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I had an interesting conversation with someone not too long ago about how they want to collect on a larger scale, but just get overwhelmed with the task and had given up multiple times. I had two pieces of advice to offer. The first, and probably the most important, is to take a good look at your goal and make sure it's something that you actually want to invest the time and resources into. Collecting something like a full library can take years and thousands of dollars. If you're not committed and have stalled or even gone backwards in that goal, is it really something that is important to you or simply something that used to seem enjoyable, but maybe isn't quite what you though it was? Even on a smaller scale, such as collecting all the games from your favorite series, can be a huge task. There are dozens of games across multiple platforms in series like Mario, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Pac-Man, Harvest Moon, Pokemon, etc. Beyond the time and money, you had better enjoy research and have the space available in your home to display or store them like you want to.
If all that checks out though, then my next suggestion is to enter the delightful world of Sub-Sets!
Continue reading Collection Baby-Steps AKA Sub-Sets
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As my collection has been growing, my acquisitions have been slowing. It makes sense that at some point, you will eventually reach a saturation point in your collecting in which it's harder to find titles that interest you than it used to be when you had less games. However, I still really enjoy gaming and collecting so I don't want it to stop quite yet. Over the last few weeks, one of my collecting goals has been to update my rfgen wishlist. Sounds simple enough. Yet, I found myself pouring well over 50 hours into this project. I wanted to make sure my list was comprehensive and accurate. This meant reaching out to trusted friends with expertise beyond mine for certain libraries, doing a fair bit of research, and watching a ton of YouTube playthroughs before assigning a coveted checkmark to the wishlist box.
Continue reading Collecting Wishes
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Image by GeekTyrant.com
This blog entry is gonna be quite different than my usual ones. I'm looking for help from you guys this time around. I was recently offered a position to write for a local magazine. It has a small area of distribution, but regardless, I'm very excited about it. I get a whole page to write about gaming once each quarter. I can discuss something new, something old, board games, video games, RPGs, card games, and basically, whatever gaming related topic I want. The book will have an overall theme, and I have been asked to try and make my topic relevant to the theme for the issue.
My first article is already printed and out in public. I would like you guys to read over my article below and throw your brutal and honest feedback at me. I had very little time to put this one together, so I fully expect future articles to improve with more time to plan and revise. The theme of this issue was "Revolution." I used this broad topic as a way to introduce myself as a writer and my relevance to the subject matter. Please let me know what you think:
Continue reading Crabmaster Gets Published!
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Running your own business can be very rewarding. It also comes with it's fair share of headaches. Shoplifting and theft is a constant problem for pretty much any retail establishment. Here are some of our stories regarding the subject.
Continue reading Blog Quest: Batman By Day, Game Store Owner By Night
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So you own and/or work at a game store. Pretty awesome, right? You get to constantly be around the things that you love.....but do you actually get to enjoy them??
For the past 2 and half years, I've been running and working at Game Quest as well as a second full-time job doing night shifts. I knew it was going to be busy and cut down significantly on one of my favorite things, my gaming time. Our city had long been in need of a good gaming store, so I felt it would be worth the temporary (hopefully) cut in my free time. The plan was, and still is, to get the store to a point where it doesn't neccessarily need me around to operate so that I can continue to do the things I enjoy and still offer my city a place to sell, buy, and play games of all types.
Continue reading Blog Quest - Enjoying Your Hobbies
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The Handsome Group of Organizers Responsible For Power Up Prince George[/i]
Being in a relatively small town and this being our first event, we decided that it would be best to make sure the operating costs were as low as possible so that our goals would be very obtainable. We wanted nothing more than to have a fun event that could be considered a success so that we could make it an annual event. With that in mind, we wanted to have at least 100 people attend the event at some point during the day and raise at least $2000 for the Child Development Center.
Long story short we exceed both of our goals. But you want the long story so click the link below........
Continue reading Blog Quest: It's For The Children - Part 2
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Two years ago, we started Game Quest exclusively as a video game store. Now that we have the space, we've jumped into all sorts of other games. Many of these, like Magic and a lot of board games, I've played and am very comfortable with, but as we keep getting requests and bring in new products to try, I find myself exploring all sorts of new games, many of which have turned out to be a ton of fun!!
Continue reading Blog Quest: Look at all these games!!!
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We've all heard that old chestnut at one point or another during our lives: "It takes a village to raise a Game Store". I've learned firsthand how true that is over the last couple years though.....
Continue reading Blog Quest: The Crew
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After a great showing at our local fan convention and nearly two years in our tiny downtown location, we were starting to feel more cramped than ever in our store. It had felt small very early on, but it was just getting worse and worse as we had more customers and product coming in. Especially, since we wanted to add tabletop games in a significant way and didn't have the space to do it properly. It was feeling more and more like it was time to start shopping around for a new home for Game Quest!
Continue reading Blog Quest - Location Scouting
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A couple years ago my wife and I were fortunate enough to attend our first ever Fan Convention in Calgary, Alberta. I was very excited and prior to the event, I had my wife watch through a plethora of nerdy movies so that she would be well-versed on many of the attending celebrity guests. I knew it was something I'd enjoy, but I wasn't sure my wife would find enough to keep her entertained for the entire three days. Much to my delight, she seemed to enjoy herself as much as I did. From checking out the amazing cosplay, to taking in the often hilarious speaking panels, to meeting strange new people while waiting in line for autographs, and even embarrassing herself while speaking with her childhood crush, Sean Patrick Flanery (she was a big fan of Young Indiana Jones), we both had one of the best weekends we have ever spent together.
Much to our delight, we learned that our own city was scheduled to host a fan convention, aptly named Northern FanCon! This time though we had the unique option of attending as a vendor as opposed to a typical guest.
Continue reading Blog Quest: Un"Convention"al Appearance - Part I
So you've been operating your retro game store for a few months now and things are going better than you could have hoped. Customers are happy, new stock is getting traded in on a regular basis, bank account is moving in the right direction. Nothing can bring you down. Cue Bylaw Enforcement Officer..........
Continue reading Blog Quest: Getting Political - Part I
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