September is turning into Game Store Month

September of 2013 may be the best thing in gaming for lower Vancouver island residents or it could be the worst thing. Let me first give a breakdown of all the game stores in the lower Vancouver Island area.

Victoria

Interactivity Games and Stuff has been in business for well over ten years (fifteen I think) and is moving into their new location at 723 Yates street. They will also be changing their name to Interactivity Board Game Cafe. He specializes in board games and heavily dabbles in slot cars and quality puzzles. They will be able to rent out games to play in the very large area in the new store and sell food and coffee items.

Curious Comics has been in the business for about twenty years and has sold moderate amounts of board games and role playing games and has dabbled in miniature games. This will all change in early September when they open up a game store on store street around the corner from their 631 Johnson location. They plan on selling board, card and role playing games as well as miniature games and have a playing area.
 
Yellowjacket at 649 Johnson has been in buisiness for also about twenty years starting as Xenon way back when. They are a very strong collectable card store, specializing in Magic the Gathering and sells some boardgames and a very small amount of Privateer Press and role playing games. They have a playing area for cards and the occasional Warmahordes.

Skyhaven at 3458 Tillicum has been in business for around ten years and specialize in board games, collectable card games and role playing games. They have a large playing area.

Games Workshop at 625 Johnson sells Games Workshop products and has been here for over ten years.

Duncan

Dice Bag Games (facebook page here) has been in business for four years and sells miniature games (GW, Privateer Press, Infinity, Malifaux), role playing games and boardgames as well as Magic the Gathering. They have several playing areas in the back room as well as playing tables in the main store. They sell snacks too.

Real Player Games is a store that will open August 31st at 60 Queens rd and will sell GW, Privateer Press, LARP and airsoft items, board games, role playing games, and Magic the Gathering. They will also have some space for miniature consignment. They have some tables but plan on getting lots morespace in the same building for more tables.

So as a synopsis there are going to be six stores selling board games, four selling miniature games, five selling role playing games, and five selling Magic the Gathering. Is this too many stores for Victoria? Will each store have their own clients that only frequent them? Can they all survive?

I am especially concerned for the miniature game stores as two are opening up soon which triples the existing stores selling Privateer Press.