Game store in Austin had zero tables for actual gaming

I went to Dice House Games on South Lamar last weekend and there were like 20 shelves of miniatures but only one small table in the back. Nobody was even using it, it was covered in boxes. How is a board game store supposed to work if you can't sit down and play a game there? Has anyone else run into stores that just sell stuff and don't support the hobby?

3 comments

3 Comments

daniel_martin21d ago

Covered in boxes" is the part that gets me. That table was clearly just extra storage space. I had the same thing happen at a shop in Houston, they had a back room full of warhammer terrain but not a single chair to sit on. How is that a game store and not just a warehouse with a cash register?

patricia55821d ago

The warehouse comparison is spot on. I walked into a place once that had boxes stacked waist high along every wall and an empty display case where the minis should have been. The owner acted like I was interrupting his inventory sorting. You can't play a game if you can't sit down and you can't buy anything if it's all buried under packing tape. A real game store needs room to breathe and actual chairs to sit in. Otherwise you're just paying for the privilege of looking at cardboard.

the_anthony21d ago

Did they at least have a bathroom you could hide in to cry about it? I swear some of these places treat their gaming space like a tax write-off and nothing else. There's this one shop near my buddy's place where the owner uses the actual play tables to sort his bulk magic cards, and he gets mad if you try to move a stack to sit down. Like dude, you literally have a 4x8 foot folding table with a sign that says "open gaming" and its covered in unsorted chaff from 2017.