Where I live, we've joked that we've gone through so many stores that at least one of us must be cursed. Aside from the high cost of retail space, I've found a shocking number of store policies that make it hostile to players:
No trades/sales - I understand why stores ban trading (and also selling), but it's also means that players feel as if they're forced to devalue all their cards by selling to the store, forced to buy singles, or simply conduct all business outside of the store.
Poor prize structure. One place I used to go to had a flat fee for constructed tournaments and EVERYONE got one pack no matter how they finished (If you got first place, you might get 4 packs, depending on how many people played). Similarly, another place I knew had draft pods of 8 and gave one pack per match win - think of it as a 3-2-2-2-1-1-1 queue. While both systems encourage players who do poorly and don't want to feel like they walked away with nothing, it also means that there's little incentive to win.
Odd arbitrary rules. One store I went to forced you to rare draft, because kids' parents would complain that the kids would draft, not get any rares and waste money. One store I was at charged you money to play if you didn't sign up for a sanctioned event. I went to one store where I played a white weenie deck in their FNM and was promptly told at the end of the night that netdecks were banned and if I ever wanted to play there again, I had to play something else. Today, I'd probably report the store, but back then, I just went to another store. The same store didn't know to break up draft pods, so when 14 people signed up, we had one massive 14-man draft pod.
Poor tournament rules. After one tournament, I inquired why my 3-1 record put me just outside the top X people who got prizes while another person with a 3-1 record made it in. They weren't using DCI reporter or calculating OMW, so their system was different. Suppose I lost my first round and won the next three (LWWW), my four opponents had the following match records (in order):
WWWW, LLWW, WLLW, WWLL My opponents won a total of 10 matches (> 50% OMW).
Another player, who went WLWW played four opponent who ended up:
LLLL, WWLL, WLLL, WLWL His opponents only won 5 matches (<50% OMW).
My opponents were better; I should have better tiebreakers - one was the undefeated top player, the other three were all 2-2. This other guy beat an 0-4 player, a 1-3 player and two 2-2 players. However, I was told because they ranked players based on "Strength of Schedule", my first round loss meant that I was ranked lower than another player who won his first round and lost his second. My second round opponent lost his first match; his second round opponent won his first match, so he faced a stronger opponent than I did, apparently. I was quite livid and that made for a terrible tournament experience for me. That's not the kind of thing that makes you want to return.
The store I currently patronize is next to a Chinese restaurant that "delivers" food to the shop and one person in the store set it up with the owner to have wi-fi for us, paid through a slight increase in the entry fee for FNM every week. Quite a few people simply walk around the corner to a convenience store to get soda and chips to eat, though. Now, only if I could convince them that $15 for a Hallowed Fountain isn't reasonable.
The store I currently patronize is next to a Chinese restaurant that "delivers" food to the shop and one person in the store set it up with the owner to have wi-fi for us, paid through a slight increase in the entry fee for FNM every week. Quite a few people simply walk around the corner to a convenience store to get soda and chips to eat, though. Now, only if I could convince them that $15 for a Hallowed Fountain isn't reasonable.
If you go where I think you go, that's a Korean restaurant, not Chinese.
Otherwise, there are several eerie coincidences between your local shop and mine.
I'm pretty lucky by the sounds of it. I go to a university which uses the top couples floors of a mall. On the first level is a gaming store. The owner's love is board games, but he's happy to keep Magic around since it pays the bills pretty effectively.
Food court - lots of variety to overspend on
Drafts - the owner lets you use prize packs for future drafts
No singles - but you can trade or sell in store, which works out fairly well. The owner doesn't want the conflict of interest or to spend the time pricing cards.
Flexible schedule - the owner is happy to sanction monthly legacy or whatever the flavour of the month is (ie PTQ format). That's on top of the weekly Thursday draft and FNM
DCI Reporter - everything runs sanctioned through the proper software. yay!
Judges - there's an L1 (me) and an experienced L0 around to keep things kosher
The only real drawback is the mall hours: 9pm Wed-Friday means we have to look for alternative locales to "run it back." It's ~6pm other days which is even worse for Saturday events, but it's not a horrible trade off.
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Welcome to the club of fans that have been attacked by the game they love most.
Good article and I pretty much agree with what it says.
Here's a question about gaming stores: how do you make the store friendly to casual players? The serious/competitive/tournament players will show up as long as you run sanctioned events with reasonable prices & prize support. And yeah some casual players will draft because they just love drafting.
