I have recently been given a chance to travel a bit. While I
travel, I have to check out the local gaming shops. After all, it’s a great way
to bond with an area, and possibly grab some great gaming loots!! Recently,
while we were in Portland, OR we went to three gaming shops, all of which had
their own personalities and quirks. I’ll write reviews of the other two, but
I’ll start with Other World Games.
Jason and I went to this shop early in our adventures. It
did not have a lot of gaming material. It was a medium sized store and over
half of it was devoted to comic books. The gaming items were a bit scattered,
and some were quite old. It was not as if I felt these figures were purchased
in a lot and offered used – more that these poor Warhammer figures had been
ordered new many, many moons ago and were still on the shelves. I did spot a
D&D shoulder bag that I am still lusting after, and for under retail.
Jason was interested in some of the terrain that was about.
One bit of terrain was an elaborate Warhammer 40K set up that was partially
painted. We don’t play Warhammer 40K, but it was the best item in the store, so
Jason decided to see how much it was. Keep in mind, at this point, we had been
in the store chatting away for 15 minutes in the code of gamers. Jason also had
a handful of modules for Dungeon Crawl Classics and others.
The gentleman who came to help us treated us like we were
beyond newbies. He was technically nice, but he talked down and slowly to us.
Jason asked him about the terrain and he said “That is for Warhammer
Forty-Thousand. You can place that on a table with figures to play the game. It
is made by Games…. Workshop. They make other items.” How Jason kept completely
cool is beyond me, but because my husband was able to pass his willpower check,
I kept calm. Jason asked him if he had any in stock. After checking, he said he
could order one. When Jason answered we were from Phoenix, the guy actually
replied “There are other hobby shops, like ours, in Phoenix, that could order
this for you.” Really? After I was
calling MTG13 ‘core’ and we were getting modules? It was a little maddening.
If you are in Portland and you are really new, maybe this
would be an ok choice as everyone was very prepared to explain things. On the
other hand, there are better game store options in the city of roses, as we
will cover in our next game store review.
Ouch.
ReplyDeleteYeah. As a general rule, I've not had good experiences with stores that are "geeky product line X (usually comic books, even worse, anime and manga) and game store." Usually, nobody who works in such stores other than maybe the owner, could care less about the game lines.
At best, the gamers are treated like redheaded stepchildren...at worst, well, yeah, you came pretty close to seeing the worst, by all appearances. You're fortunate to have Darren in your neck of the woods.
FYI...Desert Rat is Stu...in case you couldn't guess.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Stu! I love Darren. He actually is one of the reasons we bought our house, because it is an easy trek to Imperial Outpost. The funny thing is, they were about the same with comic books. I was looking at a few... and no 'help'. Sigh. Bad customer service sucks. Over the next few weeks I will post reviews of the other two shops and nice reviews of our home town heroes.
ReplyDeleteHugs and see you and Suz soon!
-Madelyn