my game store

My game store will always be Active Imagination in Albuquerque. Partly that's just 'cause I used to manage the place, but mostly it's 'cause it has a wider selection than any other game store I've been too. I GM RPGs, but I also really dig boardgames (especially cooperative ones), I collect miniatures, and used to judge Magic tournaments. I like a little bit of everything, so variety and depth are big deals for me. AI scored huge in that department.

I'm about to hop on a bus to pick up my copy of Scion: God at Golden Age Collectibles down by the market. It's a good store, but it's really a comic shop. I have Scion: God on reserve, and it turns out it's the only copy they ordered. Their gaming section is pretty small. The game section is 90% RPGs, with about 5 or 6 boardgames and a few CCGs to round it out. The rest of the store is Comics, Action Figures, Lovecraft Memorabilia, Movie Scripts, Posters, etc. Fun stuff, to be sure, but it's focus and mine aren't quite in sync. Yet it's my favorite "game" store in Seattle.

Speaking of Seattle, the game stores here are all overly-specialized. My other choices locally include Uncle's Games and Blue Highway Games, both of which focus on board games. Blue Highway doesn't even carry RPGs, and Uncle's pretty much just carries Wizards of the Coast RPGs. Games Workshop Store #174 is here as well, but it, as you'd expect, only carries GW stuff. The search for links to those shops turned up Gary's Games as well, which I haven't visited, but will have to sometime (next paycheck?). They are all in different directions from me, so I can't even get the "total package" fix by hitting multiple stores - doing so would take all day.

*Sigh* You never know how good you've got it till it's done and gone.