Games People Play

I recently visited a game store I've been going to since my college days back in the late 1980's - The Games People Play in Cambridge, MA.  Great store - a huge selection of really neat stuff.  I bought my copies of Wiz War and Swashbuckler there back in college, along with some other games. This time around my father-in-law picked us up Pandemic, which I'm eager to try.

I spoke with the guy there (I think his name was Hank?) about how they acquire their games.  He said they get most of them through distributors, from Alliance and ACD, about whom I hadn't yet heard but probably should have.  But he said they also make some purchases for their big wall of single-copy games (i.e. games where they have only one copy in stock) directly from designers at trade shows, and that they'd sometimes buy games directly from producers.  So, there's a chance there to avoid paying the distributor's mark-up and get into stores directly, but it's going to be in very small numbers and require a lot of effort.  But it did sound like the trade shows were maybe worth doing.

Interesting stuff!  It was great to see the store again (they've moved across the street from where I remember them, but little else has changed) and to get good information from a knowledgeable source.