40 Years of Games Workshop Stores!

It's 40 years since Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson opened the first Games Workshop store in West London. Ian has been posting about it on Twitter. The company went from that one store location to the 460+ it has today.

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Games Workshop's 2016-2017 shareholder report gives some info on its current stores: "At the year end we had 462 Games Workshop stores in 23 countries. Our stores contributed 41% of the year's sales. We have 360 one man stores, small sites, each one staffed by only one store manager. We also have 102 multi-man stores, which are constantly reviewed to ensure they remain profitable."

These are broken down as follows:

United Kingdom	147
North America	111
Europe	145
Australia	47
Asia	12
Total	462

[FONT=&amp]Hard to believe that it is 40 years since Steve Jackson and I opened our first Games Workshop retail shop in April 1978 in a little side street in West London. The queue outside was inspiring!

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Posted by Keith Dickinson on Twitter. This is the store today.

"[FONT=&amp]Celebrating 40 years since we moved Games Workshop from a tiny office in Shepherds Bush to our first shop in Hammersmith on 1st April 1978. Here’s the announcement in White Dwarf. Six copies of D&D on offer for 50p each! Bargain. Amazing memories." - Ian Livingstone

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[FONT=&amp]"If you are interested in reading about the crazy first years of Games Workshop from 1975-1985, please pledge here [/FONT]https[FONT=&amp] … It all started with a little fanzine we published called Owl and Weasel in 1975." - Ian Livingstone

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"[FONT=&amp]Celebrating 40 years since Steve Jackson and I opened our first Games Workshop retail shop in April 1978. Proud young owners standing outside!" - Ian Livingstone

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"[FONT=&amp]Celebrating 40 years since Steve Jackson and I opened our first Games Workshop retail store in April 1978 when we had our own pet dragon!" - Ian Livingstone

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"[FONT=&amp]Kind words in 1979 from the great Gary Gygax, co-creator and pioneer of D&D, who sadly is no longer with us." - Ian livingstone[/FONT]​

 

[Zarithar]

Wow... "Killer" sounds like an absolutely horrible concept for a game!

 

[Morrus]

Wow... "Killer" sounds like an absolutely horrible concept for a game!

I remember playing that as a kid.

 

[barasawa]

I remember going out to the store in Hammersmith in the 80s. It was a bit of a trek as there wasn't a tube station close, and I couldn't find a bus that came close either for some reason. (There was a bus route war going on at the time that might have been a reason for it.)

The worst part was when I got to the roundabout and the instructions said take the right. There were 3 roads that could be considered "right"! Fortunately a Bobby saw my obvious confusion and came over to ask if he could help. He gave me useful directions that got me to the store easily. I really should have gotten his name so I could have sent him a thank you note.

For those that aren't familiar with the roundabouts in the UK, they can be far more complicated than a simple US 4 way intersection. If I recall correctly, that particular roundabout had 7 roads coming into it, and they were not evenly spaced. (I can't recall if I counted the one I reached it from or not.)
I understand why roundabouts are like that, and they are a great way to deal with it, but directions involving them really need to be a bit more precise than "take the right".

 

[coz]

Ironically, the other Steve Jackson, the American one, published a rulebook for Killer, several editions of it in fact. But I've never played it with winking, we used NERF guns or finger guns and said bang, or envelopes containing a note that said "this is a bomb/poison, you are dead". Or you'd sneak into their dorm room and hide an alarm clock with a note attached that says it's a bomb. If it goes off before you find it, you're dead. Lie in wait outside of academic buildings and ambush your targets...the only thing was you had to hide your kills from the mundanes who weren't playing - if someone outside the game was a witness (or collateral damage in the case of a "bomb" placed in a dorm room) you died and your target was brought back to life, so you had to lie in wait in stairwells and hope they entered alone...
As one might imagine, 9/11 essentially killed Killer.

 

[barasawa]

Ironically, the other Steve Jackson, the American one, published a rulebook for Killer, several editions of it in fact. But I've never played it with winking, we used NERF guns or finger guns and said bang, or envelopes containing a note that said "this is a bomb/poison, you are dead". Or you'd sneak into their dorm room and hide an alarm clock with a note attached that says it's a bomb. If it goes off before you find it, you're dead. Lie in wait outside of academic buildings and ambush your targets...the only thing was you had to hide your kills from the mundanes who weren't playing - if someone outside the game was a witness (or collateral damage in the case of a "bomb" placed in a dorm room) you died and your target was brought back to life, so you had to lie in wait in stairwells and hope they entered alone...
As one might imagine, 9/11 essentially killed Killer.

Lol, in the 80s there was a really active player base for Killer around here. We didn't use the no witnesses thing, but we did use the no collateral damage rules, so explosives were really restricted. We also allowed 2 safe zones for each player. Most people make home and work, or home and school their safe zones. For those that didn't safe zone school, there were a lot of contact poisons on the locks for their lockers, and plenty of people got killed by poisonous snakes in their locker. I was one of the more skilled people at getting them with snakes in the locker. I found a way to set up the snake trap without being able to break into the locker. Drove people nuts since they couldn't figure out how I was doing it. One guy would even tape breakage seals on his locker, so he falsely assumed nobody could have booby trapped it. (If you know the old rattlesnake egg gag, then you know what we used to represent the snake attacking. If the noise went off, you were nailed.

That was fun. Back then most of the games were hosted by Gandalfs Den around here.

 

[Ricochet]

Very cool article. Tickles the nostalgia bone, as Grimstaff said!

 

[Jhaelen]

As, as an American, here's another naive question...umm...are there still Games Workshop stores? How many?

Here in Germany, all the (dedicated) Games Workshop stores I knew about have been closed for a long time.

However, I think, these numbers include game stores that have a contract deal with Games Workshop to sell their stuff. My local store has recently been approached by a GW sales guy to become such an 'official' GW store, just like it's already an 'official' FFG store. I.e. it just means they get special deals and can order things like tournament kits and promo materials.

 

[Gorath99]

Here in Germany, all the (dedicated) Games Workshop stores I knew about have been closed for a long time.

However, I think, these numbers include game stores that have a contract deal with Games Workshop to sell their stuff. My local store has recently been approached by a GW sales guy to become such an 'official' GW store, just like it's already an 'official' FFG store. I.e. it just means they get special deals and can order things like tournament kits and promo materials.

Could be. Their store finder does distinguish between real GW stores and independent stores, though. And it seems accurate for my area. Although I see at least one independent store on their list that has stopped selling GW. (Due to GW opening their own store within easy walking distance. Not a very nice thing of them to do, considering the other store had been selling heaps of GW stuff for decades.)

 

[Morrus]

Here in Germany, all the (dedicated) Games Workshop stores I knew about have been closed for a long time.

However, I think, these numbers include game stores that have a contract deal with Games Workshop to sell their stuff. My local store has recently been approached by a GW sales guy to become such an 'official' GW store, just like it's already an 'official' FFG store. I.e. it just means they get special deals and can order things like tournament kits and promo materials.

Nah, in that shareholders report they talk about third party stores separately. Those 462 stores are just their own stores.

 

[Hawkwind]

Wow... "Killer" sounds like an absolutely horrible concept for a game!

"killer" was a ancestor of all LARPS! along with SCA type things