By Jordan S. Carroll
By some reckonings, there are thousands of people in Louisville who spend countless hours of their lives playing games as a hobby. Yet there hasn’t been a store devoted to the entire gaming community in Louisville in eighteen years. That is, until the Louisville Games Shop opened this month.
The Louisville Games Shop caters to nearly all major varieties of noncomputerized gaming. Its inventory includes collectable card games, collectable miniatures, hobbyist or European board games, role-playing games, family-oriented games, and military or strategy games. While a few games from any given category might be sold at another store, the Louisville Games Shop strives to provide them all.
“What you see in the store so far is just the beginning. I want to branch off into more product lines, as many as I can afford,” said Colin Moore, owner.
In addition to the stock the shop already has, Moore is also able to special-order games.
“I have seen him order things that have been ordered in three different locations that no one else could get and he got them in a week,” said Tom Stevens, long-time gaming enthusiast and storyteller for the Vampire/Changeling game GOPPLARPS.
For the more intense hobbyist, the store also provides opportunities to test-play small press and obscure games that are otherwise unavailable in Louisville.
The games are aimed at a college demographic. They can provide a cheap and inexhaustible form of entertainment for students with time to kill.
“[Gamers are usually] people who do a lot of reading and thinking, who are young, who don’t have a lot of money. … Well, gee, I think I’ve just described 80 percent of U of L students,” Stevens said.
“I used to live in Miller Hall at U of L and, man, I loved playing card games in the lounge or whatever. Honestly, if you live at U of L, there’s not a lot to do. I would gladly sell those people some games because I used to live there, too, and I know how it is,” Moore said.
But the Louisville Game Shop doesn’t just aspire to be a retailer.
“My mission statement when I made my business plan is to serve almost as a community center for the gaming community,” Moore said.
In addition to the store, it’s meant to be a place for gamers to meet, post flyers and network. There is a spacious back room for people to play in, including tables with many types of terrain for war games. The room is open to the public at the same hours as the Louisville Game Shop, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
Every Saturday, games and events are featured at the shop. On Jan. 22, for example, a new players’ tournament has been scheduled for the miniature-based strategy game “Warmachine.” Miniatures will be provided.
With any luck, these events will help both Moore’s business and Louisville gamers.
“The community prospers, the individual gaming company prospers, and we have a location to network out of and hopefully provide a place to play for people who don’t have a good meeting space,” Stevens said.
The Louisville Game Shop is located at 925 Baxter Avenue. To ask about gaming inventory or future in-store events, their phone number is (502) 456-2734. For more information go to http://www.thelouisvillegameshop.com.
