The Manaverse Podcast

This is Part 2 of my interview with Joshua Pyle-Carter from The Deck Box where we focus on personalized client service as a key factor in his success. Understanding individual customer preferences, especially in complex games like Magic: The Gathering, is crucial and so is guiding customers based on their interests and experience levels, rather than pushing sales. He discusses the benefits of carr...

This is part 1 of a 4 part interview I did with Josh Pyle-Carter. He’s the owner of The Deck Box, a massively successful and tremendously cool tabletop game store in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In this part of our interview, Josh tells the story of starting his first game store in PEI on a shoestring budget and how being profitable from day 1 was basically his and his partner Rachel’s only option. We ta...

This episode of the Manaverse Podcast features Eric Dieulangard, the CMO of Equinox. Today we're discussing "Altered," a new trading card game scheduled for release in the summer of 2024, and diving into how the game's innovations fit into the business model of your friendly local game store. Eric elaborates on Altered's unique features, including its integration of digital elements with tradition...

Welcome to another episode of the Manaverse podcast! I’m your host, Tom Traplin, and today, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Tyler Brotton, an ambitious entrepreneur charting a unique path in the gaming industry. From starting as an online card trader during the COVID-19 pandemic to his current venture of setting up a brick-and-mortar game store, Tyler shares the ups and downs of his journe...

The launch of Lorcana has been a roller coaster for game stores. The absurdly high demand combined with a very limited supply of product has created a perfect storm for game store owners looking to sell, as well as consumers and collectors looking to buy. Online communities of players/speculators have accused game store owners of scalping and gouging if anything is priced above MSRP, with game sto...

Alan Blakeborough, Founder and CEO of 2ndHandGeek.com, talks about the new online marketplace that supports friendly local game stores. Alan and his team are creating a new competitor to the $9 billion marketplace of eBay, where the fees are competitive and 1% of each transaction gets paid back to the friendly local game store associated with a user's account. We also talk about what he learned al...

Frank Rossi and Jordan Shankman are the featured guests for today's episode of the podcast. Frank and Jordan are the owners of Petrichor Productions in the Greater Atlanta area and they specialize in video production and helping businesses bring their brand story to vibrant life. The Petrichor team recently worked with Jason Mastowski, the owner of Peach State Games in Woodstock, GA, to create a v...

Commander players are the ultimate casual Magic player for game stores. Having a thriving and vibrant Commander community is a huge asset since Commander players often spend the most money on the hobby and buy all sorts of cards that conventional Standard or Modern players wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, and are happy paying for them! The more Commander players you can create and attract the...

Robyn Lowy, the owner of Mindtaker Miniatures in Vancouver, Washington, talks about how she built a truly unique take on the friendly local game store. Find out how Robyn started by buying and selling miniatures online and expanded the business into a fully fledged miniature powerhouse. If you've ever thought about carrying miniature games in your store the business model (pun intended) that Robyn...

Brendan Carrion, email marketer/game designer/podcaster with Athoria Games in Arizona, is on the podcast to talk about the nuts and bolts of marketing a game store and getting new customers, what makes Athoria Games tick, and discuss the state of the gaming industry as a whole. Good times. Don't forget to connect with Brendan here. Links Mentioned https://www.athoriagames.com/ https://www.thecarri...

We've got Jamison Sacks on the podcast today. Jamison is the owner of Common Ground Games in Dallas. Founded in 2013 by Jamison Sacks & DR Hanson, Common Ground Games brings a premiere retail and gaming space for all of D/FW to enjoy and has well over a thousand five star reviews on Facebook and Google. Links Mentioned https://www.boardgamesdallas.com/ https://www.facebook.com/commongroundgame...

We've got Michael McKinney on the podcast today. Michael is the logistics manager of 95 MTG and 95 Game Center in Wilmington and we dig into some really interesting aspects of the way 95 Game Center runs and how it built up the singles side of the business. We talk about the differences between the pay-to-play model versus a free game space, how 95 MTG grew into a Magic singles powerhouse with the...

Daniel Vander Kooy comes onto the Manaverse Podcast and talks about the OGL, whether Wizards of the Coast is killing the golden goose, what's happening in the hobby industry, and how game store owners can prepare. Get a customized digital marketing strategy for your game store by booking a free 45 minute strategy session with us. We will do a deep dive on the six main areas of digital marketing fo...

