The Start
Well, I'm back on this site. For some reason, Tumblr remains the one site I'm mildly used to dealing with. There have been some attempts to get my thoughts organized into one space, and I truly don't know how long I can keep this up for or if it would even be much use to anyone other than myself. I co-own a LGS. I know I've immediately lost quite a few people. An LGS is a Local Game Store. The next question I would usually get is, "Oh, Video Games?" No. Tabletop games. "Oh, Monopoly?" Yes, (though we refuse to sell Monopoly on the grounds that the game sucks), but we specialize in Tabletop Roleplaying Games (TRPGs) and Trading Card Games (TCGs). What follows is less of a question and more of a judgement, "Oh, do you actually make money?" Well, it's at least asked plenty on my family's side. If it was our insurance broker or banker, you'd get raised eyebrows when we completely insist it's a legitimate business model. Especially when you consider our roots. We started out at our local anime convention. It wasn't even our business, we just represented another LGS supporting a tabletop and gaming scene. You know if you've ever been to an anime convention, and casually walk by their 'tabletop gaming' space, there's a 50/50 chance it's packed with con-goers playing card games or if it's filled with empty tables other attendees have found to put down their merch. I like to maintain we were always in the former camp, but there were some years and some hours where it most definitely was the later. We continued doing this on a volunteer basis for a few years, until the revelation struck my partner that we could be the ones keeping the 5000 dollar check rather than giving it, and the leftover product, to the LGS. We officially sign state and county paperwork early next year, getting signed up with a distributor so we could get some product at wholesale rather than retail, and obtain an FEIN. We always intended for this to be a side-gig, something fun part time because our rationale was that we could not sustain a convention every other week with adequate quality. Plus, it's rather low paying. Well, after getting laid off with severance from our office jobs, Partner took it as a sign to do this full time, while I decided on a different Full Time job, but to offer support when I could. However, this was January 2020, and a global crisis was brewing.
Cut to 2022. We did every and any local event we could, though they were few and far between in the early days of the COVID pandemic. With the ever shifting landscape of different mask rules, large gathering bans, and, well, the chance of catching COVID, the business really struggled. We were once again at the mercy of another LGS to host our items during their Pokemon TCG Nights, of which, Partner was the certified judge for. Clawing back, one game, one little sale at a time, we realized conventions would not be stable enough. We needed a home base that people could actually visit that wasn't just our garage. An angel loan here and there, we scrapped together enough funds (and quite a bit of debt) to open a small shop.
We still do conventions here and there, but our goal has shifted from running gaming rooms, to making money, to securing new inventory for the home players. It's been a strange dynamic, and we've thus moved into a bigger location. So when people ask us, "Do you make money?" the answer is complicated, but short answer is 'Yes'.
