>great victory for the local British hobby and modelling shop
Those are fucked too fwiw. The best of them will shutter when their current owners die/retire

How ironic that the mainstreaming of the hobby and it being flooded with normies and clout-chasing faggots and troons has actually been the death of it.

I remember when the one in Preston closed. Sweet, sweet, bliss. Not that it ever really had any reason to drop in, unless you wanted overpriced normie manga, overpriced plastic merch, overpriced cards, or one of the handful of gw kits they sold.
There was not even any terrain.

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Based.

I love to see normies losing money when they try to take over nerd hobbies. We need to return to being outsider art. For gamers and by gamers.

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>>97610585
The death of it might be oversaturation with shops/games, (inter)national financial crisis and players completed their armies.

>>97610718
more like normies don't go to shops and just order on amazon

>>97610754
Forgot that. Thx.
Everything moves towards internet retailers. Shops are only for entertainment. People like to browse through the selection but buy it cheaper in the internet.

>>97610379
Much as I am sure these faggots deserve to go out of business, it's probably more another sign of everything being fucked than anything beneficial.

>>97610819
How are Forbidden Planet and Travelling Man doing?
Comparing their success or failure to Geek Retreat would be a decent indicator if Geek Retreat was just poorly managed or a sign of a shitty economic environment for these types of chain stores

Remember, gatekeeping your hobbies keeps them complex and fun

>>97610665
Lancaster here.
Geek Retreat closed a year or two back, while we still have two actually decent FLGS in town and a place that just sells cards out of a back room. While I don't talk to the owners of either about how business is going, neither TTR or B&S looks like they are fucked.

The Geek Retreat in our town was terribly positioned in a way that made you feel like you were on display to the world.
Wasn't the preston geek retreat the one opposite the mcdonalds where chavvy kids would hang out all day, leading to it being an easy target for them going in, screaming, throwing bricks and generally wrecking up the place?

>honestly I just miss IMT, even though Pete was a weird old coot and you felt like you'd walked into his living room in the middle of him listening to radio 4 comedy
>because you kinda had
>but I'm glad to have met The Librarian himself even if his shop was literally a hazard.

>>97610379
do some of these have a viable business model acting as day care centres for the permanent PIP autists

>>97611100
In theory, yes. And as somewhere to dump your actual kids for a while.
In practise, no. The margins on GR were thin because they took a beefy corporate cut. They just made less than an independent LGS because of that. No idea whether the food they serve is limited by the franchise too, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Add to that the problem where the staff were left to their own devices to run the social media presence and NEEDED to do so in order to keep people coming. Our local one literally hired an OF thot as one of their staff because, while I hate the OF industry I can admit that being one trains you well in how to run social media shit 24/7 (or maybe you just never make it to any real degree if you don't have that knack)

Calling them Geek Retreat in poorer Northern Cities seems like asking for trouble. Might as well have called them Ahmet's Brick Resistant Window Emporium .

>>97611197
Geek fears the norf?

>>97610754
You order online and play at home/club.
Simple as.

>>97611711
You know how northlanders in Warhammer are inherently evil? Yeah, that's supposed to mean something.

>>97611197
ironically enough the first one was in either edinburgh or glasgow
I can't remember which but it was one of the two big scottish cities

>>97610379
We had one last a year in town. They have a predatory model that opens up as close as possible to existing LGSs to take their footfall. Said LGS made this very public and it go boycotted by the game crowd but they got a lot of kids in and did alot of work for the disabled I was sad for their community when it inevitably folded.

Couldn’t have survived. Stocked fuck all in tiny quantities. £6 Milkshakes didn’t keep the lights on.

>>97610379
Has the decline in retail had any impact on LGSs in the UK? In Texas it seems like it's been great for stores upgrading to bigger spaces for more event space and being quieter.

>>97613695
I can't speak for UK but in Australia most of these retail shops are quite large. No idea how they stay in buisiness. If I had to guess 90% of their profit comes from card games.