But how do you get people to want to just hang out and sling cardboard with casual decks purely for fun with no regard for tournaments or "serious" play? And I don't mean special formats like EDH.
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GDS1 & GDS2 entrant. Former Rules Advisor & casual-level TO. Semi-lapsed player in general.
What we're doing here is akin to taking the text of Moby Dick, locating specific words therein, rearranging them to create a passage from Fight Club, and concluding from this evidence that Tyler Durden is based on Ahab.
But how do you get people to want to just hang out and sling cardboard with casual decks purely for fun with no regard for tournaments or "serious" play? And I don't mean special formats like EDH.
I would guess you try get rid of the obstacles that would chase them away:
1) Don't tolerate "superior" attitudes by tournament players.
2) Collect "random"/"junk" cards in a box for casual players to paw through. Start with the cards drafters leave behind.
3) Try not to treat them as second hand citizens as far as letting them have table room even during events if possible.
4) Maybe use Wizards Play Network system where they get foils based on games played regardless of outcome
The other question is "why?" What do you hope to get out of random casual players?
Assuming you want to encourage them to spend money at some point, incentive the product that seems most applicable (casual players seem to LOVE to buy product. Buy 9, get the 10th booster free maybe?)
If you want to make tourneys seem more appealing, hold a training session in regards to draft or whatever. Just basic stuff so they don't feel like total fish.
If you just want bodies in chairs so you look like a more active shop, I'd guess you'll need to do something to make the store appealing. There's about a million random things. This thread has been pretty good at highlighting the things people like, so I'd suggest using those tips!
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Quote from Rancored_Elf »
Welcome to the club of fans that have been attacked by the game they love most.
Assuming you want to encourage them to spend money at some point, incentive the product that seems most applicable (casual players seem to LOVE to buy product. Buy 9, get the 10th booster free maybe?)
My local store gives you $5 store credit for every $100 you spend. Sorta like 5% off of everything, but when you let it build up, it is kinda nice.
As for product, my local store sells 10th boosters 4 for $10, and any other $3.99 booster combination 3 for $10. It really lets casual players build up their collections. They also have a singles system where they have binders that have photocopies of cards in it, along with prices. If you want a card or two, you go up to the front and ask for it. Sometimes they have it, sometimes they don't. It can be frustrating, but you can often find the singles that you want. They do have the "case o doom" as an earlier poster put it for staples from all sanctioned formats. Mostly, though, it's just an empty case with a few money rares inside.
Food is good because they are right across the street from a Subway and a BK, there is a Chinese place down the block, and a small grocery store next door. I really enjoy the place. The employees are welcoming and know many of the regulars on a first-name basis (such as myself).
I used to play at a store within 40mins from where I but it closed down due to financial troubles, maily people came in and play but did not buy stuff.
Then another store came in and even beign a very good store it closed down, again due to the player's lack of support.
I believe its hard for a store to survive only on card games, mainly to the high cost of rent. Both stores devoted like 80% of the place to the player's area and the rest to selling product. If people do not support their stores the magic playing community just will fall down.
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"Those who endure in the face of suffering, those whose faith shines long in evil days, they shall see salvation." -Song of All, canto 904
On a related note to the "food" cartegory, I am interested in knowing what different policies are out there for BYOB situations. Our local shop recently made the decision to prohibit us from bringing beer to drafts, much to the disappointment of several of us players. Mind you this was not any kind of overconsumption or anything, it was just that several of us would bring six packs and such to have a beer or two throughout th night. Nothing excessive. The justification was that there were occasionally younger kids around (although I've only seen one or two kids beyond upper high school range in the last year), but none of us ever would have given someone underage a drink, and had never done so. I was just wondering other people's oppinions of this.
I've always thought that an upscale coffee shop/bar/game store that served alcohol would be a good place to game and play magic. The problem is that you would have problems with younger players being around people that are drinking, and you would also face the inevitable problem of the gamers trashing the store and annoying the regular customers.
A whole other question, how big a population would you say a town needs to support a decent store?
Interesting. I'm not really sure what the bottom population size would be. I think its more important whether there is a college in said town or the vibe of the town. If the town doesn't have a established college, stores never seem to last too long. Colleges themselves seem to bring this vibe or energy to the area. I wish I could explain what I mean better. Seatle (WA) or Madison (WI) are two of the best examples of places that have this vibe. Somehow when you are in those places you can just feel the energy.
Then again, maybe there are just smarter people in those towns that like to play games.
