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I'm not sorry to sound like an #@$%@$, it just seems to be the prevailing attitude among gamers in general that their respective hobby is too expensive to pay in-store retail, so they go to the internet to get deep discounts. Then they decry the condition and support of their local stores. I'm all for choices in the market, but c'mon, people! If you constantly complain about the price of the hobby, why keep playing and buying? If you have a place to play in your garage/basement/etc, great! But if you all wish to keep the "F" and the "L" in FLGS, you may want to consider buying from them once in a while.

Lately, gaming stores are becoming a rare breed, overrun with bratty kids, TFGs, and BO. And the people who suffer are not the players for paying retail, memberships fees, or even $3 for a bottle of soda. It's the retailers. Many of them could have rented a smaller store, but they didn't, thinking that their customers would like a centralized place to play. Hosting a tournament day, even a small one, can be a huge undertaking. Buying a pot of paint or two doesn't offset their investment in time, merchandise, or air fresheners.

Long story short (too late): if you have a friendly local game store, especially one that is a popular spot for loitering/gaming, try and buy there. Keep them in business. The game store that does well seems to be a struggling breed, one that suffers due to the neglect of its patrons much more so than the owners. The online stores are great and all, but whose bills are you paying? Not the FLGS's!

*enter the lash whips of the critics*

SoloFalcon1138 wrote: .........................Lately, gaming stores are becoming a rare breed, overrun with bratty kids, TFGs, and BO. ............................

Lately? I thought that this was par for the course and had been since the start of time or D&D at least.

Seriously I agree with you unfortunately the only places near me are GW store [3 within 20 minutes!] and I'm not gong there for a game.

Other than that The next closest is Wayland Games [a well known tinternet retailer and you can't play there either!], so I have little choice but web discounts stores.

To all those with FLGS consider yourself lucky!

That's my point: if you have one, use it! Otherwise, great use all the discounters you can find! I'd say over 80% of my minis were purchased at FLGSs, the other 20% were eBay purchases of out-of-print pieces or pickups from buddies.

I like to shop at my FLGS because I can see what i'm getting. Barring the FLGS I buy at conventions.

In the past, when Ive had a decent LGS to support I did. One that was open good hours and carried a good amount of stock. A place where you can grab a table and play whatever you like. One that stock (or was willing to get) product for more than just 1 or 2 games. I played at them regularly, and bought frequently. I had no problem paying retail prices.

Lets take my situation now:

My LGS is extremely tiny...its a small space in a very small and old strip mall. The business hours are terrible. They are frequently closed when the sign on the door says they should be open. The vast majority of space is taken up by tables, 4 I think. The next largest consumer of space is the display cabinet for the owners minis. The area dedicated to product is a length of pegboard and shelves about 5 feet high and 10 feet long. Thats it. It has a few codexes, a couple box sets, very few blisters, a paint rack, and some Flames of War stuff. They can order stuff, but it takes a minimum of a week. They only do GW and FoW. They do seem to give a small discount now and then.

It essentially seems to be a place for the owner and his buddies to play the games they like. From the store hours (afternoons and sat only) I get the impression he has another job. The store just doesnt work for me.

Now there is a great LGS about 2 1/2 hours from me. HUGE store. Carries GW, PP, Battletech, CMGs, CCGs, RPGs, board games, comics, just about anything you could ask for. Only drawbacks are its distance from me (2 1/2 hours) and they are full retail price only. I could live with the prices, just wish it wasnt so far away. I do make the trip out there every couple months or so.

My FLGS is great, including everybody there. Heck nobody at this one even smells! But there is still a huge problem with me and these stores, and its money. Its not the cost of everything but when I go to the store with plans to buy a brush or paint I end up leaving with a tank, special models and so on. I feel like i cant stop myself lol.

My FLGS doesn't stock most of the stuff I need, so I use the internet. I do however pay a membership fee, so i'm not abandoning them by any means.

eyebone wrote:My FLGS is great, including everybody there. Heck nobody at this one even smells! But there is still a huge problem with me and these stores, and its money. Its not the cost of everything but when I go to the store with plans to buy a brush or paint I end up leaving with a tank, special models and so on. I feel like i cant stop myself lol.

Dont feel bad, I do that too. Im also notorious for substituting things. Dont have something I was looking for? Well, if you have something else I like...

No Flgs near me within a sane driving distance, so we made our own group.

I rarely buy online. Lately, it's just straight from GW things that I'm scared if I don't pre order I'll miss out, like battle magic cards and other limited things. And I still missed out on the high elf cards :( (anyone have a set they wanna sell me?)

I don't really buy that much stuff anymore, and I have plenty of models waiting to be built and painted.. I make it out to my FLGS maybe every other month or so, and I just pick up what I need then and usually when I'm playing there. I always feel like I gotta buy something worthwhile when I play in a shop, since they gave me the space to play the least I can do is buy something.

Discounts are great and all and i guess if I was buying tons of stuff all the time I'd want to get it cheaper, but I'm perfectly fine with paying full price to support a store that's worth supporting.

to support a store that's worth supporting.

That's the problem with my GW. It isn't worth supporting. It's the only GW for miles but it's tiny. They fit two 4x4 boards in there and a cramped paint station, and any more than 4 or so people makes the shop hard to navigate. They have an upstairs, but GW HQ refuse to do it up, they also refuse to move to a larger premesis.

If that wasn't bad enough, they kicked out all but the manager, closed the store Mondays and Tuesdays and took away vets nights (that's when I stopped going completely). They only look at kids for cash now, since after-school nights are still on, and during saturday it's usually full of kids (who all smell, can't play and touch your stuff without your permission, often putting it back wrong or in my case, dropping it and treading on it when he stomped around trying to look for it).