I've also seen a few geezers set up underneath old Queenslander houses. Plenty of room, and I imagine operating costs are far cheaper. These places of course tend to be far less corporate and offer a far wider range of products.

>>97610379
What is the appeal of franchising these instead of branding your own sort of geek store?

>>97614287
For franchises the boosts include brand recognition, cheaper outlay in regards to branding/store trim, and cheaper product prices since they would buy their stock in bulk. They may also offer some sort of product guarantee for rare products/limited runs. They can also help with financing, and navigating the bullshit that comes with renting a commercial property. They tend to also offer a guarantee in regards to competition (if you open a store here, we wont open another within so many km radius). Probably get a free website out of it too. Fast food is the classic for this sort of model - would you rather open your own independent burger store, or open a maccas/subway and have most of the bullshit taken care off?

Essentially they make the start up process far easier, at the cost of ongoing franchisee fees.

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>>97613695
In the UK, we have FAR less "big mall outside/at the edge of of town" setups and a lot more high street in the middle of town deals.
And in the UK, high streets have been in decline for a long time. Partly this is because of the death spiral where the less there is, the less people go out to town. Partly this is high business rates/rents/energy bills.
Also in the UK space tends to be at a premium in retail. Texas is LITERALLY HUGE. Texas could eat the UK, you're the big state. If an LGS moves to a larger store it usually means they started in a really small store where the customer density was "tokyo metro at rush hour, filtering your air through someone else's armpit"

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I've never even heard of Geek Retreat, turns out the only one in my county is in a random residential area on the other side of the railway from the town centre.

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>>97611197
>
>>97613123
Glasgow. Its now closed.

>>97613584
>They have a predatory model that opens up as close as possible to existing LGSs to take their footfall.
Yeah, I've seen too many cases of GRs doing this for it to be a coincidence. Happened in Hull too, same street as Bad Wolf gaming, and the local massive club Hull's Angels

>but they got a lot of kids in and did alot of work for the disabled I was sad for their community when it inevitably folded.
>Couldn’t have survived. Stocked fuck all in tiny quantities. £6 Milkshakes didn’t keep the lights on

As mentioned upthread, they did seem to attract the lowest of the low clientele, even compared to other smelly card shops. Not to be too mean but you know the type. Combined with the bowling alley food on offer it just makes me boak.

And yeah, one or two D&D rulebooks along with Incredible Hulk keychains and generic "geek" sloppa does not a shop make.

In fairness the remaining GRs don't look too bad, from the odd picture I've seen. Not for me at all but not horrific. Probably the strongest few surviving.

>>97611028
>Wasn't the preston geek retreat the one opposite the mcdonalds where chavvy kids would hang out all day,
On Friargate, yup. And for additional lulz, it was right on the marching line between the lower Friargate - UCLAN pubs and the High Street pubs, which led to its window being kicked in on several occasions.
Fuck that window, it made you feel like an animal in a zoo. Had a gm who ran games from there because he had beef with the then owner of Harlequins, our actually good hobby store, over LARP politics, and I hated it.
Harlequins is out and out the best hobby shop we have, and the 2nd longest running if you count the GW. Only store better was Worthy Games and that got shafted by its own owner.

>>97615716
>beef over LARP politics
oh nerds. never change.

Did you ever go into dice & donuts? that place felt nice but the guy who killed it has a caused string of dead businesses in the lanc/morecambe/preston area.

>>97615746
Aye, it was a nice place but goddamn it was pricey. I only went a few times but I was sad to see it go inspire of the costs.
That said, its now a killer sushi restaurant so its not a complete loss

>>97611028
B&S had a change of ownership about 6 months ago now I think. Hence the renovations. New guy isn't really friendly but is much better organised.
I actually helped IMT clear up after Pete was kicked out, I wish I had the money I have now back then, so many rare out of print books which were just buried under everything. He did give me a free set of dice though.

>>97615804
oh I didn't know that about B&S. I was last in there just before christmas for a few games for friends. Didn't even know they were running a "roll a d20 and get that % off your purchase" offer and then got a 19 when prompted to roll.