I believe its hard for a store to survive only on card games, mainly to the high cost of rent. Both stores devoted like 80% of the place to the player's area and the rest to selling product. If people do not support their stores the magic playing community just will fall down.
Totally agree. You need to be doing double duty as a comic shop and/or non-CCG games (Warhammer & Warmachine, and Clix before Wizkids went kaput). Selling on ebay is probably also a must.
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Sig banner by Xyre. My MTG Blog (inactive)
GDS1 & GDS2 entrant. Former Rules Advisor & casual-level TO. Semi-lapsed player in general.
The other question is "why?" What do you hope to get out of random casual players?
Assuming you want to encourage them to spend money at some point, incentive the product that seems most applicable (casual players seem to LOVE to buy product. Buy 9, get the 10th booster free maybe?)
If you want to make tourneys seem more appealing, hold a training session in regards to draft or whatever. Just basic stuff so they don't feel like total fish.
Allow me to share some of what I've done.
Since Lorwyn, I've run an in-store league based on one that I ran back during Ice Age. The first week you get the same as you would for a sealed deck tournament and you build a minimum 40-card deck. Each week you buy the selected pack for that week and add it to your mix, and your minimum deck size goes up by 2. At the end of the league I have some weird tournament - the twists are not announced until everyone has arrived and sat down (for example, the Conflux league ended in a tournament where random world enchants would come into effect, and a player could pay 5 life to get that effect removed from his game).
The league has been amazing in teaching new players and getting them used to competition, but not thrown right into the heavy competition of FNM. We still have some of our top guys playing in the league, but they're also the guys that just want to play to have fun, and don't mind sitting down with a new player and tearing his deck apart and not just rebuilding it - but TEACHING him as they do it. Explaining why certain cards are useful. It gets even better when two or more of us are doing it, and you start getting differing opinions, exposing that new player to how deck construction works.
Thankfully my "end tournament with a twist" system has done well at keeping the so-called (and self-dubbed) "pro" players that dominate FNM out of the league. They can't stomach anything that isn't DCI sanctioned (although they make an exception for cube). I'm happy with this, as it keeps out the "I'm gonna crush you" type of person that a new player does NOT need to be exposed to right off the bat. Let them learn the fun part of the game first, and then let them choose to graduate to FNM.
If anyone wants info on how I run my leagues (each one is more successful than the last), feel free to drop me a PM. If there's enough interest, I'll make a general post about it.
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L1 MtG judge (L2 coming soon) and Dominion tournament coordinator serving Flint MI and its surrounding cities.
A whole other question, how big a population would you say a town needs to support a decent store?
The smallest population I have ever seen support a store goes to Otisville, Michigan, home of the "Red Dragon," which sells primarily D&D books and accessories (last I checked, it has been several years since I've been there).
It is in a rural area... it is literally in the middle of no where, with no other businesses or BUILDINGS around it. It is northeast of Flint, Michigan (a city of about 200,000 people), but it still some distance from Flint. The immediate city of Otisville is home to a whole 800 people. The next closest city, Millington, is home to 1,000. The "big cities" nearby are Frankenmuth (5000) and Vassar (2800).
I have no idea how they stay in business. It is always deserted when I go there, but I have brought groups of people to play cards or whatever there, so they do get some business!
What is interesting is their webpage... the latest activity is from 2007, mostly stating "Yes, we are still in business!"
Interesting. I'm not really sure what the bottom population size would be. I think its more important whether there is a college in said town or the vibe of the town. If the town doesn't have a established college, stores never seem to last too long. Colleges themselves seem to bring this vibe or energy to the area. I wish I could explain what I mean better. Seatle (WA) or Madison (WI) are two of the best examples of places that have this vibe. Somehow when you are in those places you can just feel the energy.
Then again, maybe there are just smarter people in those towns that like to play games.
That's funny. I live in a college town and the nearest magic store I'm aware of is 30 min away via interstate, not exactly close by....
Where I live, we've joked that we've gone through so many stores that at least one of us must be cursed. Aside from the high cost of retail space, I've found a shocking number of store policies that make it hostile to players:
No trades/sales - I understand why stores ban trading (and also selling), but it's also means that players feel as if they're forced to devalue all their cards by selling to the store, forced to buy singles, or simply conduct all business outside of the store.
Poor prize structure. One place I used to go to had a flat fee for constructed tournaments and EVERYONE got one pack no matter how they finished (If you got first place, you might get 4 packs, depending on how many people played). Similarly, another place I knew had draft pods of 8 and gave one pack per match win - think of it as a 3-2-2-2-1-1-1 queue. While both systems encourage players who do poorly and don't want to feel like they walked away with nothing, it also means that there's little incentive to win.
