LGSes Support and Consequence

Well it seems that as I become more and more involved in the process of bringing the Game to people I become more and more invested in how the Game continues to sustain itself. Over at Privateer Press' forums there has been some discussion about online stores who do major discounts. I know for a fact that Wizards of the Coast, Games Workshop and Privateer Press all attempt to give extra support to the LGS because they know where their bread and butter comes from. Let's break it down

1.LGSes get new players into the Game selling product
2.LGSes provide a place to meet other gamers and create a community that you want to be in
2.5 LGSes provide the space for creating veterans and life-long customers
3.Life-long customers attract new players by essentially advertising the game in store
3.5 Veterans bring in new customers adding to the community
4.LGSes provide events, terrain, leagues, prizes etc to the community creating excitement and structure to the Game.
5.Veteran gamers drop out and move on to other things, or just stop buying as they are done collecting

Wash-rinse-repeat untill you hit that magic number of new players replacing old players and you have a succesful LGS and a really great place to play.

This system has worked for 30+ years, but is on the verge of melting down in the face of online discounters who hope to make their money the Wal-Mart way. a 10% margin is fine if you're selling 400 times the amount of product. Doing that shouldn't even be that hard if you can tap into customers who are still at step 1-2, and don't have any loyalty to their store. Of course, the other players they're going to snag are the veteran gamers who have bought a full army/game/whatever and now they feel like paying full price doesnt sound that good.

Thus an LGS only has a small window of opportunity to create a real bond with their customers that will have them coming into the store to buy from them instead of shopping around. LGSes can go to their customers and say ,"listen, when you buy from me, you're paying for the terrain, tables, league, prizes and support. that's why it costs more", but unless that customer actually cares about the community that exists at the store it won't matter.

So what do I think of all this? I think that you can't stop progress and you can't close pandora's box once the cat is out of the bag. All corny lines aside, the future of the LGS is going to look different than it is today and I for one plan on building it. I think a different model of gaming store is going to succeed and I think I know what it might look like.

I think it's going to focus on gaming space, a club feel and more gamers coming to one location. I'll keep mum for now, but I don't think the online discounters have it right. Every time they put an LGS out of business they're killing off the very source of customers they live off of. Purely online discounters are parasite businesses that will die off when they've killed the last stores that are susceptible to their predations. For that, I thank them because the Game will be served through the forced evolution of the LGS.

I, for one, say the State of the Game will be better off after these times.