Re: Wargames Stores

Hi Roger,

>It seems to me that what ought to work quite well is small local 
>conventions in the GZG-ECC style (apologies to the WCC guys, but I 
>haven't been to one of those), where potential new players can try out 
>the rules, see the miniatures, etc. Combine that with flyers at the con

>saying "right, that was fun wasn't it, if you want to buy these things 
>here's how to do it". You won't get sponsorship from your local game 
>store, but if your local game store stocked GZG stuff you wouldn't need

>to run a convention in this style anyway... and if the local wargamers 
>start talking about GZG, perhaps the store will reconsider stocking it 
>after all.
>

You'd think that would work, because it makes sense, right?

I've been doing that sort of thing here (in Toronto) for years, running
demo events of Stargrunt at local cons.  We have two or three "game"
conventions here in town every year, which are all about participatory
gaming of all kinds and which have dealers' rooms/areas.  There are a
couple of other "genre" events, like Toronto Trek - which, incidentally,
starts today and at which I'll be running Stargrunt - that have small
gaming programming.  I always take along a flyer with a blurb about
Stargrunt and contact info for GZG, Eureka and GeoHex (when it was
distributing GZG). 

Almost invariably, we have a great demo game and when I get to the "so,
you
can't buy it in stores, you have to mailorder from England" the players
are
interested in a vague way, but that's it.  Either vague interest, or no
interest.  But we've had this problem for ages - there was no Canadian
distributor for GZG stuff, even when GeoHex was doing it in the US, and
Canadian stores just didn't ever get the stuff in - except one or two
here
and there who bring in the stuff occasionally in little bits.

The best success I've had boosting the games has been when I ran demos
at a
store nearby who actually ordered in a pile of stuff from GeoHex.  It
took
a couple of store demo events plus the store staff boosing the products,
but we started to get people actually ordering stuff, interested in
playing, etc.  Then GeoHex stopped distributing, the guy at the store
who
was boosting the games stopped working at the store, etc etc etc.  Doing
demos at events like game conventions is great - but it isn't *enough*
usually to get people to go out and buy the game.  Not here anyway.

Some serious gamers will mailorder - I've bought the vast majority of my
GZG stuff that way, and frankly *prefer* to mailorder GZG stuff because
I'm
very comfortable with GZG's service and trust their products (and I
never
liked GeoHex's packaging policies, plus it was less expensive to
mailorder
from the UK).  Beginners won't mailorder - well, not in my experience
anyway.  They want to see the products live.  Beginners are often young,
and don't have credit cards so mailordering out of country is a bit of a
challenge.  What we end up with is that without someone in N.America
distributing and "boosting" the games, I wonder if they will be able to
attract a "new" audience or will they be restricted to experienced
gamers
who know about them already...?  The new people see GW, so they play
GW...

-Adrian

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Adrian Johnson
adrian@stargrunt.ca
http://www.stargrunt.ca

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