>so many rare out of print books which were just buried under everything
that was part of the problem, Pete never really had the motivation to clean up, work out what could be better advertised, etc. I don't think he adapted to the internet well, in that he was an Early Internet grog who fucking hand wrote that IMT website on the old computer in DOS. He listed stuff, but it was still not an accessible list.

After the shop got hit by a bus I think his heart just wasn't in it, he coasted on inertia and the shop continued to exist because it was easier than closing.

>>97615312
I feel like this is something Americans really struggle to wrap their brain around - we have 1/5 of their population living in the same space as Michigan. Well, more accurately a space about 2/3 the size of Michigan since huge swaths of the Scottish Highlands and Islands are basically populated only by sheep, grouse, and an occasional rich English wanker who's ancestors were given loads of Scottish land by some twatty king or other or whatever tech billionaire bought the land of said wankers when they went broke. Here you can move to a whole other city and still get a 40 minute bus home to see your mum at weekends.

So yeah >>97613695 it's different here, unless you live in a real shithole prime retail is still going to be in the city centre because most of your customers can just fucking walk to your shop. There's also less emphasis on playing space here because most people play in local clubs that use our ample community spaces; church halls, community centres, schools renting their gym evenings or weekends etc. Which are also mostly walking distance for the non-lazy, or a short bus or car trip for the fatties. Out of town retail over here is more groceries, electronics & appliances, what you'd call hardware stores etc.

>>97615312
>>97618734
This honestly helps contextualize the divide between American and British Game store culture in general, especially the bewilderment I have seen at the concept of letting walk ins come and play games for free under the expectation that eventually they will buy some overpriced snacks and that players follow players in terms of attracting new customers.
If you have jackshit in terms of space already you cannot afford to let Randoms dick around when a paying customer could use that space.
Meanwhile if your store has the space for like 5+ tables you can afford to let people come, hang out, and accrue "passive" income from them.

We had one in Bradford and it was supposed to move a couple of buildings down from where it was and then after months they said it just wasn't happening and to go some other one.
We have some decent LGS's at least, one is just up the road from the GR and seems to attract all the harmless autists, mostly it's card games in there but they sell a decent bit of 40k
The other good LGS is MTG only only

>>97619175
bradford, or bradford on avon?

>>97619240
Actual Bradford, in the norf.
It was on bank street iirc

>>97618931
It's more the club aspect desu - there's no real need for game stores to provide play space, so there's no expectation of it, so many store owners just don't bother. And that's okay, because even if you live in some postindustrial shithole there'll be a community club either in your town or nearby enough that getting there isn't a chore.

For most of the 80's, 90's and oughts game shops outside of GWs were just shops that sold games, like a butcher sells meat or an HMV sold CDs, they weren't "destinations" or community hubs the way they are in the US. It's only recently a few places have tried the American model or had a crack at the "event space with a shop attached" approach, after GW themselves retooled their own instore gaming to be minimal and almost exclusively just about running demo games for complete newbie walkins.

>>97625555
First off checked
>the club aspect desu - there's no real need for game stores to provide play space
Out of curiosity how often do clubs meet? My experience in my area of the US game clubs existed in the 80's and early 90's. When game stores started opening in the early 90's they always had game space. Clubs died since the stores were always available while clubs were once or twice a month.

>>97626239
Depends on the club. There are five within easy striking distance of me, one meets every other thursday evening and one whole-day saturday a month, one does every two weeks on a sunday, one meets tuesdays and fridays every week, the other two meet weekly one on tuesdays the other saturdays. There's also a couple of stores in the nearby city where you can do pickup games if that's your thing, but they both dropped GW products a couple of years back so wargaming is only kind of grudgingly tolerated now they're mostly card shops.

