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On the sub-topic of "staying in business"...

We have one LGS that is going on close to 30 years old now, but there always seams to be one (sometimes two!) other local stores that never last more than year. After watching this cycle for a few years I think I've come across one of the core reasons why.

The long time surviving LGS creates, fosters and supports the local gaming community across multiple different game systems. The store owner makes a commitment to buying a large amount of stock for a game, especially a new one coming out, not just a random hodge-podge of boxes/blisters, and then promotes the game with tournaments or leagues or campaigns, etc...

The fail stores all seam to have had this idea that they will stock games and product if the community is there to support the sale. So, they want to have a pre-existing customer base to tell them what they want to sell products too. They also all have the attitude that the players in the community should be the ones to promote the game and host events, etc.

In short:

Successful long running store promotes the product they want to sell which in turn builds a player base that keeps shopping there.

Fail stores will not invest in new stock unless they have a pre-existing player base that is committed to buying it and does nothing to help support or grow a player base.