Erik Bigglestone makes his return debut on the Manaverse Podcast to share his experience dealing with an ADA lawsuit last year and talk about ways for game stores to protect their businesses from predatory actors. We discuss how Games of Berkeley was targeted last year for an Accessibility claim out of New York, the pattern of certain plaintiffs and lawyers in serving businesses in the local game...

Hypothesis: Customer Lifetime Value highly correlates to a high number of positive interactions within the first 100 days, and the likelihood of those interactions is highly correlated to to the quality of the experience in the first 100 seconds. Your game store may not be selling gym memberships, but games and hobbies are still part of your customer's lifestyles so that puts your store in a simil...

We've got Adam Scholtz on the podcast. Adam is the owner of Cosmic Games in Bellingham. Cosmic Games is Bellingham's premier source for Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon Trading Card Game, Video Games and more. Links Mentioned for Cosmic Games https://www.cosmicbham.com/ https://www.facebook.com/cosmicbham https://www.instagram.com/cosmicgamesbham/ https://discord.gg/3aAVJj6tWn Friendly Local Game Sto...

We've got Maryam Al-Hammami on the podcast. Maryam is the co-owner of The Game Chest, a four location local game store business in California. Maryam and I discuss what it takes for a game store to grow into a multi-location business, how making the in-store experience welcoming and diversifying your inventory can change everything, why hiring a great team is crucial to long term success, the meri...

We've got David Finn on the podcast. David is the owner of Giga-Bites Cafe in Marietta, near Atlanta. Giga-Bites Café was founded by David Finn 14 years ago and is the host for a gaming community of thousands, and is Atlanta's best stocked tabletop retail space. David is also the owner of Bridge Distribution specializing in a huge variety of hobby products. Links Mentioned https://giga-bitescafe.c...

We've got Christopher Wood and Deon on the podcast today. Chris is the owner of Modern Table Top Gaming, a WPN Premium store in South Chesterfield, Virginia. MTTG is a fantastically executed game store with an epic sign out front and we dig into what makes the store tick and how they earned the WPN Premium status. https://moderntabletoprva.com/ Check out other episodes of the Manaverse Podcast htt...

We've got Whitman Bottiger, the owner of Critical Hit Games on the the podcast today. Critical Hit Games is a WPN Premium game store in Abingdon, Maryland carrying the classic selection of TCG's, miniatures, RPGs, and board games with a special focus on custom TCG formats. Game stores can be an intimidating environment for customers who've never been to one before, so we discuss how to make y...

I've got D from Versus Games in San Francisco with me on today and one of the most consistent threads in our conversation on what makes Versus Games successful is marketing. We kept coming back to how much D's marketing background shaped the business from the start and how important it is for game stores to have their marketing locked down if they want to grow in the future. As you can probably gu...

We're going across the pond to talk to Patrick ten Hoorn, the owner of Spellenhuis in the Netherlands! Patrick talks about his journey of taking his dream to open a stylish game cafe and turning it into a reality, navigating the choppy waters of the hobby industry, and how he grew the business into multiple locations. Links https://www.spellenhuis.nl/ https://www.facebook.com/Spellenhuis https://t...

Today we're talking with Pat Fuge. Pat is the Head Gnome of Gnome Games, Wisconsin’s Family Game store, with locations across the Fox Valley for customers to shop and play in. Pat talks about the early days of Gnome Games and how his approach to planning has helped expand to multiple locations and even venture into the world of gaming cafes. Links https://gnomegames.com/ https://www.facebook.com/G...

Today we're talking with Rob Gruber, aka The Elf King. Rob is the owner of Good Times Games in Prince Rupert, British Columbia and he's built an incredible business by becoming somewhat of a local celebrity and personality. Rob plays the game store game a little bit differently and today we're going to talk about his approach to working within a small community and what sets his business apart. Li...

Here's what we know If you've been active in the game store owner groups on Facebook you've probably seen the posts recently about game stores and publishers being targeted by a law firm in New York and being sued for lack of ADA compliance. So far they've sued Crafty Games of Washington, Games of Berkeley in California, Black Rowan Games in Tracy, California, GMT Games in Hanford, California, Gam...