Games Workshop Pre-orders

 Here is the link to the list of GW pre-orders releasing march 21. Please let us know by noon CT March 3 if you want any

36th Anniversary

 This past month the store celebrated its 36th year in business and I figured I would take this opportunity to look back at some of the changes I have seen over the past three and a half years:

Credit card processing—Through most of the 1990s, cash was king (still is, but that is another topic). Credit cards were used, not debit cards as those came about much later and the process for using them was a lot lengthier that today’s insert or tap. Credit cards has raised number and names for use with a manual machine, not so fondly referred to as the “knucklebuster”.  Each machine contained a plate with the merchant’s processing information embossed on it. When making a credit card purchase, the sales clerk would fill out a multi-layered carbon, later carbonless, form, summarizing the items purchased and total amount charged, have the customer sign the form, then insert the card into the machine and slide the imprinter back and forth, imprinting the merchant and customer information onto the form. Since the clerk held the machine in place with one hand and slid the imprinter with the other hand, it was possible to strike the knuckles if not careful. Credit card processors would also mail out booklets every so often, containing lists of hundreds of thousands of fraudulent credit card numbers, which the clerk was expected to check before taking the card. The customer would get a copy of the form, the store kept a copy and a collection of copies from the day’s credit card sales got mailed off, usually daily, to the credit card processor. Happily those days ended in the late 1990s when even small stores got access to electronic credit card processing.

Credit Card Use—Along with the change in credit card processing, we saw an increase over the years in the use of credit cards themselves. Through the 1990s, the majority of our sales were in cash and purchases were comparatively small, in the $10 to $30 range On an average day, we would use the knucklebuster 5 to 10 times a day. On a typical day today, 75 to 90% of our sales are made with credit or debit cards with average up to about $25 but a $200 to $500 sale, unheard of until the advent of the trading card game, is not uncommon. Also common today are high school students and younger with their own credit cards or, more often, some form of phone based payment.

Trading Card Games—Prior to Magic, and later Pokémon and Yu Gi Oh, as well as the dozens of other trading card games that sought to capitalize on their popularity (anyone remember Super Deck or Towers in Time?), the game store served a very niche market, primarily young men aged 12 to 25, especially in college or military service. At the time Games Workshop’s business model targeted boys aged 10-12, who the company expected to play for about 4 years, then move onto other interests, like girls. Women did play but they accounted for about 10 to 15% of the customer base. TCG’s, especially Pokemon, vastly expanded the typical game store’s customer base, bringing in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new customers and exposing them to the hundreds of other games available.

Pokemon Day

Join us for Pokemon Day on Feb. 27th . We will have Ascended Heroes booster packs for sale as well as a limited number of Pokemon Day gift Sets and tins.  Limit one of each per purchase.  Ask for a free prize pack and sticker sheet.

 

RIP Jean Rabe

 

I was saddened to learn of the recent death of Jean Rabe (See “RIP Jean Rabe”). She had been in poor health for the past  couple of years with an extended stay in the hospital last year but had recovered enough for the hospital to discharge her to return home to her husband Bruce and her beloved pugs last fall.

I knew Jean initially from her stint coordinating Glathricon, an now defunct gaming convention in Evansville Indiana (See “From RPGA to Award Winning Author”). She worked as a journalist there, her primary focus covering crime in the city while pursuing her avid interest in role playing games. When a position opened up in the RPGA (Role Playing Game Association, the precursor to today’s D&D Adventurer’s League, she applied for and got it, becoming RPGA co-ordinator and editor of the Polyhedron, the house magazine of the RPGA. As part of her duties, she also took over co-ordination of Winter Fantasy, an annual convention focusing on RPGA events located in Milwaukee for most of the 1990s and in Fort Wayne, Indiana since 2009 . Wanting to focus more on her own writing, she left the RPGA in 1994, pursuing a career as a freelance writer and editor, often with TSR but also with FASA, editing the BattleTech magazine MechForce and writing some stories set in the Star Wars Universe for West End Games’ Star Wars Adventure Journal. TSR also tapped her to write the first sequels to the original Dragonlance series, the Dragons of a New Age trilogy as well as another half dozen novels set in the world of Krynn

Rather surprisingly, at least to me, despite her involvement in the RPG industry, she only worked on five modules of which I know:  Child’s Play, Terrible Trouble at Tragidore, Krynnspace, Vale of the Mage and Swamplight. Her preferences leaned more towards writing and editing genre fiction, with three Endless Quest books, a Shadowrun novel, three collaborations with Andre Norton and several other books tied into assorted fantasy role playing settings as well as spending a bit over a decade editing a number of anthologies for DAW. Her peers thought enough of her to elect her Grandmaster of the International Association of Media tie In Writers in 2020 and editor of the SWFA Bulletin, the bimonthly magazine for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In more recent years, her focus had turned to mysteries with the publication of The Love Haight Files, co-written with long-time friend Don Biggle and the Piper Blackwell mysteries, set in a rural Indiana that Rabe knew well from her time in Evansville.

The last few times I ran into Jean were at Chambanacon, a SF relaxacon in Champaign Urbana where she appeared as a panelist talking about her recent works and Quincon, a small gaming convention in Quincy Illinois, which she and Bruce both attended, not as writers but as Pathfinder players. Both avidly played Pathfinder, online and in-person. Her most important job, as she saw it though, was pugmother to her two pugs, Hunny and Missy and her social media feed was filled with pictures of them.

Jean was one of the friendliest people I ever knew and the world is a little darker without her. Thanks for the stories and the friendship, Jean.

Games Workshop New Releases

 Here are the new releases for March 14th 

The Empire of Grand Cathay has made its power known in the Old World, but back on home turf disaster has struck. Only the citizens and warriors of the Northern Provinces can stand against the barbaric horde that threatens the Bastion’s sanctity. You’ll be able to bolster the defence, or expand your existing Grand Cathay army, with the Defenders of the Great Bastion Army Reinforcement set, which will be the first place you can get these 53 new miniatures. Profiles for all of the above units will be present in Arcane Journal: The Breaching of the Great Bastion, an upcoming 48-page supplement that focuses on the defence of Grand Cathay by the commonfolk of the Northern Provinces. Click here for more

The hulking shock troops of the Mechanicum Myrmidon Destructor Host make their way to the age of darkness in plastic with multiple modelling options and strong in-game performance this versatile and highly anticipated release will be in demand amongst your Horus Heresy community. Also available this week are the Skitarii Battle Pilgryms, Marshal and Vultarax, available separately for the first time since their recent launch in the Skitarii Battle Group.

Pokemon Day

 Pokemon Day is Feb. 27 and marks the day the Pokemon video game first released back in the 1990s. We will celebrate this year by giving away Pokemon Prize packs and sticker sheets on the 27th to anyone that comes in and asks for one.  We will also hold a drawing for a Mega Evolution Gift Set. You will get one ticket for the drawing by coming in and asking for it, one for wearing a Castle Perilous shirt, Pokemon attire or a costume, one with your Preferred Customer card and 1 for each 2 stamps earned on a Castle CArd.

Cryer from the Castle 2/17

 Cryer from the Castle for the Week of Feb 17

https://youtu.be/i9OEN0I2aEk