Lynn and Price share practical steps for store owners, game publishers, and businesses at every tier of the industry, as well as consumers to push for transparency and reform. They highlight the importance of grassroots advocacy and collective action through campaigns like We Pay the Tariffs.

Links

https://www.wepaythetariffs.com/

What would the impact of having 100 extra potential customers walk into your store each month be? People who are interested in the games and products you have to sell. How would that affect your cash flow and bottom line? What about 500? 1000?

Unless you live in an extremely isolated community, it's possible.

I have yet to talk to a game store owner that doesn't want more customers coming into their store every month. But accomplishing that goal isn't always easy. There are so many ways to reach out and spread the word within your local community, but in today's episode Bill Hibbler and I explore one of the most effective ways to get your store in front of more people.

Google search has been the default way most people use the internet to find what they're looking for. We go online and search for things like "Magic cards" or "warhammer store" or "sports card store" and we see what pops up. Sometimes we see places like Amazon and Target near the top of the search results, sometimes it's the local hobby store. We end up clicking on the website to get more info.

The results aren't random. The reason the #1 result on Google is there is because they put in the work to rank that high. That's SEO (search engine optimization) and it has a big time commitment in order to pay off and start generating the traffic you're looking for.

That's not what we're talking about in this episode.

SEO is great. It's effective, powerful, and can change your business, so I recommend putting some effort into it.

But if you want to see results in weeks instead of months, listen closely to how Bill breaks down a simple strategy for leveraging something you've probably set up once and forgotten about: your store's Google Business Profile.

By optimizing your Google Business Profile and making a single page on your website, your Google Map rankings can see huge improvements in a very short amount of time. Instead of people in your surrounding local area finding big box stores when they search for the products you sell, your store can show up at the top of the Map Pack and grab that traffic for your business instead.

We talk about:

1. Setting up your Google Business Profile correctly so you get the most out of it
2. How Google tells you what it's looking for in terms of information
3. The one webpage you need to get the most from your GBP
4. How to calculate the lifetime value of a customer so you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategies
5. The simple strategy that reframes your store into a local destination

There is a ton of great info in this episode, and to quote Bill one more time "When they pay more attention to your site, it's gonna get more people to pay attention to your store."

Useful Links

1. location.gamestoremarketing.com
2. gamestoremarketing.com
3. Google Business Profile
4. Canva
5. GAMA Expo

So this episode is all about how the psychology of Q5 works… and how you can tap into it in ways your competitors probably won’t.

Check out the Game Store Mastermind https://www.skool.com/lgs-success-mastermind-6743/about

Book a strategy call for your game store https://manaversesaga.com/mma

Everyone is running promos, customers are hunting for deals, and the whole retail ecosystem usually kicks into overdrive. If you don't have a plan, it is going to feel like chaos. But if you do it right, if you go in with a strategy this weekend. Can generate a massive surge of momentum for the rest of the holiday season, along with a ton of sales and revenue for your store.

Of course. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about how to build your BFCM strategy. We're gonna go over how to design smart promotions that drive sales without gutting your margins. How to build anticipation leading up to Black Friday. So customers think of you first instead of your competitors. How to leverage small business Saturday to deepen community ties, how to gamify your store.

And make the weekend fun for your customers. How to use this weekend for content creation. And finally, what to do Tuesday morning to lock in those long term gains.

Want to knock Q4 out of the park but not sure where to start? Book a consultation call and we'll create a custom marketing plan for your game store that you can use immediately. Head to https://manaversesaga.com/mma to get on the schedule today!

You’ll learn:

• Why Q4 is the most important quarter for your store
• A quick “holiday audit” to focus your efforts
• The 3 pillars every successful game store holiday plan needs

Discover how this policy shift is reshaping global trade in the games business and how you can shift your operation to thrive in the new environment.

Get in touch with David Finn

david.finn@bridgedist.com

Sign up for SortSwift and use code MANAVERSE at checkout get your TCG singles business online while saving 5%!

https://www.sortswift.com/?ref=manaverse

Ready to take your store's visibility and growth to the next level? Visit manaversesaga.com/mma for a free 30-minute strategy session where we'll review your current marketing approach and show you exactly what's possible with some expert guidance.

Meet CardMill

Designed for Players

The CardMill is the only automated trading card game scanner and sorter on the market, priced for the everyday collector and player.

Automated Scanning

The CardMill can scan and sort batches of 300 cards at a time, hands-free! It moves, scans, and sorts all on its own.

Fast Sorting

Settings to sort cards alphabetically, by set/type/color and more! The CardMill auto-sorts your collection so you can find what you need when you need it.

Intelligent Identification

This AI-model learns and grows with your collection. The CardMill scanner identifies cards by name, set, foil, you name it!

Digital Dashboard

Scanning is just the beginning. Use CardMill's digital library to organize, filter, track price trends and add your inventory to your favorite collection tracker!

Track Collection Value

Integrated with up-to-date TCGPlayer pricing, you'll always have the latest prices of your inventory at-a-glance.

Find out more about CardMill by going to https://cardmill.com/manaversesaga and sign up to get notified when the Kickstarter campaign goes live on July 22nd.

Mikah shares how his business evolved from selling Magic: The Gathering singles to creating a Kickstarter for card drawers that raised over $150K, eventually leading to the development of his own card sorting machine—one of the first new production machines in over 20 years.

Get started with SortSwift today - https://manaversesaga.com/sortswift

But hardware is just part of the picture.

SortSwift also offers an integrated software suite for game stores and at-home sellers that includes:

• Inventory management
• Auto-pricing via TCGPlayer
• Buylist management
• Shopify and marketplace integrations
• Chaos-style organization (bin-level card tracking)
• POS and customer kiosk systems
• CSV tools and fuzzy match imports
• Plans for a vetted seller marketplace and fulfillment network

If you're tired of dealing with legacy systems like BinderPOS that aren't performing as promised and want something more responsive, modular, and affordable, you should take a look at SortSwift. Many game stores are already switching, and growth is accelerating.

Sign up for SortSwift today!

https://manaversesaga.com/sortswift

SortSwift quick hits:

• Over 2.2 million cards scanned
• Nearly $750K in customer sales processed
• 90+ active subscriptions and growing
• 21 sorting machines ordered, with more in production

We talk about TCG Player's history in dealing with its employees, what this means for sellers and buyers on the platform, and the ethics (or lack thereof) in running a multibillion dollar corporation.

Here's a short summary of the situation

In early 2023, the graders and authenticators at TCGplayer’s Syracuse Authentication Center voted to unionize under the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

On May 22, 2025, eBay announced it would close that Syracuse facility, affecting about 220 employees, and shift all authentication work to one of its logistics centers in Kentucky.

The closure came just days after union leadership and eBay management wrapped up their first contract negotiations—CWA says the timing is suspicious.

eBay’s official line is that consolidating in Kentucky “streamlines operations” and keeps costs down. Minimum wage and overhead in Kentucky are much lower than in upstate New York.

Workers and the union claim this move is a union-busting tactic—there are new unfair-labor-practice charges filed with the NLRB arguing eBay shut down a unionized site to avoid bargaining.

The Syracuse center was TCGplayer’s original headquarters and a key local employer—many of those 220 workers were specialized in grading card condition and verifying authenticity.

With the Syracuse center gone, sellers and collectors in the short term will likely face longer turnaround times for grading and authentication.

The CWA and local labor leaders have already staged rallies outside the shuttered building, started petitions, and enlisted state politicians to pressure eBay.

eBay acquired TCGplayer in 2022 for $295 million, aiming to double down on the booming trading-card market—this shutdown is the first major union battle under their umbrella.

Helpful links and alternative platforms

https://cardgarden.com/

https://www.cardkingdom.com/

https://manapool.com/

https://www.cardtrader.com/

https://theroccoalition.com/

https://x.com/amandalws

Most of these strategies won't cost you more than the time you put in, so if you're looking for ways to boost your reach and bring in new customers, emphasis on new, give this episode a listen and deploy them in your game store. Several of them you can accomplish in under 30 minutes!

Ready to take your store's visibility and growth to the next level? Visit manaversesaga.com/mma for a free 30-minute strategy session where we'll review your current marketing approach and show you exactly what's possible with some expert guidance.

Mickie shares why small businesses have exactly the kind of human stories that local journalists love, and how easy (and inexpensive!) it can be to start getting media attention. Whether you're brand new to PR or just looking for simple ways to build stronger community ties, this episode is packed with actionable strategies you can use right away.

What You'll Learn:

• What a press release really is — and why most small stores don't need a fancy one
• How a simple email or phone call can open the door to local media coverage
• Why human interest stories are your secret PR weapon
• Tips for building your own “local journalist Rolodex”
• Easy, creative ideas to make your store’s events and customer stories media-friendly
• Why consistency in outreach pays off (even if it feels slow at first!)
• How PR can beat a $10,000 ad campaign for a fraction of the cost
• Real examples of how small businesses used PR to move the needle in a big way

Resources Mentioned:

• eReleases Website
• Free PR Masterclass by Mickie Kennedy: ereleases.com/plan

Connect with Mickie Kennedy:

• LinkedIn
• eReleases

We talk about:

Why board games might feel like they’re in trouble — but aren’t.

How Games Unlimited succeeds without Magic, Pokémon, or miniatures.

The downsides of Kickstarter exclusives and FOMO-driven content.

The difference between stocking games and selling games.

Why community and inclusion mean more than just packed event tables.

How to structure your store (physically and culturally) to appeal to casual customers, not just diehard hobbyists.

Let's talk about the future of local game stores, what it means to be board game-focused, and how to win without following the traditional FLGS model.

Check out LFG Con everywhere

https://www.lfg-con.com/

https://www.instagram.com/lfgconvention/

https://www.youtube.com/@LFGCon

https://www.tiktok.com/@lfgconvention

Now, if you've been in this industry for any amount of time, you've probably heard some version of this. Maybe you've even thought it yourself. I’ve been putting together this podcast for over 10 years now, and I can recall several guests more or less saying the same thing. 

The idea that running a game store or launching a tabletop game is a passion project at best.

But here's the truth: that belief is not only false, it's holding back countless game store owners, creators, and entrepreneurs from achieving the success they could be having.

Let me caveat this real quick. The folks repeating this belief online mean well. Starting a game store has a notorious and well earned reputation of having a low bar for entry, which means that most would-be store owners are under-funded and under-prepared for the realities of running a retail business.

Finding hard numbers on this is tough, but I would estimate that for every game store that exists and has been open for 3 years or more, there are between 10 and 20 stores that didn’t last more than a year or two. And those failed store owners, whatever the cause of the failure, disappear from the conversation, so we have a Survivorship Bias situation in online retailer groups.

So the general advice given online when someone asks about starting up their own shop is “Don’t do it.” The advice givers knows how difficult the business is to build and grow, so it’s correct to discourage someone who might not be ready to put off their dream or try something else.

I’m not arguing against that. I think recommending a prospective store owner come to the table with more resources and knowledge of the business will only increase their odds of success.

This isn’t what I’m talking about in this podcast.

I’m referring to the ingrained belief/mindset of game store owners that it’s not possible to become “wealthy” running a game store. One manifestation of this mindset is store owners discouraging would-be store owners from entering the market in the first place, but it also subconsciously limits their own potential.

There’s a quote attributed to Henry Ford that encapsulates this really well.

“Whether you believe you can or can’t, you’re right.”

If you believe, deep down, that the best you can do with your business is to muddle along and provide yourself and your team with a basic level of income, you’re not only wrong, you’re doing yourself and the people who rely on you a disservice.

Let’s get into the psychology of this for a moment. 

There’s a psychological phenomenon called the Pygmalion Effect, where higher expectations lead to an increase in performance. It suggests that when someone, for example, a teacher, manager, or leader, expects a person to perform well, that person is more likely to meet those expectations due to the positive reinforcement and belief in their abilities.

The concept is named after Pygmalion, a figure from Greek mythology who sculpted a statue that he fell in love with, which was later brought to life by the goddess Aphrodite.

Positive expectations can influence behavior, motivation, and self-esteem, leading to improved outcomes. Well, this applies to more than just the people you have working for you. In many ways, you are your own manager. The things you believe and say get internalized over time, and shape the actions you take in the future.

If you believe you’re destined for great things, that you are smart, talented, and capable of making a big impact on the world, you are much more likely to actually make it a reality. 

There is also the opposite phenomenon known as the Golem Effect.

When low expectations are set for an individual, or yourself, performance tends to decline, leading to a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.

By operating under the assumption and belief that a game store isn’t a “real business” or can never really become a way to have more than a middle class lifestyle, you’re constructing the Golem one piece at a time.

Let's break this down. Why does this belief exist? 

First, tabletop gaming has always been a community-driven hobby. Most of us are nerds at heart and up until recently, our hobbies were looked at with a side eye by most of society. We banded together to create our own communities of people who share the love and passion for games in the same way that we did.

If I had to arm-chair psychoanalyze again, and it’s my show so I get to do what I want, I would say most game stores were created out of a desire to create a safe space to enjoy the things we enjoy, and to allow others who feel the same way to gather. A consequence of this is the business existing and functioning as a business is often secondary.

A games store is usually fueled by passion, creativity, and a love for games. But somewhere along the line, passion became synonymous with poverty. As if loving what you do means you shouldn't expect to make money doing it.

This is often entangled with the dual problems of: feeling like you have to “serve the community” first with making money becoming second, and the people in your community becoming friends.

