[Musings of a Game Store Owner] The Myth

"So, 'Lo, you must get to play a lot of games- I mean, you own a game store..."

This phrase or variations of it are pretty common. There's a genuine belief that being a game store owner means that I get to play tons of games. In many ways, this belief boils down to the idea that I my "job" is to have fun and goof off.

This concept that I get paid to play games and have nothing but time to slack off is a big fat myth.

If I want to run my business into the ground, then I'll hang out and play games all day. As a rule, that's what happens when shop owners spend their time "hanging out" and not taking care of business.

TheDude and I know that playing Dominion isn't going to pay the bills. It's the boring, annoying, frustrating and time-consuming activities (like sorting Magic cards and building terrain) that bring in the bucks. Because we know that playing while working should only be done in certain circumstances, we actually have rules against it in our policy manual.

We have to schedule our games so we're not on the clock. As Devo once put it, we take "Time Out For Fun".

TheDude and I face another challenge with scheduling that I haven't seen with any other game store owners. We still have kids at home. (I don't know of a single store or owner with kids in the picture.) TheDude and I have agreed that one parent should be home with the kids as much as possible. TheDude is truly gifted at the day-to-day operations, and I am eminently employable. So we agreed that he does the "running the shop thing", and I do the "day job and home with the kids thing".  With TheDude working his crazy schedule, that leaves me at home most of the time. 

I tend to try to play when TheDude is off- so we're not distracting each other, and so that one of us can be at home, taking care of house stuff. The real trick here is that until VERY recently, TheDude worked SEVEN days a week.


Yeah, that's been frustrating.



Even with employees, finding time to game is a challenge. It's been tough to convince TheDude that he can take time off, and when he's home, I want to spend time with HIM and not take off to go game. (We've been doing this 7 days a week schedule for 2-3 years now; we have a lot of catching up to do.)

Despite all the scheduling stuff, I am at the store a lot. I'll usually drop in 2-3 times a week for 20 minutes to an hour, or I'll cover a small shift if there's a hole in the schedule; or I'll run dinner over to TheDude.  So while I may not have time to PLAY, I'm picking up on the games that are out there. Just this week alone, I discovered Ascension (which I LOVE!!!!!) and Thunderstone (which I really, really DON'T).

I may not get to play them- but I'll schedule some time.

It's just a lot more difficult than it sounds.