Most of the time you're arranging games in advance anyway, so unless you truly live in the ass end of nowhere you can usually get at least a game or two a week so long as you're willing to shuffle around a bit, and most clubs charge very little I'd have to rummage my bank account to be sure but I think I pay about 50 quid a year between dues and one-off table fees(some of the clubs do organised events and you have to chip in an extra couple of quid to reserve a table spot in those). All of them maintain a decent pile of terrain to use, some better than others of course, but one advantage is even as modern 40K has turned into a complete shitfest the fact most clubs will have at least some historical, fantasy, and /awg/ dudes hanging around means they haven't been overrun by right angle transparent acrylic "ruins" yet.

It mostly works because it can be that cheap - church halls & community spaces do charge you but it's really a token amount compared to "commercial event space" rental.

>>97627779
50 quid a year total, I should say, not per membership. I'm a member of four of the five clubs(one of them is almost exclusively incredibly crusty historicals guys, like real hardcore grey moustachio'd "3mm scale ancient and napoleonics" types).

>>97610585
Once something goes mainstream it tends to die a slow death. Only a few hobbies can last dealing with the mainstream tourists, fags, and activists without being killed by the weight if they didn't get big enough and the creators don't have control over it. As Corpos are quick to get rid of them for easier creators that they fully control. (Often people who name is in the back of the book over by the title.

As for hobby stores. the problem was most were small local stores that other went woke and the people who bought shit left over dealing with the "modern audience." Or got bought out and turned into "Store Brand" which basically killed any charm to it. Also online stores made it cheaper to buy specialize game as long as they were willing to wait for it to come by the mail.

At the end of the day most of these hobby stores chose this path and are suffering for their choice. Since they wanted the new rainbow fans over the loyal fans that kept them around before it became trending on tiktok and all. So don't feel sorry for them. Same with the woke games that fucked their lore, gameplay, etc just make tourists happy with their activism.

>>97610833
Thanks for reminding everyone that you are stupid and nogames.

>>97628063
tl;dr durr durr

>>97629698
>>97629707
What's with this troll that just posts formulaic salt, anyway? Bot tier.

>>97631199
Only you know why you keep posting retardation.

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>>97610379
Fuck greek retreat.

>>97610827
The corporate side of geek retreat was up to their eyeballs in debt and filed for some variant of bankruptcy a couple of years ago.
Think it's just a shit company that expanded too fast.

>>97631848
See what I mean?

>>97632020
We see that you are dumb and probably smell bad.

>>97625555
>>97618931
My local (in the UK) has a huge footprint, and apart from that it feels like every decision they've made has been an attempt to collapse the business.
The food is limited and crap, understaffed so it takes twenty minutes to get anything more complicated than a can of coke, the tables are either exactly 6'x4' (and wildly expensive) or too small to actually play most boardgames on.
And then there's no sound baffling, so if more than three games are running at a time, tables have to take turns talking to hear each other.
Infuriatingly, my town is too busy with fucking choirs to have good active games clubs, all the church halls are rehearsal spaces.

>>97615813
>After the shop got hit by a bus
... u fkn wot?

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>>97633643
imma quote the shopkeeper's blog
>i arrived at the shop on monday morning, fine, bright and “grand” a september morning as you might desire, a strong feeling that All Was Not As It Should Be crept over me.
>i had the clear memory of having locked up an imposing dark green-painted old wooden inn door standing next a twin-paned shop window displaying board games [...] yet there was something distinctly lacking:in the way of anything remotely resembling a shop window, or indeed any window at all – or, indeed, a door of any kind whatsoever.
>there was, however, a faintly concerned-looking customer & spouse, who explained between them that the apparent disappearance of IMT had been caused by an argument between a tour bus and a taxi

tl;dr a bus hit a taxi, the taxi went through the shop front, and the shop looked like THIS on the inside from after that until it closed.

>>97632059
>rrrreeeeeeeeee

>>97633726
Your face is reeee.

>>97611753
I know that this is incomprehensible to burgers, that every aspect of their hobby is not facilitated for them by a business, but it is correct.

>>97626239
>Out of curiosity how often do clubs meet?
Once or twice a week is the typical.

Aware the Aberdeen one got handed over to a dude debt and all before it got shuttered. Unsurprising, as thistle tavern on the same street draws people up from as far as Glasgow.