Having your customers become friends is one of the nicer aspects of running a game store. You are surrounded by people that love the same things you do and want to talk about them all day. It can be great, but it also usually blurs the lines between customer and friend. Friends expect special treatment from you. You’re not a stranger, so they should expect special treatment from you in some ways.

But as a business, it can be awkward when a friend expects you to give them a deal. Do you give the friend what they are asking for and sacrifice your margins to maintain the friendship, or do you risk the relationship and tell them no?

If your friendships are the top priority of the business, you will lean towards the first option. Integrity is hard. Not keeping it will erode your ability to stay in business, as well as your perception of yourself and what you should be doing to pursue your goals.

I’m not saying your relationships with people aren’t important and you should be a ruthless capitalist who only thinks about profit. Relationships have a place in the hierarchy of how you make decisions and run your game store, but they can’t be the deciding factor.

The game stores that operate on the thinnest of margins in order to serve the community and make their friends happy almost always inevitably fail.

Second, most game store owners' goals are simply too small. 

I think this is gradually changing as the industry has become much more professional over the last ten years, but there is still the afterimage of the idea of the local game store in people’s minds that shapes their perception of what’s possible.

Maybe this is a downside to the moniker “friendly local game store”. Language matters, and the words we use to talk about something simultaneously program our minds in how we think about it. 

There’s something inherently small about the local game store, and maybe that’s why most store owners aim for moderate success instead of swinging for the fences. 

At this point, I’ve helped several game stores in my work with their marketing and seen the inner workings of what’s possible in the business. I’ve seen stores go from $0 to over a half a million dollars in yearly revenue in the space of a year. Game stores that have seven figure revenue numbers with 8 figures in sight. Teams of dozens of people making a decent wage.

How many Star City Games, Game Nerds, Cool Stuff, Face to Face Games, and Card Kingdoms have to exist before people feel like “yeah, there’s real money to be made in the games business”?

The difference between those who struggle and those who succeed often comes down to mindset and strategy. Are you treating your store like a business or a clubhouse? Are you investing in marketing, building an online presence, and diversifying revenue streams? Are you managing your inventory and putting in the work to make it work for you? Or are you stuck in the mindset that "this is just how it is"?

Here’s the truth: You can absolutely make a substantial income as a tabletop games store owner. But it first requires the right mindset. If you hold yourself back because you don’t believe it’s really possible, you’re only going to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, you need a ton of other skills in order to build a business that achieves those ambitions too!

You need to embrace modern marketing, understand your customers, and be willing to innovate. You need a great operation with people who can sell, you need to be able to cultivate a strong community. You need organizational skills. You need to be able to spot the winning products and manage inventory correctly. You need to maintain your passion for games and persevere through the inevitable hard times.

But without the vision and belief that you can build something great, you’re going to constantly undermine what your game store could be.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe and leave a review—it helps more game store owners discover the show. And if you're ready to take your store to the next level and want to talk about how we can help your game store grow with some ridiculously effective digital marketing, head over to manaversesaga.com/mma and let's make it happen.

Until next time, keep building, keep growing, and keep gaming.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• The story behind 2nd Hand Geek, an eBay-style marketplace for used and new games, miniatures, and other geek culture items.
• How 2nd Hand Geek differs from platforms like eBay and TCGPlayer by offering a unique community revenue share model that rewards local game stores.
• An in-depth look at the new features on 2nd Hand Geek, including the innovative "Collection Feature" that helps players manage their collections and track the market value of their armies and miniatures.
• Details on the platform’s paint standards for miniatures, making it easier to sell and buy painted models with confidence in the quality.
• Upcoming features such as PayPal integration, secure transactions, and Shopify integration that will allow store owners to easily list their products on the platform.
• How game stores can benefit from 2nd Hand Geek’s affiliate program, earning 20% of the fees generated from their customer base’s transactions.
• The vision for the future of 2nd Hand Geek, including plans to become a one-stop shop for all things geek culture.

Key Takeaways:

• 2nd Hand Geek is growing rapidly with over 500 accounts and hundreds of transactions. The team is focused on building out robust features to support further growth.
• Game store owners can easily sign up and start earning money by referring customers to the platform or listing their own inventory. The QR code and referral link system make it simple for stores to promote the platform and earn a percentage of transactions.
• The platform aims to support the broader gaming community by making it easier for players to find hard-to-get miniatures and games while also providing a new revenue stream for local stores.

Connect with 2nd Hand Geek:

• Visit 2ndHandGeek.com to sign up for a free account and start listing your items.
• Join the 2nd Hand Geek community on Discord to share feedback and connect with the team.
• Interested in getting your store involved? Contact the team for more details on how you can benefit from their referral program and upcoming features.

Episode Links:

• 2nd Hand Geek Website
• 2nd Hand Geek Discord
• Manaverse Podcast

In today's episode of the Manaverse Podcast, I dive deep into a topic that's been on my mind a lot lately: the growing loneliness and division many of us are experiencing in the modern world. With nearly a third of adults in the U.S. feeling lonely on a regular basis and our society becoming more polarized, I believe local game stores have a unique opportunity to bridge these gaps and foster genuine human connections.

The Loneliness Epidemic

Loneliness has become a silent epidemic with significant consequences for our health and well-being. Studies show that social isolation is linked to increased risks of heart disease, stroke, dementia, and depression. It's clear that people are craving connection more than ever, but finding meaningful ways to connect can be challenging.

That's where game stores come in.

My Story: How a Game Store Changed My Life

I want to share a bit of my own story to highlight just how powerful these spaces can be. When I was about 12 years old, a kid from down the street introduced me to a local game store called Deja Vu Games. It wasn't much to look at—a small, basement unit with a few folding tables and some shelves of Magic cards. But for me, it was a magical place where I discovered a community of people who shared my passion for games.

I spent nearly every day after school at Deja Vu Games, and over time, I met the friends who would shape my life for years to come. These were the people who became my core group, my business partners, and eventually even the ones who helped me meet my wife. The connections I made there were deep and lasting, and they all started with a shared love of games.

The Unique Role of Game Stores

Game stores are more than just retail spaces; they're community hubs. Unlike most other social environments—like schools, workplaces, or bars—game stores provide a unique space where people from all walks of life can come together over a shared interest. Whether it's playing Magic: The Gathering, hosting a D&D campaign, or participating in a board game night, these activities naturally foster conversation, cooperation, and connection.

At a time when many people feel isolated, game stores offer a welcoming environment where new friendships can be formed and old ones can be strengthened. The structure of playing games with others helps remove the awkwardness of meeting someone new, creating a positive feedback loop that encourages more social interaction.

Building a Better World, One Game at a Time

I genuinely believe that game stores have the potential to make a significant impact on their communities and, by extension, the world. Imagine a future where every community has a friendly, well-run game store that serves as a gathering place for people of all ages and backgrounds. These stores could host a variety of events—game nights, paint nights, puzzle parties, and more—that bring people together, encourage socializing, and help build stronger, more connected communities.

By fostering these connections, game stores can help combat the loneliness epidemic and create a more open-minded, cooperative society. It's a small step, but one that could lead to a much happier and healthier world.

So, if you're a game store owner or thinking about becoming one, know that you're not just selling games—you're offering a space for connection, joy, and community. And that, to me, is something truly special.

Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed this post, make sure to check out the full podcast episode. And if you'd like your game store featured on the show, feel free to reach out to me at tom@manaversesaga.com.

Together, let's build a better world, one game at a time.

Since game store owners often look at the products they sell as hot potatoes, Scott’s experience may lead you to reevaluate that common wisdom. Maybe there’s gold in those dead games sitting on your back shelves. 

We also talk a fair bit about Crystal Commerce and the struggle of working with a legacy system that has a huge amount of potential, and the intricacies of marketing online. Good stuff all around.

Speaking of marketing, that’s what we do! We help local game stores get more sales and establish a stronger presence online with digital marketing strategies like email, Google ads, Meta ads, social media, content, and search engine optimization, and we’d love to work with you! If you go to manaversesaga.com/mma and book a free call, we’ll go over your store’s current digital footprint and put together a custom digital marketing strategy plan tailored to your business. We’ll go over the plan together on the call and talk about how we can implement everything for you. If you want to work together, great! If you want to take the plan and try implementing it in house, that’s cool too. Either way, it’s yours to keep. We’ve helped game stores in nearly every stage of the business, from prelaunch all the way to multiple millions in yearly revenue, and we’d love to help your LGS take advantage of the massive opportunities that exist online. Head to manaversesaga.com/mma to get started!

Links

https://www.categoryonegames.com/

Scott Church on Facebook

In this interview, we cover:

• Travis's early passion for gaming and how his family's gaming habits influenced him.
• His unique career path, from professional poker and mortgages to owning a game store.
• The origin story and growth of Millennium Games, expanding from a small store to a 28,000 square foot gaming haven.
• The importance of diversity within product categories to handle market fluctuations.
• Strategies for creating a successful game store, including the significance of customer feedback and community building.
• The role of game stores in fostering a welcoming environment and adapting communication for new customers.
• Insights into balancing a strong online presence with the success of a brick-and-mortar store.
• Personal lessons and the importance of learning from mistakes in the business.

Links Mentioned:

Millennium Games TV on YouTube

Millennium Games and Travis on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/MillenniumGames

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009368408612

Millennium Games on Instagram

Millennium Games on Twitter/X

Millennium Games on Twitch

Travis also shares his experiences from industry events like the ACD open house and GenCon trade day, offering invaluable insights for aspiring game store owners and gaming enthusiasts alike.

Don't miss this episode if you're looking to learn from one of the best in the business! Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe for more interviews and insights from the gaming industry. Enjoy the interview!

Sign up for a Manapool.com account and get 0% seller fees for 6 months plus cash rebates.

Michael relatively recently sold DSG to another game store owner, and I say relatively because I’ve been sitting on this recording for way too long, but we dive into what it takes to build a game store into a sellable asset. The processes and systems that you need to have in place to create a business that not only functions without you, but also gives you the opportunity to potentially exit the business profitably and on your own terms. 

It’s an excellent conversation, and if you want more of a backstage pass look into the operational side of a local game store I definitely recommend signing up for the LGSNI Substack. I’m a member and Michael’s insights into the crunchy, data driven aspects of the business are tremendously valuable. You can go to manaversesaga.com/lgsni to sign up. I’m not affiliated or anything with the newsletter, but I am a big fan, so check it out!

Before we jump into the conversation, I’ve also got a fairly big announcement to make as well. 

As of today, I am officially a co-founding member of the 2nd Hand Geek team! I’m coming on as the CMO for 2nd Hand Geek and together we are going to build a marketplace that truly supports the local game stores that are the heart of the hobbies we all love.

If you haven’t heard of 2nd Hand Geek yet, check out my interview with Alan Blakeborough in episode 138, to find out more about what it’s all about. 

I am very excited about the future of 2nd Hand Geek and how it will change the way hobbyists buy and sell online, while also giving back and supporting the local game stores that built up those communities of gamers that make everything possible in the first place.

Links

LGS Net Income

MVP138

2ndHandGeek.com

Questions:

What initially inspired the concept of Altered, and how has it evolved from its original idea?

Can you share insights into the creative process behind the game's unique blend of lore and visual design, especially with influences from Miyazaki and Dixit-like illustrations?

What challenges did you face in creating a balanced yet engaging gameplay experience in Altered?

Could you elaborate on how the game’s unique rarity system and algorithmically generated cards impact both gameplay and player strategy?

How did you approach the lore creation for the six factions in Altered? What inspired their distinct characteristics and stories?

Can you delve into the process of integrating the game's lore with its mechanics and card design?

What does a typical day look like for you as a game designer on Altered?

How do you balance creativity with the technical aspects of game design?

In what ways has player feedback shaped the development of Altered?

What future expansions or developments can players look forward to in the Altered universe?

How do you envision the growth of Altered in the competitive TCG scene?

What have been some of the most challenging aspects of developing Altered, and how did you overcome them?

Can you share a particularly rewarding moment or milestone in the game’s journey so far?

What advice would you give to someone aspiring to enter the field of game design, especially in the TCG genre?

How has working on Altered influenced your personal views on game design and storytelling?

If you could go back to the beginning of the Altered project, is there anything you would do differently?

Check out the Altered TCG Kickstarter campaign!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/equinox-studio/altered-tcg

Book a 30 minute strategy session with us to get your game store digital marketing plan created for free. It's yours to keep either way so you have nothing to lose. Go to https://manaversesaga.com/mma to book your call and start off 2024 strong.

You'll hear about the innovative strategies in inventory management, pricing, and staff empowerment that have contributed to the store's success. Joshua also sheds light on the future plans for The Deck Box, including balancing online and in-store sales and maintaining a profitable margin to support community events.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in gaming retail, community building, or just loves a good success story. Tune in for insights and inspiration from a gaming retail expert!

Links

https://www.thedeckboxhalifax.com/

https://www.facebook.com/DeckBoxHalifax

https://www.instagram.com/thedeckboxhalifax/

Josh talks about the balance between online and in-store sales, stressing that each requires a vastly different approach and business model, and why he favours the local first approach for his community.

Book a 30 minute strategy session with us to get your game store digital marketing plan created for free. It's yours to keep either way so you have nothing to lose. Go to https://manaversesaga.com/mma to book your call and start off 2024 strong.

Joshua talks about balancing pricing for different card rarities, adapting to market changes, and setting prices appropriate for the local market, and why he doesn't use platforms like TCGPlayer to set his prices.

