Something Wonderful!

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost five years since I bought the Game Zone and transformed it into Game Empire. On September 15, 2006, I took possession of Game Zone and my life changed completely – and became totally amazing. This coming September 15 will mark the fifth anniversary of that purchase.

Game Empire’s Drive-Thru Window (?!)

Standing in there was described as being in a 'glass shower'

Ok, I admit it, owning a successful game store is a LOT of fun. One of the most fun aspects is watching the wild and crazy things that happen in our store – especially in Los Angeles . Here is the story of one of those amazing days.

It was approaching 6:00 pm on Thursday, November 4, 2010. I was about to leave for the day. It had been a long day of preparing Christmas orders as well as handling all of the normal everyday management issues one sees in any retail business. Sales were strong thanks to the release that day of the long-awaited new Dark Eldar Codex for Warhammer 40K. To top it all off, Travis was leaving that night for Las Vegas to get married to Misty. While I was very happy for Travis, I was doomed to receiving a large shipment on Friday without his awesome help. Oh well, weddings trump work, so I was ready for a long Friday.

Little did I know that this was the least of my problems.

Digital Versus Analog Gamers, and How to Tell Which Type You Are

So one day a woman came into my shop and told me she was interested in strategy games. I thought “Strategy games, great, my favorite kind of game.” This was going to be easy. I asked her if she wanted me to show her any miniatures games like Warhammer 40K, Warmachine or Anima Tactics. She gave me a funny look and said no, she wanted to see strategy board games. Ok, so I started showing her some of the military and political games like Memoir ‘44 and Twilight Struggle. Again she got this annoyed look on her face, and then she said “No, not that kind of game. I want to play a strategy game like Puerto Rico.”

What is a Eurogame?

Almost every day we have people come into Game Empire who’ve never seen the kinds of games we sell. We carry a lot of exotic games that are nearly impossible to find anywhere else.  One of the most popular genres we sell are Eurogames. What is a Eurogame? Glad you asked.

Welcome to the Insightful Gamer

Hello, my name is Chuck and I own Game Empire in Pasadena, California. Welcome to my blog about games and gamers. I have been gaming since the early 1970′s, and in the 40 years since I played my first real game (I’ll explain more about that later) I went to high school, graduated from UCLA, went to law school, got married, had kids, practiced law for 20 years and did all of the things you might expect of a husband/dad/lawyer. But, throughout all that time I was a gamer, and I always enjoyed visiting game shops and hanging out with other gamers.  After a hard day at court nothing cleared my mind better than a good evening gaming.