Odd arbitrary rules. One store I went to forced you to rare draft, because kids' parents would complain that the kids would draft, not get any rares and waste money. One store I was at charged you money to play if you didn't sign up for a sanctioned event. I went to one store where I played a white weenie deck in their FNM and was promptly told at the end of the night that netdecks were banned and if I ever wanted to play there again, I had to play something else. Today, I'd probably report the store, but back then, I just went to another store. The same store didn't know to break up draft pods, so when 14 people signed up, we had one massive 14-man draft pod.
Poor tournament rules. After one tournament, I inquired why my 3-1 record put me just outside the top X people who got prizes while another person with a 3-1 record made it in. They weren't using DCI reporter or calculating OMW, so their system was different. Suppose I lost my first round and won the next three (LWWW), my four opponents had the following match records (in order):
WWWW, LLWW, WLLW, WWLL My opponents won a total of 10 matches (> 50% OMW).
Another player, who went WLWW played four opponent who ended up:
LLLL, WWLL, WLLL, WLWL His opponents only won 5 matches (<50% OMW).
My opponents were better; I should have better tiebreakers - one was the undefeated top player, the other three were all 2-2. This other guy beat an 0-4 player, a 1-3 player and two 2-2 players. However, I was told because they ranked players based on "Strength of Schedule", my first round loss meant that I was ranked lower than another player who won his first round and lost his second. My second round opponent lost his first match; his second round opponent won his first match, so he faced a stronger opponent than I did, apparently. I was quite livid and that made for a terrible tournament experience for me. That's not the kind of thing that makes you want to return.
The store I currently patronize is next to a Chinese restaurant that "delivers" food to the shop and one person in the store set it up with the owner to have wi-fi for us, paid through a slight increase in the entry fee for FNM every week. Quite a few people simply walk around the corner to a convenience store to get soda and chips to eat, though. Now, only if I could convince them that $15 for a Hallowed Fountain isn't reasonable.
If you go where I think you go, that's a Korean restaurant, not Chinese.
Otherwise, there are several eerie coincidences between your local shop and mine.
Food court - lots of variety to overspend on
Drafts - the owner lets you use prize packs for future drafts
No singles - but you can trade or sell in store, which works out fairly well. The owner doesn't want the conflict of interest or to spend the time pricing cards.
Flexible schedule - the owner is happy to sanction monthly legacy or whatever the flavour of the month is (ie PTQ format). That's on top of the weekly Thursday draft and FNM
DCI Reporter - everything runs sanctioned through the proper software. yay!
Judges - there's an L1 (me) and an experienced L0 around to keep things kosher
The only real drawback is the mall hours: 9pm Wed-Friday means we have to look for alternative locales to "run it back." It's ~6pm other days which is even worse for Saturday events, but it's not a horrible trade off.
Here's a question about gaming stores: how do you make the store friendly to casual players? The serious/competitive/tournament players will show up as long as you run sanctioned events with reasonable prices & prize support. And yeah some casual players will draft because they just love drafting.
But how do you get people to want to just hang out and sling cardboard with casual decks purely for fun with no regard for tournaments or "serious" play? And I don't mean special formats like EDH.
Sig banner by Xyre.
My MTG Blog (inactive)
GDS1 & GDS2 entrant. Former Rules Advisor & casual-level TO. Semi-lapsed player in general.
They're pretty good in all of the above categories, with a great selection and decent prices online.
Guildmaster Jarad
I would guess you try get rid of the obstacles that would chase them away:
1) Don't tolerate "superior" attitudes by tournament players.
2) Collect "random"/"junk" cards in a box for casual players to paw through. Start with the cards drafters leave behind.
3) Try not to treat them as second hand citizens as far as letting them have table room even during events if possible.
4) Maybe use Wizards Play Network system where they get foils based on games played regardless of outcome
The other question is "why?" What do you hope to get out of random casual players?
Assuming you want to encourage them to spend money at some point, incentive the product that seems most applicable (casual players seem to LOVE to buy product. Buy 9, get the 10th booster free maybe?)
If you want to make tourneys seem more appealing, hold a training session in regards to draft or whatever. Just basic stuff so they don't feel like total fish.