This one is real crunchy if you're curious about the back end operations of how a local-first game store really functions and cultivates a profitable TCG ecosystem of local customers.

Book a 30 minute strategy session with us to get your game store digital marketing plan created for free. It's yours to keep either way so you have nothing to lose. Go to https://manaversesaga.com/mma to book your call and start off 2024 strong.

Book a 30 minute strategy session with us to get your game store digital marketing plan created for free. It's yours to keep either way so you have nothing to lose. Go to https://manaversesaga.com/mma to book your call and start off 2024 strong.

It was a fun conversation that I was able to have in person, at Josh’s new expansion lovingly called the Rules Lawyer, which is something I definitely want to do more of in the future. Enjoy part 1 of Josh’s interview.

Links

https://www.thedeckboxhalifax.com/

https://www.facebook.com/DeckBoxHalifax

https://www.instagram.com/thedeckboxhalifax/

Eric elaborates on Altered's unique features, including its integration of digital elements with traditional card gameplay, and the innovative use of QR codes to merge physical and digital collections. He explains how Altered aims to refresh the trading card game industry, emphasizing a new IP, engaging gameplay, and a mix of casual and competitive elements. We also discuss the game's market strategy, retailer support, organized play, and a Kickstarter campaign, highlighting how these elements are designed to benefit both players and retailers.

If you've been curious about Altered and wondering what all the hype is about, this interview is a great place to start!

Key Points We Discussed:

• What is Altered and what makes it different from other TCGs on the market today
• How the game integrates digital elements with traditional card gameplay
• How the QR code system works
• Altered's artistic inspiration and intellectual property and building that out in a world of established IPs
• A little bit of how the game plays
• The Kickstarter details and retailer pledge
• The Organized Play program details of Altered and the planned support for stores, as well as the the competitive circuit planned for late 2024/early 2025

Links

Altered.gg

Altered Discord server

Altered FAQ

Altered on X/Twitter

Tyler's journey is a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit, showcasing the blend of passion and practicality needed to succeed in the competitive world of game retail. His story offers valuable insights for anyone aspiring to turn their hobby into a thriving business.

For more insights and updates on Tyler’s journey, listeners can follow him on Facebook and join his Discord community, Righteous Gaming.

Key Points We Discussed:

• How his journey began with online card sales, focusing on the 'Flesh and Blood' TCG.
• Tyler's strategies for scaling his online business through the buying and selling of card collections.
• Tyler opens up about the hurdles of moving from an online business to a physical store, including capitalization, location scouting, and balancing dual operations.
• We delve into Tyler’s vision for a game store that's more than just a business.
• Tyler highlights how mentorship has been pivotal in his journey, helping him navigate the complexities of opening a brick and mortar retail location.
• We discuss strategies for staying relevant in a dynamic market, including product line diversification and keeping a pulse on customer preferences.
• Tyler shares his long-term goals, painting a picture of growth and expansion in the gaming industry.

Links

Opening a Tabletop Game Store Facebook Group

Friendly Local Game Store by Gary Ray

#righteousgaming on Discord

Tyler Brotton on Facebook

Email Tyler: tbrotton93@gmail.com

Basically, no one is happy about the Lorcana launch and the whole thing has been extremely frustrating for all parties.

As of the publishing date of this podcast, restocks of Chapter 1 are just now hitting the shelves of game stores several weeks later than originally promised by Ravensburger, with Rise of the Floodborn just around the corner.

As a collectible card game, Lorcana will be scrutinized as an example for years to come. Despite all it's challenges, and they are substantial at this point, there is still massive potential for Lorcana to become a major player in the collectible card game market.

And that's what Brendan Carrion and I discuss in today's episode! Let's talk about the future of Lorcana as a collectible card game, it's place in the pantheon, where Ravensburger went wrong with the launch (and where they went right), and speculate on whether Lorcana is the next big thing.

Topics Discussed

• The popularity and anticipation of Disney's Lorcana card game
• Comparison of Lorcana to Pokemon and its market impact
• Ravensburger's supply challenges
• The speculative nature of collectible card games
• The secondary market for collectible cards and investment perspectives
• The effect of volatile card prices on game stores and industry ethics
• The controversy and value of reprinting cards in the collectible market
• Challenges faced by retailers with pre-orders and customer expectations
• Ravensburger's cautious approach to printing and market delivery
• Potential impact of a new Star Wars card game
• The complexity of card game production and consumer awareness

Links

Athoriagames.com

@athoriagames on Instagram

Athoria Games on Facebook

@deathbyroleplaying

We also talk about what he learned along the way as an owner of multiple game stores over the last couple of decades, and how 2ndHandGeek supports store owners with additional income, as well as organized play support.

Summary

• Creating a marketplace for gamers to buy and sell gaming-related items.
• How 2ndHandGeek works and how it supports local game stores.
• The growth of the tabletop gaming industry.
• The International Wargaming League and 2ndHandGeek organized play program
• 3D printing and its potential in the miniature Wargaming industry.

Links

2ndhandgeek.com

blake@2ndhandgeek.com

Give Blake a call! 864-420-4788

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-TdqzviHho

In our interview, the Petrichor guys and I discuss why video is so effective and creating a connection between businesses and potential customers, how you can start creating video content for your game store today without the need for expensive cameras or equipment, and what makes a piece of video content effective.

Video is one of the most powerful ways you can market your business, and when paired with social media and digital marketing, it's a great tool for getting new customers into your store or shopping your website. If you're an established game store that offers a great experience to your customers, this is an excellent strategy for taking your marketing to the next level. Find out how the Manaverse Marketing Agency and Petrichor team can blow up your inbox and in store traffic with a killer video marketing package by going to manaversesaga.com/petrichor.

The more Commander players you can create and attract the better, but there are some barriers to organizing events for this particular community of Magic players.

As an event type, Commander is usually as casual as it gets, so traditional event organization doesn't really make much sense. Commander players aren't playing for the competition, or even the prizes most of the time. They're there for the fun and friendly atmosphere and to live out their Timmy/Johnny dreams of hilarious situations and ridiculously improbable combos.

Traditional tournament organization doesn't really fit the bill.

The second issue is some people find it awkward to show up to a store for the first time and ask a bunch of strangers if they can join their game. Social anxiety is a real thing, and it can keep potential Commander players from ever giving it a shot.

So what should you do?

Hang out with the founder of LFG Nexus and myself to find out about Commander Nexus and the Kickstarter project launching September 14th!

Commander Nexus is a platform being explicitly designed to facilitate Magic's most popular casual format and make it easier than ever for game stores to build a community of Commander players.

Find out:

• What makes the Commander Nexus tick,
• How you can get early access to the platform,
• And how you can start growing your Commander community.

Get in on the ground floor by clicking here to be notified when the project goes live!

Host note: Sheldon Menery, the godfather of Commander recently passed prior to the release of this podcast. Sheldon was a trailblazer in the Magic community, helping to shape the judge program from its earliest days and serving as a level 5 competitive Magic judge until retiring from the program in 2011. A prolific writer and content creator, he shared his insights and expertise through articles, videos, and podcasts, and he was one of the people responsible for the creation and proliferation of the Magic's most popular format. Sheldon left a mark on the Magic community that few will ever be able to match and he will be missed.

Links Mentioned

https://www.mindtaker.org/

mindtakerminiatures@gmail.com

https://facebook.com/mindtakerminis

https://www.instagram.com/mindtakermini/

A digital marketing strategy is crucial to your game store's success. In order to grow, you need to get your store in front of new customers and the most effective way to do that is online using strategies like Google ads, email marketing, social media, and content marketing. This is where the Manaverse Marketing Agency comes in.

We bring in new customers to your online store and physical store front using a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that we build around your brand and existing operation, and then implement for you. Book a 30 minute strategy session with us to get your game store marketing plan created for free. It's yours to keep either way so you have nothing to lose. Go to manaversesaga.com/mma to book your call and let's take your game store to the next level.

Good times. Don't forget to connect with Brendan here.

Links Mentioned

https://www.athoriagames.com/

https://www.thecarrion.com/

Links Mentioned

https://www.boardgamesdallas.com/

https://www.facebook.com/commongroundgamestore

https://www.instagram.com/commongroundgames/

https://www.tiktok.com/@commongroundgames

https://twitter.com/commongrounddal

We talk about the differences between the pay-to-play model versus a free game space, how 95 MTG grew into a Magic singles powerhouse with their own custom built software, how to keep things fresh and interesting for customers, tapping into what your community really wants, and more.

Links Mentioned

https://95mtg.com/

95gamecenter.com

A digital marketing strategy is crucial to your game store's success. In order to grow, you need to get your store in front of new customers and the most effective way to do that is online using strategies like Google ads, email marketing, social media, and content marketing. This is where the Manaverse Marketing Agency comes in. We bring in new customers to your online store and physical store front using a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that we build around your brand and existing operation, and then implement for you. Book a 30 minute strategy session with us to get your game store marketing plan created for free. It's yours to keep either way so you have nothing to lose. Go to manaversesaga.com/mma to book your call and let's take your game store to the next level.

Get a customized digital marketing strategy for your game store by booking a free 45 minute strategy session with us. We will do a deep dive on the six main areas of digital marketing for your game store and identify what's working and what can be improved on, create a customized strategy based on your brand, and show how we can implement everything for you. Book your strategy session at manaversesaga.com/mma

We discuss how Games of Berkeley was targeted last year for an Accessibility claim out of New York, the pattern of certain plaintiffs and lawyers in serving businesses in the local game store community, why making your website accessible needs to be a high priority for every game store with a website (pretty much everyone in the US at this point) and the solutions that are available right now.

Links Mentioned

Case Tracker: https://www.pacermonitor.com

Games of Berkeley Case: https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/45245700/Toro_v_Evil_Empire_Inc,_dba_Games_of_Berkeley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation

Remediation Company #1: https://216digital.com/

Remediation Company #2: https://adasitecompliance.com/

Lawyer that handled Erik's case: https://www.steinllp.com/

https://www.accessibility.com/search?term=mars+khaimov&type=SITE_PAGE&type=LANDING_PAGE&type=BLOG_POST&type=LISTING_PAGE

Try Accessibe free for 7 days: manaversesaga.com/ada (affiliate link)

See how accessible your website is: https://accessibe.com/accessscan

If your shop is based in the US, your game store's website may be a huge liability for you. Recently passed legislation has made the internet a public accommodation and that means that if your website isn't accessible, you're at risk of serious fines from the government and especially lawsuits. Game stores in particular are being targeted by a law firm in New York and if you don't want to be served with a five digit lawsuit, you need a solution. The best option on the market is AccessiBe. AccessiBe is an affordable AI based app that automatically makes your website accessible for all sorts of people and protects you with an accessibility statement and litigation support. It's an all in one win-win solution for game stores that only takes 48 hours to protect your business and make it more accessible to the people that need it.

You can grab this deal by signing up for a free 7 day trial by going to manaversesaga.com/ada.

Your game store may not be selling gym memberships, but games and hobbies are still part of your customer's lifestyles so that puts your store in a similar space. Find out what you can learn from a successful Crossfit gym and how the first 100 days of a customer's experience with your store determines the next 3 to 5 years.

Get a customized digital marketing strategy for your game store by booking a free 45 minute strategy session with us. We will do a deep dive on the six main areas of digital marketing for your game store and identify what's working and what can be improved on, create a customized strategy based on your brand, and show how we can implement everything for you. Book your strategy session at manaversesaga.com/mma

Links Mentioned for Cosmic Games

https://www.cosmicbham.com/

https://www.facebook.com/cosmicbham

https://www.instagram.com/cosmicgamesbham/

https://discord.gg/3aAVJj6tWn

Friendly Local Game Store (affiliate link)

Enrollment is officially open for the April 2023 Digital Marketing Bootcamp!

We're taking all the strategies that we use for our clients and teaching the frameworks we use to drive online visitors and foot traffic from Google and social media, build up an email list of paying customers, send campaigns that sell, and run ads on Facebook and Google that generate thousands of dollars in sales each month.

Plus we're going to cover two of the hottest topics facing game store owners over the coming months and years. The first being accessibility and making sure you and your business are protected from the slew of ADA related lawsuits impacting the industry. We are going to go over how to make sure your website is accessible and compliant, but also how to protect yourself in the event you get served.

The second being the recent advent of AI with the release of Chat GPT and how you can leverage this exciting new tool to make your SEO and content creation more effective and easier than ever.

It's going to be 4 weeks, 8 sessions of live over the shoulder training with value-packed 90 minute sessions Tuesdays and Thursdays each week plus a little Q&A at the end of each.

In case you need a little more incentive, Bootcamp attendees that go on to become MMA clients in the future will get the price of the Bootcamp discounted on the program!

We're keeping the Bootcamp small so the sessions can have the maximum impact, so if you want to be one of the 5 attendees for the next bootcamp and score an early bird discount, now's the time to join us!

Go to manaversesaga.com/bootcamp and enroll today.

This is a great conversation for anyone that wants to set their sights on expanding their game store and growing into a seven figure and beyond business.

Links Mentioned

https://www.instagram.com/thegamechest/

https://linktr.ee/thegamechest

https://www.tiktok.com/@thegamechest?lang=en

https://www.facebook.com/thegamechestDelamo/

https://www.facebook.com/GameChestIrvineSpectrum/

https://www.facebook.com/thegamechestoc/

https://www.facebook.com/theGameChestArcadia

Enrollment is officially open for the April 2023 Digital Marketing Bootcamp!