Sunday is beginner day, where nobody actually listens to what you've got to do for more than 5 minutes due to having the attention span of a-

Sorry, got distracted; anywho, i'll start paying full price when GW start improving the conditions of the store. I had been going there since 2006, and all i'd seen over the years was shelves re-shuffled, boards removed due to space issues and prices going up.

We have 2 FLGS within a 30 min drive, we had another they went under because well they sucked, never had any stock, took weeks to order things for you, but great gaming tables.

My main local(5 min drive tops from work) one has 7% all GW product right off the get go. Great staff, if you want something it will be there at the following friday at the latest. Good space to game, good people, and cheap soda.

my LGS is over 100 km away
so yeah......

always support the FLGS, its the only way to keep promoting new people to play the game as well, thus ensuring its future and having future opponents, tourneys etc.

Because it's friendly, local, and a game store. Also I have a solid discount so aside from supporting a local business, I get the same prices I'd get from Warstore and the like.

I gues that makes me the lucky one. Miniature Market (which advertizes its online store on this site) is one of my FLGS' in the area, with 5 dedicated wargame tables and a half-dozen folding tables. Not to mention the discounts...

The Fantasy Shop has something like six locations scattered around the area. Some are just shops, but the big one in St. Charles has about a dozen or so gaming tables.

Star Clipper had a gaming area in the basement in their old store, don't know about the new one - I haven't been there in a while because they are primarily a comic shop with a sideline of gaming.

There is usually an independant store or two open in the area, but sadly they rarely last very long, competing against MM and TFS. Those two draw the lion's share of the local sales (which must be HUGE, to support so many), making it hard for a new store to get a foothold.

And I'm sure I've missed a few others in passing. The ONLY good thing about this godforsaken burg is the level of FLGS saturation we have here.

i do support my FLGS when i can the problem is they rarely keep anything but basic troop boxes in stock. its not really a big deal to place a special order but when i go through them it takes up to 4 weeks to get my order if they even remember to place it. if i need something for a game coming up soon or an event there is no way ill order from them as i know i likely wont have it by the time i need it. i can order from GW or another online retailer and have it at my door in a week or less. heck i can place a forgeworld order and receive it sooner than i can get my special order from my FLGS.

Mine is closer than the nearest GW store. Plus cheaper, has great staff and carries more than just the GW ranges, which is always good.

Wow, after reading some of the replies here I realize just how awesome my FLGS is! It has 4 tables in the main store area and then god knows how many tables in a back room. All with nicely painted terrain available to use. There's a painting station set up as well and they carry a very large selection of minis. And if they don't have it they can get it in, in very short order. Discounts on the battalion boxes but everything else is full price. Still for what this store offers I will buy everything I can from there to help ensure it stays open for business!

I love my flgs. Its 100 mile drive one way but the store is amazing, the gaming area has plenty of tables and terrains. The store is always clean, and the people that go are great.

GW stock is hit and miss for 40k. fantasy always has plenty of stuff, but orders take a week to come in. I always buy around 50 bucks worth of stuff when i make the drive out.

I love my FLGS (even though its not really L, my real LGS sucks, so I drive an extra 30-45 minutes to get to my FLGS instead). I get 20% off my purchases there, so I don't mind buying there. The main reason I end up buying online is because I'm really only home 4 months or so out of the year, and I don't have many opportunities to come back from school during the other 6 months, so I need to get my fix somehow.

I support my local store (if I didn't the manager would kill me- I went to school with him! ), but I do also buy online. Price is not the reason, though- it's avaliability.

The stuff I buy online is almost exclusively out-of-production models, or a few from gaming companies that are not sold in the local shop. If the local shop has it, I'll want to see it before I buy anyway, so there is no point going to a website for it.

Its really simple for me. If i'm going to play at my FLGS whatever game system I feel obligated to support it. They don't charge me to play there and they host great tournaments for many game systems.

I don't have an FLGS - I only have a GW store now.
The FLGS stopped being a gaming store on the grounds that it was no longer viable.

I haven't played in a store in over a decade, though, that's what most of our clubs are for - a playing venue NOT tied down to a store.
I'd heard bad things about the local crowd at that FLGS anyway (cheating being rife, and plain stubbornness at failing to follow the rules) so I'm kinda glad I never played there. Sucks for the locals now, though. They now have NO local store to play at (GW is in town and no large enough to get a decent game in. The FLGS had lots of room upstairs.)

Before I moved up here, I did have an FLGS that I played games at, but I bought stuff at that store every fortnight or so as well. We had a thriving Inquisitor group, as well as a handful of other skirmish games.

My FLGS is 5 minutes away, the store has moved three times, each time growing larger and getting better. They do about every board game and table top strategy game, card games, LAN parties and are generally awesome. The food's not over priced and the crew there are great guys.

My gaming club rents out my FLGS as our man-cave so I pay to support the place through club dues. That doesn't stop me from picking up a pot of paint or a bottle of glue every once in a while, but let's be realistic, the price of this hobby is significant. If there's a way to do it cheaper (buying online), then I'm going to take advantage of it.

I purchase from my two FLGS for different reasons;

the first one which is smaller and been there the longest has 20% off most GW models, and the second one because it has a decent range of things not GW related that I can get which would otherwise take a long time to get from overseas (bases and such).

If I had a FLGS, I'd shop there for some stuff (not all), but I don't so Neal at the warstore will likely get my purchasing dollars.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:If I had a FLGS, I'd shop there for some stuff (not all), but I don't so Neal at the warstore will likely get my purchasing dollars.

You mean this Warstore:

I may not buy everything from my FLGS, but I buy some stuff there and try to help others get into the hobby. Managed to pull a new tau player yesterday, you know the store owner is happy when someone starts 40k lol.