Long live the friendly local tabletop game store

polygon.com:

It’s not exactly a hot take to point out that retail stores are having a rough go of things lately. That goes double for a niche offering like an independent board game retailer, or FLGS (“Friendly Local Game Store”), as they are commonly referred to within the tabletop hobby.

Online retailers have for years represented the most significant threat to the FLGS, and it’s not hard to see why. They typically offer lower prices, wider inventories, and the convenience of being able to buy games in your pajamas. And if a tabletop gamer does venture into an actual brick-and-mortar business, they are often able to find a product they want in the ever-growing board game sections at Target, Walmart, and Barnes & Noble, big-box stores pushing into the hobby game market with the same techniques they used to annihilate so many other retail sectors. That these big-box stores are, themselves, rapidly ceding ground to mega e-tailers like Amazon might feel karmic, but it’s cold comfort for the FLGS that’s now being undercut twice. Meanwhile, the explosion of crowdfunding and direct publisher e-commerce has left retail stores out of the customer loop entirely, especially when it comes to the splashiest and buzziest new releases (many campaigns offer retailer tiers, but they require a cash-strapped store to preorder a game that has at best barely left the design stage, meaning it will be months to potentially years before a return can be earned).

To top it all off, a certain recent (and still ongoing) pandemic sent foot traffic through the floor, shuttering retailers of nonessential goods for weeks, months, or more — many of which, despite heroic efforts by the industry, never reopened.

So, that’s the bad news. Friendly Local Game Stores,