We're taking all the strategies that we use for our clients and teaching the frameworks we use to drive online visitors and foot traffic from Google and social media, build up an email list of paying customers, send campaigns that sell, and run ads on Facebook and Google that generate thousands of dollars in sales each month.

Plus we're going to cover two of the hottest topics facing game store owners over the coming months and years. The first being accessibility and making sure you and your business are protected from the slew of ADA related lawsuits impacting the industry. We are going to go over how to make sure your website is accessible and compliant, but also how to protect yourself in the event you get served.

The second being the recent advent of AI with the release of Chat GPT and how you can leverage this exciting new tool to make your SEO and content creation more effective and easier than ever.

It's going to be 4 weeks, 8 sessions of live over the shoulder training with value-packed 90 minute sessions Tuesdays and Thursdays each week plus a little Q&A at the end of each.

In case you need a little more incentive, Bootcamp attendees that go on to become MMA clients in the future will get the price of the Bootcamp discounted on the program!

We're keeping the Bootcamp small so the sessions can have the maximum impact, so if you want to be one of the 5 attendees for the next bootcamp and score an early bird discount, now's the time to join us!

Go to manaversesaga.com/bootcamp and enroll today.

Links Mentioned

https://giga-bitescafe.com/

https://www.facebook.com/GigaBitesTabletopCafe

https://www.facebook.com/davidhorsefinn

https://bridgedist.com/

Enrollment is officially open for the April 2023 Digital Marketing Bootcamp!

We're taking all the strategies that we use for our clients and teaching the frameworks we use to drive online visitors and foot traffic from Google and social media, build up an email list of paying customers, send campaigns that sell, and run ads on Facebook and Google that generate thousands of dollars in sales each month.

Plus we're going to cover two of the hottest topics facing game store owners over the coming months and years. The first being accessibility and making sure you and your business are protected from the slew of ADA related lawsuits impacting the industry. We are going to go over how to make sure your website is accessible and compliant, but also how to protect yourself in the event you get served.

The second being the recent advent of AI with the release of Chat GPT and how you can leverage this exciting new tool to make your SEO and content creation more effective and easier than ever.

It's going to be 4 weeks, 8 sessions of live over the shoulder training with value-packed 90 minute sessions Tuesdays and Thursdays each week plus a little Q&A at the end of each.

In case you need a little more incentive, Bootcamp attendees that go on to become MMA clients in the future will get the price of the Bootcamp discounted on the program!

We're keeping the Bootcamp small so the sessions can have the maximum impact, so if you want to be one of the 5 attendees for the next bootcamp and score an early bird discount, now's the time to join us!

Go to manaversesaga.com/bootcamp and enroll today.

https://moderntabletoprva.com/

Check out other episodes of the Manaverse Podcast https://www.manaversesaga.com/podcasts/

The Complete FLGS Digital Marketing Course: By the end of this 21 day step-by-step course, you'll have all the pieces of the digital marketing puzzle put together for your game store.

https://www.manaversesaga.com/flgs/

Manaverse Marketing Agency: Book your call to find out if your game store is a good fit for the paid ads and email marketing automation system and learn how we can plug it into your business.

https://www.manaversesaga.com/autopilot/

Make Your Site Accessible: Start a 7 day free trial of AccessiBe and make your website accessible in the next 48 hours.

https://www.manaversesaga.com/ada/

Game stores can be an intimidating environment for customers who've never been to one before, so we discuss how to make your game store more approachable and friendly to newcomers.

Tons of nuggets in this episode. Check it out!

Links Mentioned In The Show

https://crit-hit.com

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SmallGameStoreSanctuary

Check out other episodes of the Manaverse Podcast https://www.manaversesaga.com/podcasts/

The Complete FLGS Digital Marketing Course: By the end of this 21 day step-by-step course, you'll have all the pieces of the digital marketing puzzle put together for your game store.

https://www.manaversesaga.com/flgs/

Manaverse Marketing Agency: Book your call to find out if your game store is a good fit for the paid ads and email marketing automation system and learn how we can plug it into your business.

https://www.manaversesaga.com/autopilot/

Make Your Site Accessible: Start a 7 day free trial of AccessiBe and make your website accessible in the next 48 hours.

https://www.manaversesaga.com/ada/

We kept coming back to how much D's marketing background shaped the business from the start and how important it is for game stores to have their marketing locked down if they want to grow in the future.

As you can probably guess, I couldn't agree more. Over the past year and half, I've been working with game stores to shape their marketing strategies and in that time helped them generate $100's of thousands in sales and add thousands of new subscribers to their email lists.

I've seen first hand what kinds of impacts effective digital marketing strategies can have on a business.

But the trouble is marketing is a big subject. It takes time and effort to learn all the different tools, and platforms, and principles.

And running a game store is a full time job in itself. Sometimes it can feel more like working two jobs at the same time. Especially now, during the busiest shopping season of the year!

And while I fully acknowledge the stress and pressure you're under right now leading up to Christmas, marketing your game store is not something you can ignore.

My goal is to make it easier for game store owners to leverage digital marketing and grow their businesses. If you just want someone to implement cutting edge digital strategies for your game store, we can do that for you. Head to manaversesaga.com/mma and book a time on the calendar and we'll happily put together a customized plan for you game store.

This time next week, you could have the frameworks and systems installed in your business that capture more email subscribers, drive more traffic to your website from Google, and sell directly with email campaigns and paid traffic.

The same powerful strategies that the major game retailers use to reach millions of customers every month.

But I've also been working on codifying what we do on a 1 to 1 basis with clients and making it more affordable and approachable. This is why I've created the Complete FLGS Digital Marketing Course. It's specifically designed to teach our systems in a way that's easy to implement by breaking everything down and making it step-by-step.

In the course I reveal exactly how we structure email campaigns, how we connect all the different platforms so that everything is integrated and automated as possible, how we build ads that sell directly to customers on Google and Facebook, how we improve webpages so they pull in organic traffic, and more.

All the techniques we use for our clients to increase their revenue and sell thousands of dollars of product online are in there.

Just to give you a quick idea of what kinds of strategies we're talking about, we recently set up Winning Campaign #2 (revealed in Module 5 of the course) in one client's business and in a mere 10 days and $100 in ad spend, generated over $2000 in sales!

The course is broken out into 21 days and each day there is a relatively short video walking you through one particular strategy or tool for you to implement in your business. By the end of the 21 days, you'll have all the pieces of the digital marketing puzzle put together for your game store.

On top of all that, you also get a bunch of resources along the way to help guide your marketing efforts, and the course includes four 30 minute coaching calls with me to use as you see fit.

We can go over your website, review your ads, or simply talk strategy. The coaching calls are yours to make sure you get everything implemented.

Whether you're a beginner or an experienced marketer looking to hone your skills, the Complete FLGS Digital Marketing Course has something for everyone.

Plus, with lifetime access and regular updates, you'll have all the resources you need to keep your marketing efforts up-to-date and effective.

Plus plus, you can save 51% off the price tag if you use the code "2023" to enroll before the end of the year!

You can check out the course at manaversesaga.com/flgs

With that said, let's dive into the interview!

Links

https://www.versusgamessf.com/

https://www.facebook.com/VersusGamesSF/

versusgamestore@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/Versus_Games_SF

Links

https://www.spellenhuis.nl/

https://www.facebook.com/Spellenhuis

https://twitter.com/spellenhuis

https://www.youtube.com/user/Spellenhuis1/videos

https://www.instagram.com/spellenhuis/

p.tenhoorn@spellenhuis.nl

AccessiBe Black Friday Sale

If your shop is based in the US, your game store's website may be a huge liability for you. Recently passed legislation has made the internet a public accommodation and that means that if your website isn't accessible, you're at risk of serious fines from the government and especially lawsuits. Game stores in particular are being targeted by a law firm in New York and if you don't want to be served with a five digit lawsuit, you need a solution. The best option on the market is AccessiBe. AccessiBe is an affordable AI based app that automatically makes your website accessible for all sorts of people and protects you with an accessibility statement and litigation support. It's an all in one win-win solution for game stores that only takes 48 hours to protect your business and make it more accessible to the people that need it, and AccessiBe is running a Thanksgiving sale from Nov 23 to the 29th, so you can save 30% on your license. Right now is a great time to make your website more accessible, protect your business, and save money, all at the same time.

You can grab this deal by signing up for a free 7 day trial by going to manaversesaga.com/ada. That's manaversesaga.com/ada.

Links

https://gnomegames.com/

https://www.facebook.com/GnomeGamesWorld/

Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming up fast, and right after that is the busiest shopping season of the year. If you want to make the most of the last two months of 2022, marketing your game store online should be at the top of your list which is why the FLGS Digital Marketing Bootcamp is back starting Nov 7, 2022.

We're taking all the strategies that we use for our clients and teaching the frameworks we use to drive online and foot traffic from Google and social media, build up an email list of paying customers, send campaigns that sell, and run ads on Facebook and Google that generate thousands of dollars in sales each month.

It's going to be 6 days of live training with a value-packed hour session each day plus a little Q&A at the end.

In case you need a little more incentive, Bootcamp attendees that go on to become MMA clients in the future will get the price of the Bootcamp discounted on the program!

We're keeping the Bootcamp small so the sessions can have the maximum impact, so if you want to be one of the 10 attendees for the last Bootcamp of the year, now's the time to join us!

Go to manaversesaga.com/bootcamp and enroll today.

Links

https://good-times-games.myshopify.com/

Good Times Games on Facebook

If your shop is based in the US, your game store's website may be a huge liability for you. Recently passed legislation has made the internet a public accommodation and that means that if your website isn't accessible, you're at risk of serious fines from the government and especially lawsuits. Game stores in particular are being targeted by a law firm in New York and if you don't want to be served with a five digit lawsuit, you need a solution. The best option on the market is AccessiBe. AccessiBe is an affordable AI based app that automatically makes your website accessible for all sorts of people and protects you with an accessibility statement and litigation support. It's an all in one win-win solution for game stores that only takes 48 hours to protect your business and make it more accessible to the people that need it. You can sign up for a free 7 day trial by going to manaversesaga.com/ada and protect your business starting today. Go to manaversesaga.com/ada now.

I'm also looking for a few more stores that want to make the end of 2022 their best quarter yet! I'm opening up a few more slots for clients of the Manaverse Marketing Agency this month so if you're either in the start up phase of opening up your game store and want to kick things off with a powerful digital marketing strategy that's been proven to attract customers and drive sales from day 1, or you're an established game store that wants to expand operations and use digital strategies like email marketing and paid advertising to grow rapidly, let's chat! Go to manaversesaga.com/mma and we'll put together a custom Q4 marketing plan for your business and talk about how we can make it happen for you!

If you've been active in the game store owner groups on Facebook you've probably seen the posts recently about game stores and publishers being targeted by a law firm in New York and being sued for lack of ADA compliance.

So far they've sued Crafty Games of Washington, Games of Berkeley in California, Black Rowan Games in Tracy, California, GMT Games in Hanford, California, GameScape North in San Rafael, California, GameKastle and more. This is not an exhaustive list by any means but California in particular seems to be a hotspot.

But let's back it up a bit.

What exactly is accessibility and ADA compliance?

Without getting too into the weeds on the legislation, web accessibility is essentially a set of rules, behaviors, code standards, and design guidelines that were created by the W3C and are called the WCAG 2.1. The WCAG 2.1 is a massive 1,000-page guidebook that encapsulates a range of disabilities that go from hindering internet use to making internet use impossible without adjustments. This spectrum actually comprises 20-25% of the general population depending on if we're going with the CDC or WHO. There are many disabilities covered, and the primary categories that require attention are:

● blind people using screen-readers,

● the motor-impaired using only the keyboard to navigate,

● epilepsy, color blindness,

● cognitive and learning disabilities,

● visual impairments, and more.

What are the risks of having a non-compliant website?

Non-compliance penalties are no joke, as they can go as high as $75,000 even for the first violation. The more you fail to respect the requirements, the higher the penalties will be.

As a small business, it is in your interest to ensure that your website is accessible to people with disabilities. Not only will this increase the number of customers you can serve, but it will also protect you from some nasty fines and lawsuits.

From what we're seeing, the firm going around and suing game stores is usually looking for settlement amounts in the $20k range and they apparently do this for a living. And part of the shakedown is when they serve game stores the lawsuit, in order to become compliant they suggest working with specific companies they are associated with. So in some cases, not only do they exhort a settlement from the business, they also generate revenue for their associates at the same time.

What can you do about it?

So you basically have three options. Two of which I recommend and one that's mostly a waste of time. The first one is to go with a web accessibility plugin. These are usually free or very inexpensive and apparently get a website to about 10% of the way there. You probably shouldn't go this route since your business will still be exposed to the risk of lawsuits and fines, and it's not particularly effective on the actual accessibility side of things.

The second is to hire a company to make the necessary changes for you. This is the most expensive option, but if you can find a good web developer to work with that can show you what needs to be changed, you can also get your staff to do the work by hand over time. For stores with big websites this can be a major challenge since even just adding alt text to potentially thousands of product images and pages is a ton of work. This kind of work can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 and takes months to accomplish.

If you've built out the inventory for your online store you know what I'm talking about. Imagine doing that all over again, or paying someone else to do it.

The third solution is something more AI based like AccessiBe.

Full disclosure here. I recently worked with a client to figure out how we should protect their new store from these lawsuits and we settled on AccessiBe because it was clearly the best option on the market from our perspective. Since then I've joined their partner program and am going to be recommending their product for clients we work with moving forward.

