Sentry Box West in Vancouver, B.C. [way OT]
GI Hoe
about the old gaming store Sentry box west in Vancouver, B.C. This is
a fascinating tale to me. The rise and fall of gaming stores. As a
long time gamer I've been lurking in stores all over the area for
twenty years now watching them come and go.
My own experience with Dave at Sentry Box West was more positive, but
things did deteriorate toward the end.
He hooked me on magic: the addicting one fine day _at_the_very_start_
with free card he handed me (the first one is always free!)of the
spider (2/4 - can block flying creatures).
Years go by. I always felt he was friendly and chatty. He even had
nice things to say about the Comic Shop people.
I even sent him a postcard from Europe to "everyone at the store" and
gave him a set of magic cards in German. But he already seemed
distracted. Dismissive even.
The comments about him turning away role players and wargamers rang
very true. This new breed of card gamer was ruling the roost. It was
an uncomfortable environment.
I always hoped that he cashed out and started a new life back in the
prairies free from the toils and troubles of the modern era, but I'm a
romantic.
So now to the point: Does anyone else have good stories of the rise
and fall of your favourite gaming stores? Or maybe just the rise and
rise?
I used to love "Merlin's Reach" in Quesnel and "Larry's good stuff
games" in North Vancouver. Never knew what happened to them either...
--
Ralek.
Brad Murray
GH> I used to love "Merlin's Reach" in Quesnel and "Larry's good stuff
GH> games" in North Vancouver. Never knew what happened to them either...
When I was just getting into D&D and related gaming, the place to go
was the original Good Stuff Games on Hornby, just north of Georgia
(all Vancouver locations in this post, folks). It was run by John
Poser who, I believe, since went into politics. No idea what he's up
to now. If I had to pick a reason why the place failed, I would guess
it was the fact that John loved games so much that he would extend
ridiculous amounts of credit to anyone who asked. I think I still owe
him fifty bucks.
--
Brad Murray * You Republican what you sew.
VSCA Founder * -- CNN Closed Captioning error
n.ri...@gmail.com
Alpha 2.6 million
Beta 7.8 million
Unlimited 40 million
Arabian Nights 5 million
Antiquities 15 million
Legends 35 million
The Dark 62 million
Thanks to the Crystal Keep for print run counts. http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/misc/rarity-info.php
Through each of these sets SBW easily sold all the cards they received. The market finally hit saturation with the next set, Fallen Empires a whopping 360 million cards were printed 6 times more than the previous set. Dave got all the cards he ordered, then found out he could sell them. Everybody who wanted to was easily able to get a complete set of cards, and Dave sat on inventory. He discounted the cards but the still didn't move his inventory.
Dave was a great guy, good to his younger customers, but I don't think he had a great head for business. Magic the Gathering should have been a cash cow for Dave instead I think it ended up costing him is business. He sold the store and went back to being a butcher as far as I know. Most of this is my own opinion based on conversations with other customers, and friends of the store.
Rast
>
> I spent much time at the Sentry Box West in Vancouver. The tale of SBW and Magic cards is a sad one. To understand the fate of SBW you need to understand the effect Magic the Gathering. MtG was a hugely successful trading card game introduced in the early 90's. The initial runs of the cards were very small, and retailers like Dave a the SBW couldn't keep them in stock. He would order dozens of boxes of cards but only receive one or two. Which would sell out almost
instantly. This continued through most of the early sets despite higher print runs.
>
>
> Through each of these sets SBW easily sold all the cards they received. The market finally hit saturation with the next set, Fallen Empires a whopping 360 million cards were printed 6 times more than the previous set. Dave got all the cards he ordered, then found out he could sell them. Everybody who wanted to was easily able to get a complete set of cards, and Dave sat on inventory. He discounted the cards but the still didn't move his inventory.
>
> Dave was a great guy, good to his younger customers, but I don't think he had a great head for business. Magic the Gathering should have been a cash cow for Dave instead I think it ended up costing him is business. He sold the store and went back to being a butcher as far as I know. Most of this is my own opinion based on conversations with other customers, and friends of the store.
>
> On Monday, 31 March 2003 10:22:45 UTC-7, GI Hoe wrote:
> > Just stumbled across an old posting here:
> >
> > http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=8m24s8%245m7q8%241%40ID-38614.news.cis.dfn.de
> >
> > about the old gaming store Sentry box west in Vancouver, B.C. This is
> > a fascinating tale to me. The rise and fall of gaming stores. As a
> > long time gamer I've been lurking in stores all over the area for
> > twenty years now watching them come and go.
A post that mentions an even older post, though the google groups link is
dead.
--
There walked into the lethal quicksands a very old man in tattered
purple, crowned with withered vine-leaves and gazing ahead as if upon the
golden domes of a fair city where dreams are understood. That night
something of youth and beauty died in the elder world. - H P Lovecraft
Joanna Rowland Stuart
Perhaps when people come onto usenet newsgroups for the first time they
sometimes get snippets of old threads mixed in. Who knows?
Either that, or N Riding searched the newsgroup for Vancouver...
Cut him some slack, guys LOL.
Cheers
JOanna