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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spacecrime.com" data-source="post: 1625079" data-attributes="member: 753">While I like Dr. Awkward's argument, I don't think it applies well to the average game store. Local businesses can do good things for a local economy -- Northampton is a case in point, since its unique businesses draw customers from throughout the region -- but most game stores are too small to have much economic impact.Keep in mind that most of the money spent in a game store is going "out of town" to distributors and manufacturers, no matter whether that store is local or part of a national chain like Waldenbooks. As for the 40% of income not spent on cost of goods, about half of that is going into operating expenses like utilities, advertising, and office supplies. Most of that money is going to be spent the same way whether you're local or national -- Waldenbooks uses the same electricity that Joe's Game Shoppe does, and of the two Waldenbooks may be more likely to advertise in the local paper or contribute to a school theatre program.So, we're down to about 20% of income, which is going to be split between occupancy and labor. Occupancy may be more likely to go local with a local store, because many of the successful chains work hard to own their own real estate and cut deals with towns to minimize property taxes. That's not always the case, though. My new landlord is here in town -- actually right here in the building -- with me, but we spent 9 years in a location owned by a couple in Florida. Meanwhile, there's a Quizno's coming into town that will be paying rent to a local landowner. So the ten cents of your dollar that goes to occupancy may be more likely to stay in the local economy with a local store, but that's not at all certain.So we're left with labor. Most of that money stays local, but it's not like game store employees don't shop at Wal-Mart or DeepDiscountDVD.com. They're just like anybody else in that some of their money stays and some of it goes, and that wouldn't change whether they were working in a chain or not. The only question is, "how much money do they have to spend", and unfortunately the scales may tip towards the chains there. A lot of game store owners -- myself included, some years -- work for less than minimum wage. I know at least one store owner in my area (not me) who isn't paying himself at all and is more or less living on support from his family. Most of the people working in game shops are qualified to work in any number of retail or office jobs where they would make more money, which leads to the uncomfortable conclusion that going out of business would probably improve their financial status and their contributions to the local economy.Again, not arguing against the general rightness of the argument. Having lots of local businesses in a town can be very good for the local economy, and successful local businesses can contribute a lot to their community in wages, purchases, and charitable giving. Based on the numbers I've seen, however, most game stores aren't successful enough to make that kind of contribution. (The ones that are successful enough probably don't need "support", either, since they're drawing in customers on their own merits.)cheers,</blockquote>

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