I get a commission when I refer someone to AccessiBe so keep that in mind, but I believe it's by far the best solution on the market right now for protecting your business. You can sign up for AccessiBe and get your website protected today by going to manaversesaga.com/ada

Client's that sign up with the Manaverse Marketing Agency also get a special discount on AccessiBe, but I'll talk about that a bit later.

AccessiBe is an AI-powered machine-learning software that was developed with the understanding that successfully automating the process creates a simple, immediate, affordable,and compliant solution that serves as a win-win for the business owner and people with disabilities.

Without getting too technical, AccessiBe uses AI to analyze your website and automatically generates all the additional meta data that accessibility tools require to process your site. After around 48 hours after installation, the software generates all the necessary changes and when someone visits your website, they can use the widget to convert the site into whatever format they need.

Things like increasing the font size, adjusting the contrast, enabling keyboard navigation, to making it completely readable on a screen reader. The tech nerd in me loves the automation aspects of how it works and what's cool about it is that the more websites the AI analyzes, the better it gets at comprehending images and graphics accurately.

Once everything is processed, the software checks every 24 hours for new pages on your website and automatically updates them as well. So there's no additional work when new products are added to your store's site.

On the compliance side of things, your website gets an accessibility statement which is one of the legal requirements and very important in the case of a lawsuit. And in the eventuality of a lawsuit, AccessiBe also offers a Litigation Support Package, at no extra cost, in the case that your website's compliance is challenged. Along with their personal attention, the package includes professional audits, reports, accessibility mapping, compliance supporting documentation, guidance, and more.

Conclusion

So basically, AccessiBe should cover all the bases when it comes to accessibility and protecting you from lawsuits, and it's something that every game store owner with a website based in North America should be thinking about right now. I can't speak specifically to those of you listening in Europe but accessibility is still a worthy effort even if there isn't a distinct risk of a frivolous lawsuit coming your way.

If you want to get started with AccessiBe right now go to manaversesaga.com/ada and get signed up today.

Or reach out to me at tom@manaversesaga.com and let's chat about marketing your game store while also getting a discount on getting your website accessible at the same.

If you're currently one of the stores being sued, I definitely recommend you check out AccessiBe as an option. Even in the result of the lawsuit going to court, showing that you're taking steps to become compliant can go a long way.

Feel free to send me any questions you've got too.

• Wizard's new $999 Beta booster pack product,
• The future of the friendly local game store,
• Are game cafes the natural evolution of the FLGS?
• What separates good retail from bad,
• And more.

Matthew Vercant and Pat Fuge join me to discuss the future of the friendly local game store and speculate on the future of Magic: the Gathering. Are lawsuits incoming? Is the game cafe model the only way to succeed in a world of ecommerce?

Listen to the episode and let us know what you think is coming over the next 10 years!

Just Games Rochester

• https://www.justgamesrochester.com/
• https://facebook.com/justgamesrochester
• https://instagram.com/justgamesrochester
• https://twitter.com/justgamesroc
• sales@justgamesroc.com

Gnome Games

• https://gnomegames.com/
• https://www.facebook.com/GnomeGamesWorld/
• https://www.facebook.com/GnomeGames

If you're in the start up phase of opening up your game store and want to kick things off with a powerful digital marketing strategy that's been proven to attract customers and drive sales from day 1, or you're an established game store that wants to expand operations and use digital strategies like email marketing and paid advertising to grow rapidly, let's chat! Go to manaversesaga.com/mma and we'll put together a custom Q4 marketing plan for your business and talk about how we can make it happen for you!

I'm opening up a few more slots for clients of the Manaverse Marketing Agency this month so if you're either in the start up phase of opening up your game store and want to kick things off with a powerful digital marketing strategy that's been proven to attract customers and drive sales from day 1, or you're an established game store that wants to expand operations and use digital strategies like email marketing and paid advertising to grow rapidly, let's chat! Go to manaversesaga.com/mma and we'll put together a custom Q4 marketing plan for your business and talk about how we can make it happen for you!

Before we jump into things, Q4 is coming and I'm looking for more game store owners to feature on the podcast, so if you get an email or phone call from me in the near future don't be too surprised. If you want a chance to tell the story of your game store and get featured on the podcast, I would love to talk to you! Send me an email at tom@manaversesaga.com and you could be my next featured guest on the podcast.

I'm also looking for a few more stores that want to make the end of 2022 their best quarter yet! I'm opening up a few more slots for clients of the Manaverse Marketing Agency this month so if you're either in the start up phase of opening up your game store and want to kick things off with a powerful digital marketing strategy that's been proven to attract customers and drive sales from day 1, or you're an established game store that wants to expand operations and use digital strategies like email marketing and paid advertising to grow rapidly, let's chat! Go to manaversesaga.com/mma and we'll put together a custom Q4 marketing plan for your business and talk about how we can make it happen for you!

So today we're talking about an article recently published by Polygon titled Long live the friendly local tabletop game store. I'm not going to read the whole thing in it's entirety but I definitely recommend you check it out right here.

Before launching Unplugged Gaming, Jake, along with his business partner, owned and operated a highly lauded digital marketing firm called Digital Hyve that they grew to over 50 employees over a handful of years. Digital Hyve was acquired by the advertising firm Butler/Till last year, which allowed Jake to explore his other passions.

Unplugged Gaming launched this past November and on day one they did over $14,000 in sales, since then they have done over $270,000 in in store sales and are on track for a spectacular year one. We're going to dig into the Unplugged Gaming launch strategy and talk about how Jake and company got their business off to a great start.

We talked about:

• The Unplugged Gaming origin story.
• How Jake built a group of raving fans on Facebook before launching his online store, and how that helped them start the business with a huge amount of momentum and sales.
• How focusing on SEO early on helped attract a major online influencer and how their deal doubled Unplugged Gaming's traffic.
• The most important thing a new store owner can do before opening their game store.
• The one piece of technology that Jake couldn't do without for running his business.
• How digital marketing can be used to grow and launch a game store in 2022.

You can get a digital marketing strategy created for your game store in the next 24 hours that gives you the blueprint for generating new sales and customers on autopilot. All you have to do is go to manaversesaga.com/growmylgs and put your information in and we'll put together a 90 day marketing plan that covers how to optimize your website for organic traffic, how to capture people on an email list that let's you sell to them again and again, what to post on social media so your game store stays top of mind for your customers, and how to run Facebook and Google ads that sell like crazy. If you want to be able to make sales 24 hours a day and reach new customers outside of your existing community, you need to make digital marketing a priority for your business. Kick off your digital marketing by going to manaversesaga.com/growmylgs

That’s only half true. SEO definitely sounds like the kind of techno jargon you'd hear from a Priest of the Mechanicum, but your website can absolutely compete with places like Amazon when it comes to the search engines. You just need to pick your battlefields.

Your game stores' website isn't going to outrank Amazon for a particular keyword in the global sense, but search isn’t just worldwide. Google takes geography into account and someone searching for something in New York isn’t going to get the same results as someone in California or the UK.

Your website can definitely rank and get organic search traffic for keywords that matter to your business, it just takes some effort and little strategic thinking, which is luckily something game store owners are good at.

Get a quick crash course in the basics of search engine optimization and how to create pages on your game store's website that turn random visitors into paying customers.

You can get a digital marketing strategy created for your game store in the next 24 hours that gives you the blueprint for generating new sales and customers on autopilot. All you have to do is go to manaversesaga.com/growmylgs and put your information in and we'll put together a 90 day marketing plan that covers how to optimize your website for organic traffic, how to capture people on an email list that let's you sell to them again and again, what to post on social media so your game store stays top of mind for your customers, and how to run Facebook and Google ads that sell like crazy. Having a digital marketing strategy for your game store is one of the most important moves you can make in 2022. Customers are spending more time online and are expecting to be able to interact and shop at your store in the same way. If you want to be able to make sales 24 hours a day and reach new customers outside of your existing community, you need to make digital marketing a priority for your business. Kick off your digital marketing by going to manaversesaga.com/growmylgs

Links

https://www.boardgamingwitheducation.com/

https://bgetabletop.com/

Why We Buy by Paco Underhill

https://www.facebook.com/groups/openinggamestore

BinderPOS

Crystal Commerce

Shopify

You can get your customized digital marketing plan right now by going to manaversesaga.com/mma to book your free strategy session.

Once that's booked we'll do a full assessment of your current digital presence. We'll do a deep dive into each of the six elements of digital marketing for your game store to identify what's working and what's missing. Then we put together a customized strategy for your business, and then when we're on the call we will work together to identify the unique aspects of your brand that set you apart from your competitors, as well as figure out who your ideal customer is and how to attract more of them.

At the end of the call you will have a framework for building out a complete digital marketing strategy for your game store and can find out how we can get that all implemented for you over the next 90 days.

Make 2022 your best year yet. Book your strategy session today by going to manaversesaga.com/mma

Let's discuss three of the biggest lessons I learned over the past year and how they've changed the way I think about what I'm doing, and then look forward to the future and talk about the big trends I think are coming for game store owners in 2022.

Find out how we can help you grow your game store with the 90 Day LGS Transformation Program. you can book your free strategy session by going to manaversesaga.com/mma. We will do a deep dive on the six main areas of digital marketing for your game store and identify what's working and what can be improved on, create a plan that incorporates each of the Six Pillars of Digital Marketing, and how we can put the plan into action for you over the next 90 days. Book your strategy session at manaversesaga.com/mma

Today we're talking about content and why having the right content on your website and social media channels leads to more sales, more traffic, more customers, and a bigger audience for you to reach.

In this episode you'll learn:

• How content helps visitors progress through the buyer's journey and presell themselves on what you have to offer,
• Why the most important content targets the largest number of people, in particular the ones who need the most education and help on getting started,
• Why your core content should answer as many questions preemptively as possible,
• And why you should leverage those pieces effectively by making them easy to find on your website.

And if you like what you've heard today and want to find out how we can implement this in your game store you can book your free strategy session by going to manaversesaga.com/mma. We will do a deep dive on the six main areas of digital marketing for your game store and identify what's working and what can be improved on, create a plan that incorporates each of the Six Pillars, and how we can put the plan into action for you over the next 90 days. Book your strategy session today at manaversesaga.com/mma

First up, we're talking about one of my favourite topics and one area of marketing that almost every game store I've looked at could improve on: Email Marketing.

We're going to explore the questions:

• How much is your email list worth?
• What is the best way to build an email strategy?
• How should you test and optimize email campaigns?
• How do you know if an email campaign is successful? What kind of metrics should you use?
• What is the best way to use data to segment and target customers?
• What do you write?
• How often should you send?
• What is the most crucial aspect of building email campaigns?

Find out how we can help you grow your game store with the 90 Day LGS Transformation Program. you can book your free strategy session by going to manaversesaga.com/mma. We will do a deep dive on the six main areas of digital marketing for your game store and identify what's working and what can be improved on, create a plan that incorporates each of the Six Pillars of Digital Marketing, and how we can put the plan into action for you over the next 90 days. Book your strategy session at manaversesaga.com/mma

You've got inventory to manage, events to organize, people to hire, and a million products to stay on top of.

It's a lot to handle... and marketing your game store often becomes an afterthought. Something that always gets pushed onto the back burner.

And it doesn't matter what stage of business you're in. If you're just getting started you have to do everything yourself.

You wear all the hats, all the time.

If you've been running your shop for a few years you've got even more moving parts and people to manage.

Marketing is almost always seen as a nice-to-have rather than a necessity.

It's the old build it and they will come attitude.

Most game store owners make the assumption that the gamers in their local area will find them. Seek them out.

And for the most part that's true, but if you want to grow your business you need to tap into a larger market than just the uber geeks.

But there is something else that I've noticed over the years...

The most successful game stores in the world have mastered digital marketing.

They have a comprehensive digital strategy that leverages the power of e-commerce, social media, paid advertising, email, search engine optimization, and content creation, all working together to create a powerful marketing machine for their business.

I've been putting out content around digital marketing and the business of running game store for a long time now, but, like I said, you're probably super busy and as much as you know you need to market your game store if you want to grow, there just isn't enough time in the day to figure it all out.

Sometimes you just need someone to come in and do it for you.

And that's the perfect lead in to my biggest announcement since the LGS Success Summit.

I am officially announcing the launch of the Manaverse Marketing Agency, the only digital marketing agency specifically for game store owners.

Get your customized digital marketing plan and kick off 2022 strong by going to manaversesaga.com/mma

Think playing DnD in Dracula's castle, having an adventure through Middle Earth in New Zealand, and gaming sessions in historic pubs, dungeons, catacombs, and more.  Seriously cool stuff.

Intro (Why RPG Travel is awesome and why you should care)

• Before we jump into the details, tell us how RPGT got started. Where did the idea to fuse exotic locations and gaming come from?
• How does it work? What does RPGTravel do?
• Who travels with RPGT?
• How many tours have you run?
• How do you find your game masters?
• What kinds of locations do the tours visit?
• What’s a typical RPGT experience like?
• What kind of planning goes into an RPGT experience?
• Do you need to be a specific game level to play?
• What does the owner of a FLGS get when working with RPG Travel?
• What games does RPGT support? RPGs, Tabletop, Card games, etc.?
• What are the requirements for a FLGS to get involved?
• As the game store owner, what are their duties on tour?
• How many travelers do you need to run a tour and how many days?
• What happens if the trip doesn't fill? Are there any expenses? What if something prevents the trip from happening, like a global pandemic or something?

