Episode 03 - Fricking Pikmin - 8-25-13

Welcome back!  In episode three of 'The Link Adventure', we are going to get more into the actual store down in Gatlinburg, and the friendly mountain folk I met while down there. 

Before I went off on a tangent about my booze-fueled vacation, I began to talk about the lady that runs the store – Shelly.  She puts a woman’s touch on the store, and definitely knows how to run a store.  They have a lot of cool jewelry and fairy models and such, kind of like you might find in one of those head shops on Clark Street.  The actual gaming stuff is there, of course, with Munchkin and Games Workshop stuff as well.  They consign art from this super talented / cool guy down there named Ryan.  Check out his stuff at https://www.facebook.com/WonderFullArt .

When it came to the Magic selection, they have everything you would need, when it comes to product from distributors.  Unfortunately, the selection of singles was a little limited at the time, and they used Star City Games pricing (barf).  It was mostly what Cassidy, Eddie’s cousin, had in his collection, with a few cards on consignment.  They didn’t buy / trade for product like most game stores, mainly because Magic is a pretty intense market to get into, even for someone who writes about it every week. 

I specifically asked why they didn’t do it, and Cassidy told me that he traded for a Damri Rade when it was highly valued, but like most mythics that are overvalued at the beginning of a release, Damri quickly fell in price.  This put them off of investing in singles, which is a shame, but it’s pretty much the name of the game.  I tried to explain why this happened, but I think they thought I was full of crap, so whatever. 

Not to say they were wrong about Magic at all, because I was of the opinion that the Intro packs don’t sell well.  Shelly proudly proclaimed I was wrong, and still likes to poke me about it to this day.  I understand why I was wrong, especially since the Intro packs come with two boosters, which makes up for the fact that nothing else in the pile is worth anything.  From my point of view, and that of most experienced players, intro packs are a good way to lose money.  They never print anything valuable in those things.  However, that is not the crowd that they have down there, and there is no doubt that it is a good place to get people into playing the game.   

As I mentioned, the crowd at the Gatlinburg store is mostly Cassidy’s friends when I was there, though the tourist location brings in a lot of people to stop and chat with.  Too bad their Magic collection is always back home…  There were pretty slim pickings for trading at first, but that turned around soon.  I will get into that in a few entries. 

I am not good with names, what with my awful hearing abilities, so really there is only one kid whose name I remember, because I gave him that name.  This kid is… PIKMIN!  So, this kid is one of the fresh Magic scrubs who is just getting into the game, and gets super excited about ripping a common.  He was an enthusiastic kid in general, really nice, but he had one problem – he would literally sales block you.  I wasn’t officially working or anything, but it was good practice to try to sell customers something.  Every single GOD DANG time, PIKMIN would interrupt me with some inane question to the customer, and drive away the sale.

I was talking to a chick about Warhammer, and the new 40K video game, hoping that she would end up walking out with some Space Marines or something.  Instead, PIKMIN gained his name sake, and asked the woman if she ever played PIKMIN.  She said no, and he said it was a good game, and then… she left.  The next day, while drinking and playing Munchkin, Eddie and I decided to put him in his place, and it ended up with me saying the oft-repeated lines, “Seriously.  Fricking PIKMIN.”  

None of this is meant to be an offense to anyone, least of all my homies down at Gamers Link Gatlinburg.  Knowing the MtG intimately is a daunting task, and I am pretty lucky to have a job writing articles for the gaming amalgam that is TCGPlayer.  This is a big part of what I bring to our own store, and I am going to bring that to the Gatlingburg market as well.  As for PIKMIN, he was a good kid, and I am a grumpy old D-bag.

See you next time!