If you just want bodies in chairs so you look like a more active shop, I'd guess you'll need to do something to make the store appealing. There's about a million random things. This thread has been pretty good at highlighting the things people like, so I'd suggest using those tips!
My local store gives you $5 store credit for every $100 you spend. Sorta like 5% off of everything, but when you let it build up, it is kinda nice.
Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc
Food is good because they are right across the street from a Subway and a BK, there is a Chinese place down the block, and a small grocery store next door. I really enjoy the place. The employees are welcoming and know many of the regulars on a first-name basis (such as myself).
Legacy: WUB Doomsday
Standard: WUB Reanimator
I used to play at a store within 40mins from where I but it closed down due to financial troubles, maily people came in and play but did not buy stuff.
Then another store came in and even beign a very good store it closed down, again due to the player's lack of support.
I believe its hard for a store to survive only on card games, mainly to the high cost of rent. Both stores devoted like 80% of the place to the player's area and the rest to selling product. If people do not support their stores the magic playing community just will fall down.
I've always thought that an upscale coffee shop/bar/game store that served alcohol would be a good place to game and play magic. The problem is that you would have problems with younger players being around people that are drinking, and you would also face the inevitable problem of the gamers trashing the store and annoying the regular customers.
Interesting. I'm not really sure what the bottom population size would be. I think its more important whether there is a college in said town or the vibe of the town. If the town doesn't have a established college, stores never seem to last too long. Colleges themselves seem to bring this vibe or energy to the area. I wish I could explain what I mean better. Seatle (WA) or Madison (WI) are two of the best examples of places that have this vibe. Somehow when you are in those places you can just feel the energy.
Then again, maybe there are just smarter people in those towns that like to play games.
Totally agree. You need to be doing double duty as a comic shop and/or non-CCG games (Warhammer & Warmachine, and Clix before Wizkids went kaput). Selling on ebay is probably also a must.
Sig banner by Xyre.
My MTG Blog (inactive)
GDS1 & GDS2 entrant. Former Rules Advisor & casual-level TO. Semi-lapsed player in general.
Allow me to share some of what I've done.
Since Lorwyn, I've run an in-store league based on one that I ran back during Ice Age. The first week you get the same as you would for a sealed deck tournament and you build a minimum 40-card deck. Each week you buy the selected pack for that week and add it to your mix, and your minimum deck size goes up by 2. At the end of the league I have some weird tournament - the twists are not announced until everyone has arrived and sat down (for example, the Conflux league ended in a tournament where random world enchants would come into effect, and a player could pay 5 life to get that effect removed from his game).
The league has been amazing in teaching new players and getting them used to competition, but not thrown right into the heavy competition of FNM. We still have some of our top guys playing in the league, but they're also the guys that just want to play to have fun, and don't mind sitting down with a new player and tearing his deck apart and not just rebuilding it - but TEACHING him as they do it. Explaining why certain cards are useful. It gets even better when two or more of us are doing it, and you start getting differing opinions, exposing that new player to how deck construction works.
Thankfully my "end tournament with a twist" system has done well at keeping the so-called (and self-dubbed) "pro" players that dominate FNM out of the league. They can't stomach anything that isn't DCI sanctioned (although they make an exception for cube). I'm happy with this, as it keeps out the "I'm gonna crush you" type of person that a new player does NOT need to be exposed to right off the bat. Let them learn the fun part of the game first, and then let them choose to graduate to FNM.
If anyone wants info on how I run my leagues (each one is more successful than the last), feel free to drop me a PM. If there's enough interest, I'll make a general post about it.
The smallest population I have ever seen support a store goes to Otisville, Michigan, home of the "Red Dragon," which sells primarily D&D books and accessories (last I checked, it has been several years since I've been there).
It is in a rural area... it is literally in the middle of no where, with no other businesses or BUILDINGS around it. It is northeast of Flint, Michigan (a city of about 200,000 people), but it still some distance from Flint. The immediate city of Otisville is home to a whole 800 people. The next closest city, Millington, is home to 1,000. The "big cities" nearby are Frankenmuth (5000) and Vassar (2800).
I have no idea how they stay in business. It is always deserted when I go there, but I have brought groups of people to play cards or whatever there, so they do get some business!
What is interesting is their webpage... the latest activity is from 2007, mostly stating "Yes, we are still in business!"
Keep up the good work, guys!
Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc
That's funny. I live in a college town and the nearest magic store I'm aware of is 30 min away via interstate, not exactly close by....
Thanks goes to SpiderBoy4 for this banner. Check out the following thread link for more: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=91142