Inviting Newer Players, Compendium models, and the vallue of the "Old Guard"

[DarkBlack]

1 hour ago, Criti said:

I don't have an answer to that - mostly because it astounds me.  In my neck of the woods it's either considered very poor form to play a game the shop doesn't sell in that shop,  or it's outright disallowed by the shops. 

I need to ask a question,  though.  And please don't take it as an offense,  because I'm genuinely curious and I know text doesn't reflect tone well - but how does your group justify playing Infinity or Mantic in shops that don't seel those products?

You're taking up selling space and not benefitting the shop in the slightest.  In fact,  you're hurting it by advertising product they can't acquire there and taking that space away from those who support the shop.  A game shop is,  after all, a business first and a hang out second.  Table space IS selling space- it advertises games in action to people. 

To me,  that'd be like going to a soccer field and setting up a game of ultimate frisbee. Onlookers can't see the field being used for its real purpose, and the soccer players can't use it now. 

I think the misunderstanding is from a different gaming culture. I gather that you go to a shop and just use the space provided there? During normal business? There is not that kind of demand here.

We have a club that is self organised and independent from the shop. We run ourselves and Thursday gaming nights (the shop let's us use the space after hours). No one else would play there if we didn't have this arrangement and games would happen somewhere else (magic players hang around all the time though). There are no tables open to play on during other times.

In return for hosting us the shop gets to advertise itself to half the city's active gaming community (excluding isolated groups or entirely different systems like 15mm).

[karch]

11 hours ago, Criti said:

As I've explained, my suggestion comes from the notion of how loyalty to the modern creates loyalty to a shop - which is good for the hobby.  Not on the shop level, but on the whole.  Since I'm typing this on my phone, I won't ramble on about the future of the hobby and the local gaming store at this time.   I can do so later.

Reading this thread has been enlightening on how different the hobby is felt in the UK (and to a lesser extent the US) vs the continent. How the hobby is so often interpreted to rely on uninterrupted purchasing and brand loyalty is pretty much taken for granted.

To me the gaming centre is the club, where you hang out and play with everyone and you will see all kinds of conversions and alternative manufacturers (which also bring money to the FLGS of choice, but that's a separate issue). The relationship with the FLGS is personal, some of us at the club always support and buy from them, others won't spend a dime there because they prefer other options (online discounters, eBay or even Asian sweatshops)

Being from a small town you need to welcome everyone (that's not disruptive to actual play) and let everyone make his own personal choice on how to live the hobby and where to spend his money and hobby time. You can't afford to be elitist because you're robbing yourself of too many people to use the minis you spend too much time and money on.

 

[Galas]

Exactly! I'm in the second biggest city of my, to fellow american friends can understand, "State", and we have only 2 clubs here! And like... 3-4 stores that sell Wargames related things. And as I said earlier, they are little shops with 0 gaming space.

Thas the reason we need to look for other person and associate in clubs, that generally aren't Wargames-only clubs. Here we have a Wargaming-Roleplay-Boardgame club (The one I'm member) and other more centered in boardgame-roleplay-Cardgames-Theatre 

[Criti]

1 hour ago, Galas said:

Exactly! I'm in the second biggest city of my, to fellow american friends can understand, "State", and we have only 2 clubs here!  

You can say "country."

Have you seen how big Florida is?!

?

[Galas]

Well, yes! Most of the states are bigger than all of Spain!

But, Spain is divided in 17 "Autonomical Comunities" and those are divided in "provinces". When I refer to state was to equipared it with my Autonomical Comunity in a territory-organizative level.

I actually google to see how big my city is, and its actually the biggest! Not the second, with 296k habitants. The second go to 245k and the third jump to 100k.

The 25th of this month It will be a Age of Sigmar tournament at 1,5k points in the adyacent province capital... but the drive is 2 hours in car! And 4 hours in bus! 

We can't have a competitive (From a economical/group point of view) mindset, we are so few!. We need to organice clubs and associations. We are filthy hobbyst socialist scum!

But this is all off-topic. Sorry!

[AGPO]

I think there's always been an unspoken code of citizenship amongst gamers, although given the attitudes of some perhaps it should be a little more spoken. 

The continuing survival of this hobby and output of new products depends on two things - the continuing financial viability of producing games and running venues like stores as businesses; and the influx of new players and hobbyists. If you don't 'do your bit' to encourage these, you're essentially taking a free ride off those who do. If you actively undermine them, you're damaging the hobby for everyone else:

Do:

• Pay where you play (at least in part);
• Encourage and support new hobbyists by showing them how to play, paint etc;
• Help to organise events, car pools to tournaments etc;
• Make your local store/club a friendly, welcoming place to be;
• Bring the snacks, drinks etc when it's your turn, and sometimes when it isn't.

Don't:

• Rock up to store clubs where you never buy anything and take gaming space from playing customers;
• Go into a store and actively advertise recasters, eBay sellers and systems that aren't sold there;
• Insist that your approach to the hobby is the only one and push out those who prefer to play another way;
• Be rude, hostile or unfriendly to other players, especially newbies;
• Bring your power game against new players who don't really know what they're doing - who gets anything out of that?;
• Stink the place out with poor personal hygiene (seriously, this shouldn't need to be said!);
• Be a creep towards female players and wives/girlfriends/female relatives who come into the club/store (again, come on guys - it's 2017!).

Long story short, a couple of years down the line nobody will remember (or give a damn) what your win ratio was or how many tournaments you won. They will remember if you were a good person to hang out with or if you were a bit of a git. Enough said I hope.

[Foe-Hammer]

On 3/7/2017 at 0:50 PM, AGPO said:

Long story short, a couple of years down the line nobody will remember (or give a damn) what your win ratio was or how many tournaments you won. They will remember if you were a good person to hang out with or if you were a bit of a git. Enough said I hope.

Bingo! 

Which all comes back to something that was said towards the beginning of this thread - If someone has models, is friendly and wants to play, why refuse them?

We can all provide anecdotal evidence of bad experiences with old guard, not being able to find an older mini that someone was using, being put off by a tournament gamer,  round vs square bases, etc, etc (list goes on and on).

It all boils down to the individual.