When did the first hobby game store open in your area?

[Glyfair]

Discussion in another thread got me wondering about the rise of the hobby game store. I'm curious about when your area gained it's first hobby game store and, if different, when it got it's first successful gaming store?

Here in Delaware the first gaming store we got was "Strategy & Fantasy World." Unfortunately, it was in inner city Wilmington which was certainly why it didn't last very long. Still, it ws my first exposure to the FLGS.

Before that I got my gaming stuff from "Hobbi-Art." It was an art store that happened to dip a bit into hobby stuff and had a corner for miniature games. That corner had a small selection of RPGs (of course, there wasn't a large selection of RPGs then). I also ended up getting some thing from a local puppet store, of all things

In 1981 friends of mine opened the first long term hobby gaming store, the Days of Knights, and it's still in business today. Unknown to me, north of the city a bookstore (now Between Books) had a significant RPG presence adn even in store gaming.

How about your area?

 

[jmucchiello]

Depends on how you define Gaming Store. The Game Room is a store in a mall near me that has always sold "gaming" equipment: poker, billiards, and darts equipment. They've had RPG/wargaming supplies for as long as I can remember as well. But I don't know when it started. At least since the early 80s. Their website says they started in 1974 but they also don't like RPGs on their website at all. Their heart is in gaming equipment and interior design.

Likewise depends on how close local is. There's never been a gaming store in my small hometown but the local bookstore (long since closed) had a decent gaming supply: bought my first Dragon Mag there (#63 IIRC).

The Compleat Strategist had a shop in Montclair, only 25ish miles away that I went to as a teen several times. And they advertised in Dragon which is why I mention them by name.

The only hobby store I spent a lot of time in (post college and single) opened in 1993 as MtG started up and closed 4 years later. Again not local, about 15 miles away, but that's the only gaming store I ever actually played RPGs in (a long missed Fantasy Hero game).

The gaming group I play weekly in originally met in one of the player's own gaming stores. He opened in 1985 and closed in 1991 (and gave up his Chessex retailer relationship in 1999). I only set foot in the physical store once or twice and didn't join the weekly game until 1993.

Is this what you wanted?

 

[Glyfair]

Depends on how you define Gaming Store.

Dedicated to hobby gaming. I'd suggest that if it either primarily sells (or sold) hobby gaming material, or else always had a place to play the hobby games (in addition to selling them) then it's a hobby game store.

Again not local, about 15 miles away, but that's the only gaming store I ever actually played RPGs in (a long missed Fantasy Hero game).

15 miles not local? You have a pretty strict idea of local, IMO. It's hard to put a hard definition on "local", but I'd say that a store where you wouldn't feel put upon dropping by to pick up a gaming product you wanted, or play in an RPG you wanted would be local.

 

[Lanefan]

That's hard to say, because both early stores I remember here were comic book stores first, then started selling RPG stuff; one kept the RPG as a sidelight only, the other eventually became pretty much RPG's only. There's no real way to say *this* is when they became true gaming stores, because it happened gradually; but by the early '80's there was a clearly-defined LGS here.

Now there are several, but the originals are long gone.

Lanefan

 

[TerraDave]

They opened in the late 1970's, when you could buy hexagonal graph paper at college book stores and Eldritch Wizadry at toy stores (yes, with that cover).

They have been closing ever since.

 

[Dragon Snack]

When did Crazy Egor's Discount Game Warehouse open up? Pretty sure he was the first, he advertised in Dragon magazine as well.

In fact, that was probably before I was local to the ROC...

 

[Hussar]

I remember Fads in London Ontario as the first gaming store that I knew about. Would have been about '79 or '80 IIRC. I wasn't all that old at the time, I just remember going there with my older brother and drooling over the cool toys. I still fondly remember the dragon mini they had (although I misremember the name) that weighed about ten pounds. Probably gave me lead poisoning just looking at the thing.

A few other stores in London have followed. As I recall, Fads folded shop in the mid-eighties.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

When did Crazy Egor's Discount Game Warehouse open up? Pretty sure he was the first, he advertised in Dragon magazine as well.

In fact, that was probably before I was local to the ROC...

I have no idea when Cray Egor's opened. It was there when I was in college in 1987 and I'm quite sure it was there long before that.

I really can't contribute much to this thread since my area has changed several times. The area I grew up in never had a hobby game store, they were hobby stores that sold games in addition to model cars/trains/rockets and other crafts. I moved away and found game stores in those places I moved to, already established.

 

[kenobi65]

The one I first started going to, in Green Bay in 1981, had been open for a year or two before that, I think. (That one has long since closed, but there's been a series of other LGS up there since.)

 

[Ed_Laprade]

It took quite a while. Two book stores and two comic book stores sold gaming stuff. (Well, one of the book stores was a sf/f book store/comics shop/and eventually gaming store that moved a few times and finally went out of business in '99.) There was one actual game store that started up kinda late in the game, as it were. It moved and changed names a few times as well. Gone now, too. As for actual hobby shops, the one or two in the area never carried very much gaming material.