Games Shops - FLGS or LGS?

A brief post as I'm back from some time off work and haven't given it much thought.
I buy most of my stuff, like many others, from the internet - it's convenient and I get stuff at a price I am happy with - it also avoids the necessity of going into an actual games store!


Growing up, when I was buying what seemed like a lot of games my local games shop was called Not Just Stamps - a small shop in High Wycombe. I have fond but very blurry memories of it back in the early days. They had a (vast? probably not) figures cabinet, with all of their range lined up in sections. As I recall it was predominantly Citadel with some Ral Partha and a few historicals as well. You decided on what you wanted and gave the person at the counter the details and they would retrieve it from a set of small drawers behind the counter; or sometimes the drawer was empty and you had to start again. I think that this system was used a lot back then, before slotta bases and blister packs when they all came in little plastic bags stapled to a cardboard header.
Not Just Stamps sold a whole mass of stuff from Stamps to chess to board games to RPGS - they must have finally given up the ghost about 14 or 15 years ago - a great shame that I cannot seem to find much about them online. I remember that the lady in there seemed a bit scary.  We would have never dared to shoplift but I feel that she thought we might, so watched us like hawks. There was never any actual gaming in store, at least when I was a customer, and we never had much reason to stay once our paper round money was spent so our trips were generally short and to the point - it certainly wasn't encouraged that it be a hangout for feckless kids.


Which brings me on to the here and now.
I don't often go into a GW store, as I don't really have a reason to but I genuinely think they have got it right. Haters are going to hate of course (see Warseer for more) but their staff are friendly, the stores are light and airy and their product is excellent (if you like GW!). It's a fine place for a newbie to learn the ropes and be indoctrinated into the grimdark world. Their financials are widely known to have had some issues over the years but their star is definitely in the ascendency now - who knew that if you give people what they want then your business will be a success?


So good luck to GW, but what of my FLGS? A store opened in the high street of my village a while ago (3 years the internet tells me) and frankly I don't know if it's F or not. Why? Because I'm sort of scared to go in. It's only small and they have tables down the middle for playing Magic and other games which means it's decidedly cramped, especially as there are normally at least 2 or 3 people in there, I guess staff, but possibly hangers on. It seems to have fairly regular games nights and what looks like a thriving community so why do I not go in? Because I probably wouldn't buy anything and, if I'm brutally honest, I am concerned that I will hate the type of people that hang around in games stores; I fear that they will be everything that I consider bad about geek culture, that they will be "comic book guys", alpha nerds and social misfits. I'm scared that they won't be mature, well adjusted, right-thinking family guys like I am and that they will destroy the joy that I get from games just by being different to me. So I stay on the outside looking in, embracing my love of the hobby without getting involved in it, telling myself that one day, when things are different (I don't know how!) I will jump in and embrace my fellow gamers, gamers of all types, of all creeds and colours and fully and finally immerse myself in the culture that I love, but am afraid will disappoint me.


I am wholly aware of how cynical and sad this makes me seem - don't judge me, I can't help it. I often walk the dog past the store of an evening and look wistfully through the window. 48 year old me cannot go in, but 14 year old me wishes the shop had been there when I went to school around the corner.


I have intentionally not named the store - when I do go finally go in I'll report back here with my findings, with perhaps some comments about other shops, both current and in the distant past.
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