I'm sure someone is listening right now and thinking "This sounds really cool but I've got so much going on right now. I’m too busy." What would you say to them?

Do you have any tips for game store owners for making their custom branded experience a success?

How can the listeners get started? Where do they go to begin working with you?

Get Connected with RPG Travel

rpgtravel.com

alex@explorationsbythor.com

The LGS Success Summit Black Friday Deal Is Here!

For the first time you can get access to the 2020 and 2021 LGS Success Summit recordings for over 50% off!

That's 40+ seminars from some of the most successful game store owners in North America covering a variety of topics critical to growing your tabletop game store including:

• brand building,
• running events,
• email marketing,
• game demos,
• networking and collaboration,
• TikTok,
• SEO,
• word of mouth marketing,
• creating a WPN Premium level business,
• ecommerce and shipping,
• hiring the right people,
• creating video content,
• creating a risk free system for selling used games in your store,
• financing your store,
• as well as sessions from publishers covering some great new products you can stock in your game store over the coming months.

It's all included, but the deal ends Friday night at midnight, just under 12 hours from when this episode goes live, so if you've been waiting for the right time to pull the trigger on getting the summit recordings, this is the perfect opportunity!

All you have to do to pick up the deal is go to lgssuccesssummit.com/bf2021

In today's episode of the Manaverse Podcast, we're talking with Jamie Grinstead from Athena Games. Athena Games is Norwich's premier tabletop game destination for gamers of all sorts and we dive into their origin story, what sets them apart, and how they have navigated the changing digital landscape over the last two years to create a thriving ecommerce business using Shopify.

Links

athenagames.com

shopify.com

https://www.facebook.com/athenagamesuk

Did you miss your chance to attend the 2021 LGS Success Summit live? Right now you can still pick up the All-Access Pass by going to lgssuccesssummit.com/buyaap and get access to all three days worth of content. That's 24 sessions from some of the most successful game store owners in North America covering topics like brand building, running events, email marketing, game demos, networking and collaboration, TikTok, SEO, word of mouth marketing, creating a WPN Premium level business, ecommerce and shipping, hiring the right people, and tons more. You can find all that in the Manaverse Network when you pick up your All-Access Pass by going to lgssuccesssummit.com/buyaap.

Grab your ticket to the LGS Success Summit >> https://lgssuccesssummit.com

Follow Dave Salisbury on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/dave.salisbury.fanboy3

We're going to discuss her experience jumping in as the head of marketing at Noble Knight, some of the trends we've been seeing over the past year, content creation, social media, and a ton of different marketing strategies that Jess is using to grow Noble Knight Games right now.

Questions

• Give us a little background on the Noble Knight story and how you became the head of marketing.
• What kinds of marketing did Noble Knight do in the past? What are you focused on now?
• What kinds of campaigns have you seen drive the best results? How did you measure the success?
• Was there any marketing strategy that really underperformed?
• Thinking from the perspective of a smaller game store owner, maybe someone just starting out, what kinds of marketing do you think they should focus on?
• When it comes to marketing, what's the most important thing to keep in mind?
• What's in store for the Noble Knight in the future?
• What does success in marketing look like for you?
• Where can people find out more or connect with you?

Links

marketing@nobleknightgames.com

nobleknightgames.com

If you liked this conversation with Jess than you're going to love the LGS Success Summit. You can get your free ticket to the 2nd LGS Success Summit right now by going to https://lgssuccesssummit.com

The LGS Success Summit is a virtual event so you don't have to worry about spending thousands of dollars on airfare and travel and accommodations and food. You can attend the summit and listen to the expert speakers from the comfort of anywhere with an internet connection.

We're talking three days of content, delivered by 24 of the most successful game store owners in North America, covering the entire spectrum of experience. Day 1 of the summit is all about new store owners and what you need to know to get your business off on the right foot. Day 2 is all about growth and marketing and learning how to sell more products with cutting edge marketing strategies, and day 3 is dedicated to operations and optimizing where you're going to learn about the systems and processes you need to build a business that runs itself.

And just like last time, the LGS Success Summit is free to attend live! You can pick up your free ticket right now by clicking right here.

Just like last time, this summit is a virtual event so you don't have to worry about spending thousands of dollars on airfare and travel and accommodations and food. You can attend the summit and listen to the expert speakers from the comfort of anywhere with an internet connection.

We're talking three days of content, delivered by 24 of the most successful game store owners in North America, covering the entire spectrum of experience. Day 1 of the summit is all about new store owners and what you need to know to get your business off on the right foot. Day 2 is all about growth and marketing and learning how to sell more products with cutting edge marketing strategies, and day 3 being dedicated to operations and optimizing where you're going to learn about the systems and processes you need to build a business that runs itself.

And just like last time, the LGS Success Summit is free to attend live! You can pick up your free ticket by going to lgssuccesssummit.com and signing up right now.

And if you act soon, you can also upgrade your summit experience and purchase an All-Access Pass at early bird pricing and save 25%. As an All-Access Pass holder, you get access to the audio and visual recordings once the summit is finished, as well as the resources and bonuses mentioned during the summit.

If you've been thinking about how to grow your game store but just aren't sure about what to do next, the LGS Success Summit is where you want to be. It's three days of actionable strategies, useful resources, industry connections, and networking opportunities and I'm super excited for you to be there

Grab your free ticket and All-Access Pass by going to lgssuccesssummit.com and signing up today.

Supply chain issues are coming. Let's talk about the causes of the disruptions to the game trade supply chain, why shipping container costs are exploding right now, and how you can mitigate some of the impacts on your business.

Quick hits

#1 Diversify your product offerings

#2 Work with a larger number of distributors

#3 Focus more on the secondary market

#4 Do more events and make them profitable

#5 Offer additional services

#6 Order direct

#7 Order what you need for the holiday season now

If you've been in business for any length of time you've probably been pitched SEO services at least a few times by people promising to get you on page 1 of Google.

That sounds pretty good right? The trouble is hiring someone for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can be very hit or miss.

Some people are great and others will try to rip you off completely, and it can be challenging to know who's who.

SEO is technical and somewhat abstract so it can be hard to tell if someone you hire is doing a good job or nothing at all, and it generally takes a few months to see any real benefits from the effort.

Something to keep in mind for someone who is planning on opening a new store in the near future, SEO is a long term strategy and if you're opening up shop in month or two, SEO isn't going to do all that much since you only have a short amount of time to get things rolling.

You should definitely get the basics started so you have an online presence that people can find to learn more and that you can grow over time, but if you want to prime the pump on your opening week, you should be spending time on promoting your store on the local Facebook groups in your area and trying to get the word out with some paid ads.

That would be money better spent than hiring an SEO specialist.

But all that said, it's still worth your time to get some SEO basics in place for your game store business.

The good news is 80% of what you want to achieve with SEO (namely better rankings for keyword searches that matter for your business) can be done yourself in the course of an afternoon assuming you already have a website created.

Here's a quick rundown on what you need to know to get your SEO going this weekend.

The Set Up

Start with getting the basics in place.

Open up Google and search for Google My Business and go through the set up process. It’s pretty straightforward and the app will walk you through what you need to do to get everything online. You will have to verify your address with a code they’ll send you in the mail so it might take a couple weeks to completely finalize GMB.

Make sure your graphics and logo assets match your website and branding, same with the copy.

Grab your Yelp listing and be prepared for a Yelp rep to call you and essentially hold your page hostage unless you pay them. Don’t worry about that too much though, the direct impact of Yelp itself on your business is minimal, but it does help rank what you actually care about, which is your website.

Don’t worry too much about Yelp reviews, direct people to your GMB or Facebook page to leave reviews there. They rank higher than Yelp and most people default to these first since they use them everyday already.

Set up your Facebook page and other social media accounts. Make sure the graphics and information match your website and branding. Also make sure the social media accounts that you plan on using are linked up on your website. Most website platforms make that pretty easy.

Create a listing on Yellow Pages. Not much to this one. The vast majority of people searching will find your website or Facebook page first and use that to contact you, or get your info from the GMB info box.

That's the foundation and will get you most of the way there. You should also try to register your website with other relevant directories like the Chamber of Commerce for your local area, or Industry Store Locator directories and GAMA, and any others that make sense.

None of these extra directories will drive any significant traffic to your site, but they will help build up your backlink profile, which I'll explain down below.

The Goal

SEO has three end goals. You want people searching for keywords relevant to your business like “game store near me” and “magic cards/board games/dnd (your city)” to either: call your store, get the info they need to visit your store in person, or go to your website.

You get those clicks by ranking highly on those search results. To get those rankings, you need to align with what Google is trying to accomplish.

Google is in the business of delivering the information that people are searching for, and that means giving them search results that solve their problem or answer their question.

At this point, the algorithm is pretty smart. You used to be able to get some top rankings by jamming a bunch of keywords into your page, but that doesn't fly now.

If you want to rank on the first page of the search results, you need to play Google's game. Think about it from the searcher's point of view when you look at your page. Are they going to find what they are looking for?

The vast majority of traffic goes to the first three results in Google (75.1%). Less than 1% click results on the second page, so if you're not on the first page for a keyword you might as well not exist.

If you want to get organic traffic you need to understand the basics of SEO and have a simple strategy to make it work for you.

Real quick though, one common misconception that most people have about SEO is that you rank your website, but that's not the case. Pages rank, not websites.

Your website has a Domain Authority score which affects the ranking of individual pages on your site, but we can ignore that for the most part right now.

All you need to know is that you want to rank individual pages, and there are two main ways that you can do that. On-page SEO and backlinks.

We'll break those down in a sec. The first thing you need to do, now that you've set up all your accounts, is do some keyword research and figure out what search terms you want to rank for.

Keyword Research

Take 30 minutes and do some research on what people in your area are searching for.

Open up Excel or Google Sheets and create a spreadsheet to keep track of what you find. You're going to want two columns, one for the keyword and one for the number of monthly searches that keyword gets.

One of the easiest ways to get started is to go right into Google and search “game store near me” and see what comes up. Take a look at the top results and see where those keywords appear. Chances are you'll see some of the big name players near the top like Gamestop or BestBuy.

These are the businesses that you are going to be competing with, but don't get discouraged. Just because a keyword has a lot of traffic, that doesn't mean it's the keyword that's right for you to target.

You have to think about intent. The “game store near me” search query is a good start, but it might be too broad. It's better to rank for more specific keywords that align with what you are offering.

So, scroll to the bottom of the search results and you'll see a Related Searches section. 

You'll see a number of similar searches that people are putting into Google and chances are those are the ones you want to focus on.

Copy and paste those results into your spreadsheet, then click on each one and repeat the process.

See what pages rank near the top and then scroll down and grab some new Related Searches.

Rinse and repeat.

You might also see a People Also Ask section in the middle of the results page. Those are great ones to add to your list and keep in mind when writing copy for your website.

You can also go from the angle of whatever products you sell. If you specialize in TCG's start searching for "magic cards near me" or "best magic card store" and that sort of thing and add those to your list. Keep up the process until you've got around 100 keywords on your spreadsheet.

Next up, use a tool like Google's Keyword Research Tool, SEMRush, or MOZ to get some traffic stats for those keywords.

Many of those tools will also give you additional keyword suggestions that you can add as well. Once you've got the traffic filled out, you should sort the sheet by volume and take a look at which keywords are going to give you the most bang for your buck in terms of effort.

Ideally, you're looking for a handful of keywords that make sense for your business (ie. you sell those things and want to sell more of them), have a fair bit of traffic (100-1000 per month, 10-100 isn’t bad either ), and not too much competition.

You'll probably find that the best ones for your game store are four to five words long.

"Board games" gets 246,000 searches per month, but it's going to be almost impossible for the average game store to rank on the first page for that term.

The average web page that ranks in the top 10 has 51,609 backlinks. That's over 51,000 other websites that link to those pages!

Places like Wikipedia and BoardGameGeek are going to take those top spots and there isn't too much you can do about it, but that's okay.

Longer search times like "tabletop game store near me" are going to drive better results for your business, since people searching that are showing more purchase intent and are more likely to be local to your store and therefore turn into actual paying customers, which is the whole point of this exercise.

So now that you've got some keywords you want to rank for, you can start doing the actual SEO work.

On-Page SEO

This is the side of the SEO coin that you directly control. For something like your homepage, you should try to rank for the broadest and...]]>Does Your Game Store Need an SEO Specialist?

If you've been in business for any length of time you've probably been pitched SEO services at least a few times by people promising to get you on page 1 of Google.

That sounds pretty good right? The trouble is hiring someone for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can be very hit or miss.

Some people are great and others will try to rip you off completely, and it can be challenging to know who's who.

SEO is technical and somewhat abstract so it can be hard to tell if someone you hire is doing a good job or nothing at all, and it generally takes a few months to see any real benefits from the effort.

Something to keep in mind for someone who is planning on opening a new store in the near future, SEO is a long term strategy and if you're opening up shop in month or two, SEO isn't going to do all that much since you only have a short amount of time to get things rolling.

You should definitely get the basics started so you have an online presence that people can find to learn more and that you can grow over time, but if you want to prime the pump on your opening week, you should be spending time on promoting your store on the local Facebook groups in your area and trying to get the word out with some paid ads.

That would be money better spent than hiring an SEO specialist.

But all that said, it's still worth your time to get some SEO basics in place for your game store business.

