It's the same story near me. Even the second-tier stores at the local malls (the ones with 50 versions of Monopoly and nearly as many collectible chess sets) have all closed. I did my best to support them when they were around, but the lack of service (I stopped going to the nearest one when the manager said I obviously didn't know anything about games) and prices just drove me to the 'net with everyone else.
I think the Friendly Local Game Store is nearly a thing of the past. (What someone needs to do is build a chain that can offer Internet pricing in store and put the "local" back in FLGS by connecting to the community. That is about the only way to ensure long-term success. I actually have the outline of a business plan to do just that, but unfortunately Phase I is "Win Lottery".)
Chris
On 8/6/07, vijay chopra <vjchopra@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Indeed, The shop I was talking about is in a City of around 220,000+ people. You'd think that although a small city, it'd be able to support a board-game shop, after all we have a Games Workshop or two and a Forbidden Planet, but no store that sells board games. The very fact that there isn't a chain that sells board-games in the same vein that the other two stores sell comics or Warhammer models, speaks volumes in itself.