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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dristram" data-source="post: 2431487" data-attributes="member: 1639">Thoughts on all thisThe following is just my theory and perception of the state of the hobby game industry today.FLGSs are still around currently because there are gamers who still buy from them.  But FLGSs are not thriving.   The move of gamers to buy online is hurting quality game stores more than non-quality ones.  Quality game stores generally have higher overhead costs and so need higher sales to survive.  They will spend extra money on rent to get a nice store in a nice location, and also on nice fixtures to make the store look nice and organized.  So, as sales to the B&M stores shrink, the quality stores are the first to go, which leaves the poor quality, dark, dingy, and stinky stores, as the only ones around to shop at, as long as those owners have enough good business sense to manage to stay open.It looks like a domino effect happened to get where things are today.  Online game stores popped up, and gamers started buying from them.  Soon after, some quality game stores got caught off-guard and closed because of the loss of sales, and others changed their product mix (ala exchanging RPGs for CCGs, comics, and/or miniatures) to survive.  Many poor quality game stores survived just fine because of their low overhead.  Gamers began complaining either they no longer had a local game store, or their local game store stopped carrying a good selection of RPGs, or their local game store was too dark, dingy, stinky and dusty, causing more gamers begin shopping online.  Eventually, things settled to where they are now.  Rare is the game store that is full of all the newly released RPGs because they no longer have the customer base to support it.  More common are game stores focused on CCGs and miniature games.  Even those products can be bought online, but a game store is often instrumental for players to find other players for those games.  Especially game stores that provide play space and run events.I guess my point to all this is game stores are adjusting to the RPG customer base’s move to the internet, thus why RPGs are not so dominant in many game stores anymore.  If the gamers went back to buying their RPGs from B&M game stores, there would be an increase in RPG selection in the stores again, and an increase in the number quality game stores.  From the looks of this thread, it ain’t gonna happen.  But, from my point of view, as a gamer and game store owner, it would be nice for RPGs to be a major product line in game stores again.  (-Brad DaedaOwner, Gamer's Keepe</blockquote>

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