The good news is 80% of what you want to achieve with SEO (namely better rankings for keyword searches that matter for your business) can be done yourself in the course of an afternoon assuming you already have a website created.

Here's a quick rundown on what you need to know to get your SEO going this weekend.

The Set Up

Start with getting the basics in place.

Open up Google and search for Google My Business and go through the set up process. It’s pretty straightforward and the app will walk you through what you need to do to get everything online. You will have to verify your address with a code they’ll send you in the mail so it might take a couple weeks to completely finalize GMB.

Make sure your graphics and logo assets match your website and branding, same with the copy.

Grab your Yelp listing and be prepared for a Yelp rep to call you and essentially hold your page hostage unless you pay them. Don’t worry about that too much though, the direct impact of Yelp itself on your business is minimal, but it does help rank what you actually care about, which is your website.

Don’t worry too much about Yelp reviews, direct people to your GMB or Facebook page to leave reviews there. They rank higher than Yelp and most people default to these first since they use them everyday already.

Set up your Facebook page and other social media accounts. Make sure the graphics and information match your website and branding. Also make sure the social media accounts that you plan on using are linked up on your website. Most website platforms make that pretty easy.

Create a listing on Yellow Pages. Not much to this one. The vast majority of people searching will find your website or Facebook page first and use that to contact you, or get your info from the GMB info box.

That's the foundation and will get you most of the way there. You should also try to register your website with other relevant directories like the Chamber of Commerce for your local area, or Industry Store Locator directories and GAMA, and any others that make sense.

None of these extra directories will drive any significant traffic to your site, but they will help build up your backlink profile, which I'll explain down below.

The Goal

SEO has three end goals. You want people searching for keywords relevant to your business like “game store near me” and “magic cards/board games/dnd (your city)” to either: call your store, get the info they need to visit your store in person, or go to your website.

You get those clicks by ranking highly on those search results. To get those rankings, you need to align with what Google is trying to accomplish.

Google is in the business of delivering the information that people are searching for, and that means giving them search results that solve their problem or answer their question.

At this point, the algorithm is pretty smart. You used to be able to get some top rankings by jamming a bunch of keywords into your page, but that doesn't fly now.

If you want to rank on the first page of the search results, you need to play Google's game. Think about it from the searcher's point of view when you look at your page. Are they going to find what they are looking for?

The vast majority of traffic goes to the first three results in Google (75.1%). Less than 1% click results on the second page, so if you're not on the first page for a keyword you might as well not exist.

If you want to get organic traffic you need to understand the basics of SEO and have a simple strategy to make it work for you.

Real quick though, one common misconception that most people have about SEO is that you rank your website, but that's not the case. Pages rank, not websites.

Your website has a Domain Authority score which affects the ranking of individual pages on your site, but we can ignore that for the most part right now.

All you need to know is that you want to rank individual pages, and there are two main ways that you can do that. On-page SEO and backlinks.

We'll break those down in a sec. The first thing you need to do, now that you've set up all your accounts, is do some keyword research and figure out what search terms you want to rank for.

Keyword Research

Take 30 minutes and do some research on what people in your area are searching for.

Open up Excel or Google Sheets and create a spreadsheet to keep track of what you find. You're going to want two columns, one for the keyword and one for the number of monthly searches that keyword gets.

One of the easiest ways to get started is to go right into Google and search “game store near me” and see what comes up. Take a look at the top results and see where those keywords appear. Chances are you'll see some of the big name players near the top like Gamestop or BestBuy.

These are the businesses that you are going to be competing with, but don't get discouraged. Just because a keyword has a lot of traffic, that doesn't mean it's the keyword that's right for you to target.

You have to think about intent. The “game store near me” search query is a good start, but it might be too broad. It's better to rank for more specific keywords that align with what you are offering.

So, scroll to the bottom of the search results and you'll see a Related Searches section. 

You'll see a number of similar searches that people are putting into Google and chances are those are the ones you want to focus on.

Copy and paste those results into your spreadsheet, then click on each one and repeat the process.

See what pages rank near the top and then scroll down and grab some new Related Searches.

Rinse and repeat.

You might also see a People Also Ask section in the middle of the results page. Those are great ones to add to your list and keep in mind when writing copy for your website.

You can also go from the angle of whatever products you sell. If you specialize in TCG's start searching for "magic cards near me" or "best magic card store" and that sort of thing and add those to your list. Keep up the process until you've got around 100 keywords on your spreadsheet.

Next up, use a tool like Google's Keyword Research Tool, SEMRush, or MOZ to get some traffic stats for those keywords.

Many of those tools will also give you additional keyword suggestions that you can add as well. Once you've got the traffic filled out, you should sort the sheet by volume and take a look at which keywords are going to give you the most bang for your buck in terms of effort.

Ideally, you're looking for a handful of keywords that make sense for your business (ie. you sell those things and want to sell more of them), have a fair bit of traffic (100-1000 per month, 10-100 isn’t bad either ), and not too much competition.

You'll probably find that the best ones for your game store are four to five words long.

"Board games" gets 246,000 searches per month, but it's going to be almost impossible for the average game store to rank on the first page for that term.

The average web page that ranks in the top 10 has 51,609 backlinks. That's over 51,000 other websites that link to those pages!

Places like Wikipedia and BoardGameGeek are going to take those top spots and there isn't too much you can do about it, but that's okay.

Longer search times like "tabletop game store near me" are going to drive better results for your business, since people searching that are showing more purchase intent and are more likely to be local to your store and therefore turn into actual paying customers, which is the whole point of this exercise.

So now that you've got some keywords you want to rank for, you can start doing the actual SEO work.

On-Page SEO

This is the side of the SEO coin that you directly control. For something like your homepage, you should try to rank for the broadest and highest traffic keyword you have on your list that's still relevant.

Side note here: this is where having an obvious and direct business name helps.

Google looks at factors like your domain name, title tag, meta description, and body copy for keywords, so having a business name like "Tom's Board Game Store", while boring and uninspired, is a huge asset for SEO.

Tomsboardgamestore.com is going to have a natural advantage ranking for the term "board game store" because it's going to be right there in the domain name, as well as the title and several other places on the website.

It helps to think about each top level page of your website individually, and pick a keyword that you want that page to rank for. For your homepage, maybe that's "table top games", or "wargaming", or "magic the gathering cards".

For your Events page, that could be "magic tournaments" or "dungeons and dragons league". Try to focus on just one keyword at a time when writing copy for your page and then make sure you use those keywords and similar variations in the title (<h1>) of the page, as well as sub headlines and body copy.

Put the keyword in the URL too (ie. tomsboardgamestore.com/magictournaments) as well as the meta description.

Most website platforms make this fairly easy. If you're using WordPress, install a plugin called Yoast SEO and if you're using something like Shopify you can edit those no problem.

Don't ignore the meta description! It's one of the lowest hanging fruits for ranking signals since most websites don't bother to create one.

Other good On-Page SEO practices include using graphics whenever possible, and adding the keyword plus variations to the alt-text for each graphic, and to include links within the body of the page to other pages in your website, not just in the menu.

Making sure your page is optimized in the URL, title, meta description, sub headlines (<h2>), body text, graphics, and has a few internal links will get you 80% of the way there for on-page SEO.

One thing to note is that I mentioned keyword stuffing near the top. Don't put the same keyword on the page too many times or where it doesn't make sense from the reader's perspective.

If it looks weird or spammy, Google is going to pick up on that and demote the page in the search results.

Try to use natural language as much as you can, which is where variations of the keyword come into play.

Google is pretty good at picking up on context now, so terms like "family board games" and "Euro style board games" can work well together without making it feel like you're just jamming in search terms in hopes of ranking the page.

Backlinks

This part of SEO is less under your control, and why it's important to set up your GMB and other listings at the beginning.

Google considers other web pages linking to yours as a good sign that your page is authoritative and high quality, which means that they are more likely to show your page higher in the search results.

Backlinks are vital to ranking highly for all but the lowest volume search terms, and more broadly, the more backlinks your website has in total the higher it's Domain Authority.

So backlinks are a good thing to have, but there isn't really a direct way to build your backlink profile.

You can't force people to link to your web pages, and no, Facebook doesn't really count here.

Throwing out links to your website from your Facebook page does help a little bit, but they're counted separately from a direct link from another website and don't affect your organic rankings all that much.

There are two main ways to gain backlinks for your website. Either create content that people want to link to ie. content marketing, or exchange links with other website owners.

Creating content takes time but it's definitely something I recommend.

Writing posts or recording videos is a good way to rank for new keywords and it keeps your site interesting and "fresh".

Google likes seeing a website that is recently updated and demotes websites that haven't been updated in a while (the info might be out of date after all). If you create something that people want to share, you get that great word of mouth advertising for free, and you can get a bunch of links pointing back to your site.

Creating content is like planting seeds. Each piece of content you create can be tailored to a specific keyword and can drive organic traffic indefinitely when ranked over time.

If you created 100 pieces of content that were optimized well for different product keywords and gave the person the opportunity to purchase on the page over the course of the next year, and each piece netted you an average of 10 visits per month to your product pages, you would end up with 1000 free visitors every month.

If your average conversion rate was 2% on those product pages, that would be 20 additional gravy purchases each month, which could represent hundreds to thousands of dollars in "free" sales.

Rinse and repeat.

There is a reason that Star City Games pays writers to create thousands of articles per year. Each article drives traffic to the site, and a certain percentage of that traffic will convert to a sale.

Like SEO, creating content is a momentum strategy. It takes some time and effort before you see results, but once you plant those seeds they keep sending you traffic and sales indefinitely.

Exchanging links also takes time and effort, but it's a good way to build up your link profile. In a way, this is what you're doing when you create a listing in a directory.

You're creating content on their website and they give you a direct backlink in exchange.

If you do any work with your local school or community center, you should reach out to them and ask them to put a link to your "After School Adventurer's Program" page on their website.

You could also reach out to other businesses in the area that you're friendly with and do a link exchange, where you put a link to their website on yours and vice-versa.

Every back link counts, and the more your website has the more authority it's seen to have in the eyes of Google, which gives all your webpages a little more weight in the algorithm.

Summary

So to pull everything together, you can certainly do most of the SEO work yourself with a few basic strategies:

1. Create your GMB account, create your social profiles, add your website to whatever relevant directories you can find including store locators.
2. Do some basic keyword research and create a list of keywords that you want to target that are relevant to what you sell and/or convey purchase intent.
3. Pick one keyword to focus on for each page on your website and make sure it's in the URL, title tag, sub headlines, body copy, alt text of any graphics, and meta description.
4. Create content around specific keywords each week to constantly expand the number of keywords your pages rank for.
5. Spend a little time each week emailing other businesses or organizations you are connected with and see if they would be interested in exchanging links.

Luke May is the Retail Experience Specialist for Wizards of the Coast in the UK and Nelson Brown is the Wizards Play Network Community Manager in Seattle, and they join me today to discuss the Premium program and what it takes for a game store to qualify as one of the best shops in the world.

Questions

What is the WPN origin story? Where did the idea for the Premium program come from?

What sets Premium game stores apart? What makes achieving Premium status awesome?

What are the main obstacles that store owners run into during the approval process and how can listeners avoid them?

What is the WPN program trying to achieve?

How can store owners make the most out of their Premium status?

Where can store owners go to get more information?

Links Mentioned During The Interview

Retail Improvement Grant 50% (only available while supplies last)

Why We Buy by Paco Underhill (affiliate link)

Mary, Queen of Shops

UK Retail Expo

wpn.wizards.com

askwpn.wizards.com

WPN Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1659498737640125/

How to apply for WPN Premium: https://wpn.wizards.com/article/how-apply-wpn-premium-during-pandemic

WPN articles: https://wpn.wizards.com/grow-your-store

publishergamenights.com

Today we're going to talk a little bit about the business of making tabletop games and then we're going to dive into the business of selling those tabletop games.

Publishing

• Why did you decide to get into game publishing?
• For those who may not know, describe the ‘house style’ of your line and who you see as the key audience?
• What does Smirk & Dagger provide as retail support?
• You mentioned demo copies and demo scripts, what would you say to stores that don’t have the manpower or retail space suited to doing demos?

Retail

• What are some best practices for merchandising games that help game store owners move more product? (I will spend a lot of time here, doing a borrowed brilliance exercise )
• How often should store owners remerchandise?
• As a game publisher, what is one thing you wish retailers knew or would do differently?

Links

• Retailer Resource Page: https://www.smirkandlaughter.com/retailer-resources
• SND Retailer FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/666949490455299
• Envoy: https://www.dexposure.com/envoy/
• Dized Interview: MVP096

If you want to be part of a community of peers on your business journey to share ideas with and continue learning, you can become a member of the Manaverse Network by going to manaversesaga.com/join. That's where you can get access to all the seminars from the recent 2020 LGS Success Summit as well as additional exclusive members only content, marketing reviews, and training.

Wizards Announces Major Changes To Professional Organized Play

The new Organized Play vision is to balance the five categories of play away from the heavy focus on professional or “elite” play. The five categories include:

• Friendly play (local game store level)
• Aspirational play (drive to play at a higher level in stuff like States)
• Elite play (higher level events similar to Grand Prix or Pro Tour)
• Festivals (things like CommandFests)
• Digital (playing on MTG Arena and Magic Online as an on-ramp for players anywhere to have access to varying levels of play).

