Well, it is official! We are one year old here at Gamers Link Chicago! It's been a rough year, and there are definitely some sexy emotional scars amongst us, but here we are, still standing! There's a lot to report, so let's get to it!
The summer is mainly what's fresh in my mind, so let's start there. It is interesting how much our Magic crowd dropped off, and how much our YuGiOh crowd started coming in. I theorize that since the YuGI kids are on summer break, they have nothing really better to do than come to the store, otherwise they would probably be wrangled into chores, and other bull crap. Can't say I don't relate, because I basically grew up in a game store.
Where as the YuGi kids have less to do, the Magic crowd has more to do during the summer. They are older, and a large majority of them are college students. College students don't have the same problem that younger kids do with being at home, and they usually have girl friends and such. We here at Gamers Link always encourage spending time with your woman over gaming. If you can't figure out which is more important, don't worry, we'll help you out.
I also think it was an issue of mixing... If you are a pair of Magic players, and the store is filled with 20 or so YuGi kids, maybe you just go home instead. Fair enough, because the crowd doesn't really mix that much, as in you really either play one game, or the other.
We still hit big numbers for pre release events and such, but our low key weekly tournaments have been poorly attended; even our FNM hit its lowest point since we started hosting them!
School is coming back into session, and I am guessing we will see more Magic players again. I hope the YuGi crowd keeps coming though, because they are cool kids, and YuGiOh is a very strong selling game (comparable to Magic lately!)
We picked up another game over the summer called Vanguard. I am a pretty big fan of the game, and for a while we were having huge turn outs, because kids from another game store would come out our way. They stopped coming though, and it has mostly died off.
We have two other games that we are getting into at the shop here, and both are basically the same game, only with different IP's, and oddly, different manufacturers. They are Star Wars XWing, and Star Trek Attack Wing. Both are basically really cool tactical combat miniature games, and though I am not a huge fan of Star Wars, I LOVE STAR TREK! The cool thing about it is that it is based on the TNG / DS9 / VYG time line, instead of some Joss Whedon movie tie-in. It could have been very bad, but instead, you can get a big ass Borg Cube for $25. DEAL GIVE ME MORE! Oh yeah, and the Star Wars game is cool, too.
The other big news bit of the day is the arrival of the DND 5th Edition Players Handbook. The PHB is the traditional lifeblood of a DND line, and this was no difference. I unfortunately have not had a chance to play the new DND yet (I don't have a World of Warcraft account... I have a life!), but I did pretty much read the book cover to cover. It is a very simplified version of what 3 / 3.5 were doing, with some 4th edition structures transplanted. There is still Pathfinder, which is basically a better version of 3.5, so the fact that this game takes a lot of different paths is very cool. We have weekly games scheduled for DND, so come on over and check it out!
As I write this, our one-year anniversary party is going to take place later on in the day. It will be a fun celebration, so I hope to see all my favorite customers come on out!
See ya later!
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