Game Store
Jan. 5th, 2006 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jcfialaSo, it's been a while, I've noticed, since I've bought a full-price RPG manual from an actual roleplaying book store. It's a little bit of a shock - similar to a Catholic suddenly realizing that he hasn't been to confession for four months, even though he's been to bible study twice a week. :)
And it's not that I haven't been buying games, either. A few full-price over the internet from the publishers, but most of my purchases have been on ebay, picking up books I'm interested in for half to a quarter of the actual sale price. It's let me pick up a number of books that I normally wouldn't have bothered to at full price, and right now my shelves are over-flowing with books I've bought but not read. For instance, last night I picked up 'Paranoia XP', the Paranoia 'Traitor's Manual', the new 'World of Darkness' corebook, and the Werewolf book, for a total of $20 + tax. (No shipping - they were being sold by a Denver area ebay shop, and they let me come by and pick them up in person.)
Part of the problem is that I'm not going to the game stores as often as I used to. I used to have a weekly game at Valhallas Game Center in town, but they have a restrictive food policy (which to a degree I can see the value of) which caused the group - after several years - to give up going there and instead meet at one of our homes. It's too far to drop by and browse for the heck of it, and when I drop in in the midst of other chores I'm usually not in the mood to make any major purchasing. All the other game stores are even further away - not worth the trip when I can get it cheaper (if slower) from the comfort of whereever I'm logged in.
Thinking back, I think the last time I actually bothered to buy a full-price game from a store may have been back at Tacticon last year... and then it wasn't even a store, it was the dealer's room at the convention... and most of the stuff I did buy were at some pretty heavy discounts.
Hmm. Seems to me someone'd do well opening a game store somewhere other than Aurora or Arvada... maybe someplace closer to, oh, downtown...
And it's not that I haven't been buying games, either. A few full-price over the internet from the publishers, but most of my purchases have been on ebay, picking up books I'm interested in for half to a quarter of the actual sale price. It's let me pick up a number of books that I normally wouldn't have bothered to at full price, and right now my shelves are over-flowing with books I've bought but not read. For instance, last night I picked up 'Paranoia XP', the Paranoia 'Traitor's Manual', the new 'World of Darkness' corebook, and the Werewolf book, for a total of $20 + tax. (No shipping - they were being sold by a Denver area ebay shop, and they let me come by and pick them up in person.)
Part of the problem is that I'm not going to the game stores as often as I used to. I used to have a weekly game at Valhallas Game Center in town, but they have a restrictive food policy (which to a degree I can see the value of) which caused the group - after several years - to give up going there and instead meet at one of our homes. It's too far to drop by and browse for the heck of it, and when I drop in in the midst of other chores I'm usually not in the mood to make any major purchasing. All the other game stores are even further away - not worth the trip when I can get it cheaper (if slower) from the comfort of whereever I'm logged in.
Thinking back, I think the last time I actually bothered to buy a full-price game from a store may have been back at Tacticon last year... and then it wasn't even a store, it was the dealer's room at the convention... and most of the stuff I did buy were at some pretty heavy discounts.
Hmm. Seems to me someone'd do well opening a game store somewhere other than Aurora or Arvada... maybe someplace closer to, oh, downtown...