Key Points

• Magic is a poor e-sport and is not compelling to watch from a spectators perspective. This was a major hurdle that Wizards had to overcome to make Magic successful as an e-sport and this announcement indicates that it didn't achieve what they were hoping.
• Players shouldn't expect to make professional Magic into a career. Organized Play always has been a marketing strategy and always will be. It's not a way to employ people.
• The older paths towards high level play were simpler and easier to follow for the average Magic player, making them more aspirational and interesting, which drove sales. The current version is convoluted and messy, and reducing the complexity will certainly help.

What does this mean for the local game stores?

Overall, it's probably a positive change. With a renewed focus on local and regional events, the focus will be more on the average major player and using organized play as a way to support their enjoyment of the hobby, and the local game stores that support the community.

Future versions of the program will probably be simplified and recapture the original sense of excitement and achievability for average players.

Links

https://magic.gg/news/esports-transitions-and-getting-back-to-gathering

https://articles.starcitygames.com/news/2021-2022-will-be-last-season-for-pro-magic-play/

https://articles.starcitygames.com/news/weekly-mtg-answers-questions-regarding-op-announcement/

If you're interested in discovering how to get your game published, Molly shares a number of valuable lessons on how to take a game from concept to manufactured product and then getting that product onto the shelves of retailers and the tables of customers at home.

We also cover some of the common threads that the most successful game stores share and how to incorporate them into your own game business.

Episode Breakdown

2:30 Why did you decide to get into game publishing?

8:20 What was the journey for Wing It to become a tangible product like?

14:30 How did you begin selling the game and get it into the hands of retailers?

29:10 How creating real relationships leads to more business and sales

36:25 After visiting over 275 game stores all over the world, what are the common threads you've seen that the most successful business's share?

37:50-42:32 Gaming builds community

42:50 Without game stores to provide the community, the gaming hobby would barely exist

46:47-52:24 Welcoming all types of gamers means welcoming all types of people

53:10 Games create connections across boundaries including language, the story of the North American Magic player in Japan

56:08 The Wing It conversation club story

59:22-1:05:20 Go out into your local community and outside your four walls

1:07:31-1:11:30 Bring publishers to your game nights virtually

1:12:13 Diversify your offerings to protect your business

1:21:54-1:32:10 What is the best way to create relationships in this business?

1:32:45-1:38:26 Why you need to get your game store online now

1:39:07-1:47:13 Find a mentor and why you should cooperate with your competitors as much as possible

1:48:04 What does success look like for Flying Leap Games

Links Mentioned

Flyingleapgames.com

@penguinsoaring on Twitter

Reach out to Molly at flyingleapgames@gmail.com

BinderPOS

Shopify

Wix

If you want to be part of a community of peers on your business journey to share ideas with and continue learning, you can become a member of the Manaverse Network by going to manaversesaga.com/join. That's where you can get access to all the seminars from the recent 2020 LGS Success Summit as well as additional exclusive members only content, marketing reviews, and training.

Imagine having that exact same experience in a highly interactive and engaging app with an ever expanding library of tutorials that you can use to teach anyone how to play. No need to slog through a 15 page rulebook before you can even get set up. Just jump right into the game and learning as you go.

This is where Dized comes in. With Dized, players can learn games while they play and enrich their tabletop gaming experience and it can do everything from Smart Tutorials to full game expansions!

Dized brings the experience of the best video game tutorials to the board game table and we're going to find out more right now.

Questions

What is the origin story of Dized? How did you guys get into this business?

What is Dized and how does it work?

How much does it cost?

How the content creation tools work?

Who creates the content?

What are some of the best ways store owners can use the app to sell more games?

How does the advertising system work?

Where can listeners go to get started?

Dized is beneficial to all industry operators:

• Publishers can make their games more accessible with smart tutorials and more immersive with digital content. Dized has also proven to be very efficient at demoing games at expos!
• Retailers can use Dized as a “demo person” at the store, and Dized offers a great selling point: “If you buy this game, you can skip the rulebook and learn while you play!”
• Board Game Cafes can utilize Dized as “someone” who teaches guests how to play the game and is able to handle all the tables simultaneously!

Reach out to Jouni: b2b@dized.com

Become a Manaverse Network member: https://www.manaversesaga.com/join

If you want to be part of a community on your business journey to share ideas with and continue learning, you can become a member of the Manaverse Network by going to manaversesaga.com/join. That's where you can get access to all the seminars from the recent LGS Success Summit as well as additional exclusive content.

Links

gama.org

spatial.chat

tom@manaversesaga.com

Maybe they’ve been a long time customer, maybe they’ve just rolled in off the street and feel like you owe them cheaper prices.

At the moment of this recording there is a surge of speculation in the Pokémon market with a huge number of people buying up product in order to resell and flip on platforms like eBay and Facebook. 

Depending on who you ask, this is either a great opportunity for store owners to clean up, or a problem that’s going to create a lot of unhappy customers.

Let's talk about how we should deal with speculators and crazy hot products in short supply, as well as the inevitable one star reviews and how we can use them as a marketing opportunity to reach your real customers.

Devon has been involved in the eCommerce industry for over a decade with a number of businesses under his belt. He enjoys reading, volleyball, pizza, and Dungeons and Dragons, and today we're going to get to know Devon and how his latest project is bringing about the age of the professional dungeon master.

Questions

How did you get into tabletop RPGs?

What is the big idea behind Start Playing Games?

How can game store owners use the platform to grow their businesses?

What kind of tools do people need to become a GM and run great gaming sessions?

What are some best practices you've seen from the most successful game masters on the platform?

What do you have planned for the future of Start Playing Games?

How can game store owners learn more and get involved?

Links

https://startplaying.games/

dndbeyond.com

https://roll20.net/

Email Devon@startplayinggames.com

Remember, there's always room to improve and opportunities available, and if you want to be part of a community on your business journey to share ideas with and continue learning, you can become a member of the Manaverse Network by going to manaversesaga.com/join. That's where you can get access to all the seminars from the recent LGS Success Summit as well as additional exclusive content.

Find out how the platform works, how you can run events with minimal staffing and still have a smooth tournament experience for your customers, and how the Melee.gg team is changing the way events are run.

Melee.gg is a great way for game stores to run tournaments that was previously reserved for the likes of the Star City Games Tour and other premier organizers.

Steve Port

Steve’s introduction to competitive gaming was in the early 90's when he began organizing leagues for strategy games. This was followed closely by organizing sanctioned events for Wizards of the Coast.

This early hobby quickly turned into full time employment as he acquired contracts with companies like Wizards of the Coast, Upper Deck, and Konami.

From 2001-2015 Steve organized some of Magic’s largest tournaments while also starting and overseeing several companies connected to the tabletop gaming world.

He's heading up Melee.gg with Jason Flatford, Brad Nelson, and Adam Shaw, each of which brings something unique to the team in addition to their shared passion for Magic: the Gathering.

Steve was also one of my first interviewees on the podcast years ago. He appeared on episode 14 of the Manaverse Podcast back in 2015, and now he's back to give us the lowdown on Melee.gg and the future of running tournaments online.

Questions

How did you get involved in Melee.gg?

From a complete newbie perspective, how does the system work?

How do you capture payments? Is there a limit? How are prizes (if any) distributed?

What are some best practices for running great tournaments with the software?

What's the biggest tournament you've seen on the platform so far?

How should store owners be using the platform to run events?

How can they get involved and become organizers?

What's planned for the future of Melee.gg?

Links

melee.gg

Become an Organizer

Melee.gg Documentation

manaversesaga.com/join

Resources Mentioned

semrush.com

analytics.google.com

mailchimp.com

activecampaign.com

Get your FREE ticket for the LGS Success Summit right here!

To quote one of their customers: THE OWNERS AND STAFF HAVE CULTIVATED A NIRVANA FOR GAMERS. A MORE OPEN AND WELCOMING PLACE YOU WILL NEVER FIND."

Brenda and Paraic on a mission to show what a game store can be in 2020 and beyond and during the episode we dig into what it takes to be a game store owner, the advantages of having a partner that compliments your strengths and weaknesses, and what game stores need to do to attract and serve the most misunderstand demographic of customers right now and turn them into raving fans.

Don't sleep on this one, especially in these strange times we live.

https://www.knightwatchgames.com/

Get your FREE ticket to the upcoming LGS Success Summit below

https://lgssuccesssummit.com

With a special focus on being community oriented, family friendly game experts, Kylie and the Games Unlimited crew help people find the perfect game for their needs and have built a thriving business while doing so. 

Topics/Questions

• How Kylie got into the game business and how he grew Games Unlimited after taking over the ownership in 2015.
• Why your customer's trust is the most valuable asset your business can have.
• The impact of the shutdowns on Games Unlimited and how Kylie kept the business going.
• Honeycomb - "We raised $11,085 in our first day! As a business that relies heavily on customer relationships, giving my customers a way to support us during the shutdown is a win-win for both of us."
• How Kylie found out about Honeycomb and what lead to the decision to give them a try.
• Tips for game store owners that are struggling right now.

The Manaverse Podcast is supported by Honeycomb Credit. Honeycomb Credit is here to support your small business during these uncertain times. 

As a leader in crowdfunded small business loans, Honeycomb gives you the opportunity to raise community capital from your customers, fans, and the network of Honeycomb investors.  

Sign up and get connected with one of their funding experts by going to manaversesaga.com/honeycomb. 

If you're a local game store owner in need of funding, working with Honeycomb Credit creates a way for your existing community to invest in the future of your business. 

If you want to support the local game store in your area, let them know how Honeycomb Credit can help! Go to manaversesaga.com/honeycomb to sign up and get started today!

The Mana Boardgame Tavern was conceived with the idea of bringing great games, great drinks, and great people, all together into a welcoming atmosphere. Add in a hefty amount of passionate geekdom and every night is game night.

Main Topics Explored

• The Kickstarter campaign that started it all
• The story of how the building they rented burned down before they could open their doors
• How Shannon and Vince came to the decision to open a specialty bar 
• Lessons learned during the launch
• Raising money with Honeycomb Credit to stay afloat during the lockdown
• Tips on running a successful crowdfunding campaign

Find out how you can run your own Loyalty Bonds campaign by going to manaversesaga.com/honeycomb

So let's dig into the announcement and talk about the three major changes to the program and some options for game store owners looking to become Premium.

https://wpn.wizards.com/en/article/evolving-wpn-premium-covid-19-and-beyond

Hold off on opening your doors or making any major purchases in the near future because the circumstances in which you would be operating are changing, almost by the day.

If you went through the effort of putting together a business plan, the very assumptions the plan is based on are now incorrect. A business plan presupposes a few things, like a somewhat stable economy, reliable infrastructure, and a reasonably consistent regulatory environment.

But that's no longer the case. Let's talk about what you should be doing instead of pulling the trigger on your game store plans and how to set your business up for success later on.

Social distancing and isolation have made the traditional model for local game stores unfeasible if not impossible. Hosting events is no longer an option and likely won't be a long time.

And for the stores in regions that are particular hard hit like California and New York, options are even more limited as they've been forced to close their doors entirely.

But there is some good news. The industry as a whole is coming together to help support the front line game stores and there are still ways to keep your business running, even in the midst of a lock down situation.

John Coviello is on the podcast again to share how he's dealing with the situation in his business, and some of the things he's been doing to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic. Listen in to learn how publishers and distributors are creating programs to help your business continue to generate revenue as well what government programs are being made available to small businesses so they can weather the storm.

Click here to join the Manaverse Network free for 30 days and stay connected with other store owners and stay on top of what's happening in the games industry.

See the full list of available resources at https://manaversesaga.com/mvp085-resources-and-advice-for-staying-in-business-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

WeTabletop allows players looking for games to connect with store owners hosting those games, and they're not just restricted to the usual suspects. Players can find nearly any table top game on the system.

For game store owners, WeTabletop is a completely free way to reach more customers and sell more games. Due to the current circumstances surrounding Covid-19, WeTabletop is also offering store owners to host remote/virtual events so there is no excuse not to claim your store's page right now.

Go to https://wetabletop.com to get started.

Governments are taking this seriously.

Coronavirus is going to affect all retail but game stores are a unique business model and are very focused on face to face interaction. So what do local game store owners need to be concerned with over the coming weeks and months?

• Health Concerns
• Do you have a plan in place for what happens when your team gets sick? What about you?
• What are you doing to reduce the spread of disease? Hand sanitizer
• Economic Concerns
• Supply chain issues, China manufacturing is reduced. Shipping is delayed as countries go into lockdown. What can you do to prevent issues with restocking? Will likely affect board games more than other products as majority is manufactured overseas, can you refocus product lines to others that won't be as affected?
• Do you have enough of basic items like toilet paper! to last a prolonged shortage?
• Do you have enough set aside to float the business if sales are reduced for the next 6 months?
• Dealing with quarantines, reduced foot traffic, low to zero event attendance, reduced sales.
• Insurance isn't going to cover this.

Recommendations

1. Personal, have food/water/basic supplies on hand. Prepare to self isolate if necessary, at least a few weeks worth. Wash your hands, avoid touching your face. You will likely be infected or someone you know so be prepared to be knocked out for a while.
2. Put a plan in place if you can't work for up to a month. Does your manager know how to order or take care of other admin tasks? Do you have a chain of command in place? In the extreme case, what happens to your business if you die?
3. Speak to your distributors and suppliers. Ask them if there any items they expect to see shortages of, consider stocking up now if necessary. 
4. Be proactive, not reactive. Speak to your staff about ways to reduce the spread of the disease. Put up guidelines for customers as well. Avoid touching each other's cards or game pieces as much as possible, wash your hands often.

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