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| Game Parlor Woodbridge's Old store front by We Need the XP |
I heard some sad news today. One of my old favorite gaming stores, Game Parlor, had to close their Woodbridge Virginia location on Tuesday. This store was pretty legendary in the Northern Viriginia gaming scene. Well known for having a large gaming area, snacks, and a wide selection of games (I mean, a very wide selection of games). Hosting games from Magic: the Gathering to Yu Gi Oh! to most everything Games Workshop has ever considered producing, that's not even covering the RPGs it hosted. Fortunately their Chantilly Virginia location is still open. You should check it out. Lots of good stuff.
This leads me to a couple of thoughts. I've heard of more than a few good Geek Central Points(GCP) going by the wayside fading off into the sunset, walking from the plains of battle... ok you get where I'm going here. I know there are a lot of opinions, many of them very strong, about what makes one store shut down and what have you. I'm not really going to talk about the difficulties / intricacies of running a gaming store.
Here at DC Geeks we're pretty big about Geek/Nerd community building. Let's take a look at what makes a good GCP.
Full list after the jump.
Space
It's gotta have enough space for socialization. Geeks and nerds need enough space to get to know one enough to be able to build a community. Community building is the main point developing a store into a GCP, as it can make a very loyal customer base.
Events
Hosting geek style events, whether just simple game nights, meetups, game developers testing new games, or, hell, a geek karaoke night. Having events or letting others host events in your space goes a long way to keeping people coming back.
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| See, someone likes scrabble! from Lightning Octopus |
Nerds love their soda and chips. Or candy bars. What have you. We tend to be rather lazy and not want to leave the location we're at to get a quick energy boost for that all night D&D session or cosplay costume making meetup.
Ok, really this applies to just about any business. But it's crazy essential for a Central Point. I've seen nerd places that are difficult to find or just difficult to get to. If people have to spend a lot of energy to get there, getting a large group of us together is going to be harder.
Perhaps the most important one. How did you end up at the bottom?? Without staff that are knowledgeable about the focus of this location(whether it's gaming, or anime, or comics or whatever) geeks aren't going to keep coming back to the store. Really, staff needs to not only be interested in the merchandise for sale, they also need to want to talk to customers about what they are into and why.
First hand knowledge and direct opinion go a long way towards people making choices that they won't regret. The more staff at a store recommend awesome products, the more people are going to want to keep coming back.
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| Well you don't need to be this knowledgeable. by Guidespot |
That's where I'm at on this thought process. We're trying to develop a list of all of the Geek Locations around the DC area to make it easier for you all to find something that scratches that itch for you and is close to you. Stay tuned on that one.
It closed because the location sucked - and has sucked since I moved into this area over 10 years ago. The shopping center it is in is so dead that the county ended up leasing property for a free-clinic. Something that isn't affordable in a shopping center that is thriving. The thing is - whoever decided to put it there rather then in the heart of Prince William's bedroom community of Lake Ridge made a very poor business decision. If the owners are simply queried local residents or other businesses they would have easily determined that the business site was a dead-zone. They night as well have put it in Marumsco Plaza on Rt-1. For a game store to thrive it needs to be located in an area with a large percentage of "families" (i.e. younger folk) with descent incomes (i.e. expendable income). Not across from an outlet mall that is - for all intents and purposes - patronized by low income hoodlums.
ReplyDeleteWell, that area had one major thing going for it, and that was the huge mall nearby. If they were looking at it as a magnet area where people would flock to, their location was fine (granted, it didn't really turn out that way). By placing a store close by to a major shopping Center (Mall of America, King of Prussia Mall, etc), stores can enjoy a higher flow of people coming in and out of their store, and thus, higher profits.
ReplyDeleteHm. As a resident of the area for almost 20 years, I have to disagree. Marumsco Plaza failed for very different reasons - predominantly the outstretch of Washington D.C. Traffic that blocked off most of the businesses, and THAT area was a much poorer part of town. Smoketown Road is home to a High School (potential clients), middle class (potential clients), and is right across from an outlet mall and in a convenient to reach location not far from Rt 1, Prince William Parkway and I-95. The shopping center itself may not have been a prime location, but it certainly wasn't in the middle of a ghetto. That mall's patrons were all kinds, not just the "low-income hoodlums" that you chose as your basis for comparison. One of Game Parlor's competitor's, Painted Visions, was in another shopping center on the other side of the high school...and had been successful there for many years.
ReplyDeleteAnd honestly? I never. Freaking. Went. To Lake Ridge. I never thought that there was anything there worth going to, and tended to gravitate to locations *gasp* around the mall. So, the survival of the store was more likely in part due to business practices (i.e. - nothing on sale, nothing reducing in price with age -- people were able to get their gaming supplies online for less -- outdated computers for LAN gaming and an AWKWARD location in an AWKWARD shopping center....among other things. It was far from perfect)
Prince William County's income level versus Fairfax County (where the Chantilly location thrived for years before the opening of the Woodbridge store in 2003) was DRASTICALLY different. Many of the clients at that store were more fans of the war gaming miniatures, and that ....suffice to say....was an expensive hobby. Paints alone cost a small fortune, not to go into the minis themselves, and building terrain. The patrons had higher and more expendable income than the patrons in Woodbridge. Does this mean that all of the patrons there were hoodlums? HARDLY.
I worked there for the first two years that it was open, and I saw many of its strengths and shortcomings. But I can say that it was one of the best jobs that I ever had -- and I met a lot of people of various backgrounds there. And many, many of them were loyal and bought a great many things there. It was just not the right spot at the right time. I am surprised that they managed to survive as long as they did. And it did it's part.
I am very sad that it closed, but I certainly wouldn't blame it on the "hoodlums" and a low income. In fact, I think that judging Woodbridge alone on only a shred of the population is insulting.
I live in Woodbridge, and a few minutes from this Games Parlor location. They used to have a bigger space in that section and then they moved to a far smaller outlet in the same location. I bought ALL my Call of Cthulu LCG set and packs there. Also bought my Arkham Horror, my Mansion of Madness, my D&D Castleraveloft, my D&D Wrath of Ashardalon. This was the perfect location for me. It's really sad to see gaming stores close. I've been playing RPG and strategy boardgames since the late 70s. Games Parlor was perfect and now it's gone!
ReplyDeleteI also played games and bought many an item at both the Game Parlor Woodbridge and Chantilly locations. I think what killed Woodbridge was the kids playing too many card games, and not enough adult wargamers capable of making big, constant purchases, and with the decency to buy from the house now and then.
ReplyDelete