an uptick in sales due to people "panic" buying games for lockdown or anything that they wanted but perceived they might not be able to buy in a few weeks if we got ordered to close. Here I say panic buying, but not in the same sense as hogging all the toilet roll. More akin to people buying that one expensive game they'd been holding off on committing to for a while (like Gloomhaven) or families looking to buy a few new things to entertain both adults and children.
Then the closure order came into effect. Fortunately, we had a website for the store already, so a "cleansing" of out-of-stock products and a thorough stock check was performed to aid in navigating what we had. We began to offer a local delivery service so that many of our regulars who lived close to the store didn't have to pay to have their games shipped. We still offered recommendations via Facebook and email. We continued to offer the ability to special order games in as long as our suppliers remained open and had stock available. And we rolled out discount codes to our most loyal customers to say thank you and help generate sales. We saw another decent week – people now "panic" buying games who had missed out on doing so before we closed – although nothing like our usual expectations, there was hope that this might continue. Other stores, we saw, we're doing similar things. But others had been forced to shut down fully – they were too small, had too many overheads, or were unable to take their business online. We were very lucky to head into this crisis with a website and a reasonably robust online community!
Publishers are also doing their best to help – some better than others – with Wizards of the Coast helping stores take their Adventurer's League and FNM online (and offering a free allocation of Mystery Boosters!), Modiphius setting up an affiliate program that pays 40% of a sale back to the FLGS and so on. But it has proven, at least in our experience, somewhat difficult to encourage engagement with online events. Our FNMs run through Arena – which we're allowed to charge for and are doing so in the same way as physical FNMs (free booster for entry and prize support) – have had little take-up. Likewise, our RPG nights have been mostly taken online by our GMs, but are currently being run for free on a variety of platforms suited to each individual running them, rather than a central service in store. We've only had one hit via an affiliate programme, and that was for a free product. Unfortunately, 40% of nothing equals nothing...
After the initial glut of purchases, purchases have tailed off. Without being able to run our weekly Commander nights, Dragon Ball, Magic and YuGiOh tournaments, the usual revenue from these events is not coming in and casual game purchases and impulse buys no longer take place. Of course, there will be many who are worried about income, who have been furloughed with 20% pay reduction or just laid off entirely and thus not able to think about buying games. And most will not want to buy one or two booster packs for their favourite card game when shipping for them is nearly the same prices (or more!) than a pack. Some others might turn to online retailers in order to find the most cost-effective solutions for their gaming needs. But the fact of the matter is that if FLGSs are to weather this storm then they are going to need some income.
If you use your FLGS as a hub for your gaming – whether it's somewhere you go to play war games, card games, RPGs or just to chat with the staff, the owner, or fellow gamers – then try and think about how you can help them out. Maybe buy that game you're after from them, despite being able to get it cheaper elsewhere. Perhaps try engaging with their online communities – there are probably loads of other bored gamers (see what I did there!) who would love to chat about their favourite hobby! Take part in your store's online events if you can, even if there is a charge, as every little bit of income will most likely count. If you buy a pack or two of your favourite card game every week, maybe considered saving up the cash and ordering what you'd usually get as a bundle of packs at one time to save on shipping. Look to see if your local store is offering things like local delivery/pickup too. If there is a game you really want that's available for pre-order, considered purchasing it now – you're FLGS is going to appreciate having the capital in advance to make the order and get you your game!
Help your local game store out now and it will pay dividends in the future when they are still there to provide gaming space for you and your fellow hobbyists once things start to open up again. Remember that it is them, not Amazon or other online giants, that can offer you a third space to play in, special order that obscure item, and chinwag with you about your favourite stuff. Your FLGS needs you right now, so take up the call!