Events

I owe a lot of my ideas about how a game store should be run to the owner of Gamer's Haven, Bob. He showed me what it felt like to be a part of a store where the focus was events. Events that you had to nearly fight over to get to be a part of. Tournaments and events that often had a list of alternates half as long as the event itself, with the event having 30 people in it. These events are the reason I got back into wargaming and eventually took over the store for a while.

Fast forward three years and I find myself leaning away from the hobby. Is this a correlation to the crappy event selection in my town? Yes indeed, as my son Malachi would say, it is. Currently the only events that happen here are player run, with almost distaste from the owner. I have tried multiple times to get a standard tournament running, but the owner is very against standard tournaments. He had a bad run in a few years ago with a now infamous cheater and it turned him off. He saw one person come in and compete for prizes by being a douche. This has tainted his views ever since, and he will even hamper any thoughts of a standard tourny.

His answer was to run scavenger hunt style events where players were rewarded for participation in the games and certain random events. These events are fun but they become stale after a short amount of time. I need a reason to bring my levels up. I became a better painter and player in CDA because I was surrounded by great painters and players. I stepped up my game in a competitive environment. A fluffy everyone gets a participation environment does not work to make people want to be better. It sets the bar low and people just hit the bar.

This also affects sales. Why buy a new army when you can just show up with what you have? I am for a varied environment that is not all competitive, but is not all fluffy and hippy either. I guess effort is required for this, and the current store is not interested in exerting extra effort. Just keep going with the flow. Hell I am all for experience, but experience can create stagnation and jadedness.

There are hints of a new store, and this is a good thing. Either the new store will blow the current one out of the water, or it will force the current one to step up.

One note, this is about me venting on the subject and is not designed to go after the current store. I have tried to help and Im done helping. Now I am merely venting and waiting to see what happens.