So one of the posts from this week's Top X inspired my thoughts for today. I thought I'd talk a little bit about how things have changed over the years.
When I got introduced to gaming, it was through a club. Most of the clubs were run by the university, and everyone in them were affiliated with the university in some way, or knew someone who was. If you were a longtime local that liked games, it was a very long and tough thing to get introduced to strategic or tabletop games in anyway. At the time I started, there weren't really anything even close to "game stores". There was a comic book store that "sold" games, but it was halfhearted at best, and you had to special order, and you certainly couldn't PLAY there.
Even going to the comic shops was a whole lot different. While comics were definitely "geeky", being a gamer got you labeled "weird", "nerdy" or "a dweeb". There was a definite stigma to being "one of those guys" in those stores.
Ordering books was a whole different animal, too. Most of the time, you had to put an order in and wait for the guy to get together enough orders for free shipping. Sometimes, that was a few days and other times it was weeks.
Being in a club was an interesting affair. Dues and funds were used to put on shows, much like the ones we see across the pond these days. Members had specific talents, and shared them with each other to better the status of the hobby. Often, the shows were giant episodes of "show and tell", with members and friends enjoying each other's handiwork and growing the hobby together.
Today, things are different. FLGS are more and more common, with places like Titan Games as giant playgrounds for the geeky kind. D&D and Settlers of Cataan are featured prominently on popular TV shows like Big Bang Theory. The nerds are no longer irrelevant, and are power players in the economy of past times.
That's what has happened in the US. I don't know enough about the UK to say if their situation will change or be different, but I'd love to learn.
I'd really like to do an interactive series, talking about the state of affairs in the UK and how clubs impact the hobby scene. I'd also like to see what might be possible for the development of FLGS and other nerdy places that way. Please chime in with thoughts, ideas, and questions, and I'll see what I can bring about in conversation.
When I got introduced to gaming, it was through a club. Most of the clubs were run by the university, and everyone in them were affiliated with the university in some way, or knew someone who was. If you were a longtime local that liked games, it was a very long and tough thing to get introduced to strategic or tabletop games in anyway. At the time I started, there weren't really anything even close to "game stores". There was a comic book store that "sold" games, but it was halfhearted at best, and you had to special order, and you certainly couldn't PLAY there.
Even going to the comic shops was a whole lot different. While comics were definitely "geeky", being a gamer got you labeled "weird", "nerdy" or "a dweeb". There was a definite stigma to being "one of those guys" in those stores.
Ordering books was a whole different animal, too. Most of the time, you had to put an order in and wait for the guy to get together enough orders for free shipping. Sometimes, that was a few days and other times it was weeks.
Being in a club was an interesting affair. Dues and funds were used to put on shows, much like the ones we see across the pond these days. Members had specific talents, and shared them with each other to better the status of the hobby. Often, the shows were giant episodes of "show and tell", with members and friends enjoying each other's handiwork and growing the hobby together.
Today, things are different. FLGS are more and more common, with places like Titan Games as giant playgrounds for the geeky kind. D&D and Settlers of Cataan are featured prominently on popular TV shows like Big Bang Theory. The nerds are no longer irrelevant, and are power players in the economy of past times.
That's what has happened in the US. I don't know enough about the UK to say if their situation will change or be different, but I'd love to learn.
I'd really like to do an interactive series, talking about the state of affairs in the UK and how clubs impact the hobby scene. I'd also like to see what might be possible for the development of FLGS and other nerdy places that way. Please chime in with thoughts, ideas, and questions, and I'll see what I can bring about in conversation.
