On Board Games!

[OBG!]

Greetings fellow DeKalb Gamers!

John Clemens and I, Seth McClure, are finally seeing our grandiose dream of owning a game store come to reality. Our goal is to open the doors of On Board Games at the end of August or beginning of September.

Our location is 811 W. Lincoln Hwy, Dekalb. The store is located in the University Center, next to Varsity Subs and Hair Cuttery. Also, nearby is McDonalds on Lincoln Hwy.

Currently the store is being renovated by the store owner to meet our requirements. The dry walling has been completed, and they are just starting to carpet. Hopefully all the work will be done by mid-August so that John and I will have ample time to get inside and set up the gaming tables and merchandise. So far they have been right on schedule and it looks great.

We're looking forward to what can hopefully be a great partnership between On Board Games and the NIU Minitiatures Gaming Club. We spoke to several of your members at Games Day including your club president (I believe). There was some interest in the club meeting at our store, and we do plan to have 1200 square feet dedicated just to supplying a gaming area. Included in that gaming space will be at least 6 tables fit for miniature gaming.

This store won't be successful though without knowing what are customers are looking for. So any feedback in what products you are all intersted in would be of great help. I know that we got some ideas speaking to members at Games Day, but the more feedback the better.

If your club or any of its' members are interested in making a few extra dollars, John and I are interested in purchasing terrain pieces for our store to keep available. If anyone has some pieces they would be interested in selling please let us know via email.

Have a Great end of the Summer, and hopefully we will be seeing a lot of each other in the coming school year. I'll keep checking in on this thread for feedback, but an even faster way to get a hold of us would be email or our store phone number.

On Board Games:

Seth McClure
John Clemens

Email: [e-mail]
Phone: [phone]


On Board Games
811 W. Lincoln Hwy
DeKalb, IL 60115
815-713-4871

[Andrew]

I was busy packing up to make sure nothing would get lost and didn't get the chance to talk to you. Drat!

If it is at all possible, will the opportunity be available to potentially work at the store? Because I would greatly enjoy that as a second money-making option, heh. I am not lacking the experience for it...

I am interested in buying things from these systems/companies:
Ral Partha
GW
Historicals
Warmachine
dice (is it so hard to find clear blue? bah!)

In the interests of non-gamers I think:
puzzles
card games (magic, etc)
simple starter games (like the new d&d , star wars)
chess things

The stores that have everything are happy to find, but hard to come by. But best of luck to you, and we'll definitely be in and around!

[heatseeker]

I'd have to second that notion of working for the store as I am without a job during the school year. That is, if at all possible.

[tanek]

Thanks for the replies so far via email and via this message board.

Seahawk: We are planning to carry everything on your lists there, and will make it a special point to carry "clear blue dice". The only exception might be the Ral Partha line, is there something particular you are intersted in? The problem is that ordering this product is a risk for us if it ends up going unsold (since it's not the most popular miniature game in the world).

To address the question about employees: Right now John and I have absolutely no clue how the store is going to do in terms of sales. There is nothing else like our store in DeKalb, and until we get an idea of whether or not our rough predictions in sales are accurate we're not going to be hiring employees. If things go well for the first few months we will reevaluate the situation, and of course gamers looking for employment will be first in line.

Thanks again, keep the comments/suggestions coming.

[Andrew]

These (third one down) dicepool.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=28_30 are what I'm looking for. If you can manage to have at least two of the 12mm boxes, those will be my first purchase from you, haha. I guess the only thing about Ral Partha is eventually I find one to my liking and buy it to paint it. So a better option might be instead of having a stock, to be able to order such things?

Oh, new ideas:
-have a building/painting area, where people can come in to work on stuff if they wish. If not that, then please order me a large paint organizer from www.vaticanenterprises.com. I can't buy one because I don't own a business. However, you nice chaps do...
-maybe do some sort of promotional every month, or other month, to get more potential customers in the store. Something like on a Saturday, raffling off a model, or puzzle, or chess set, something. So long as it doesn't hurt economically. Obviously we all will be iinterested as is, and telling other gamers about it, so it needn't be directed at us. Every once in a while is always nice though!
-I am a fan of markers like these, especially since I forget a lot during games www.thewarstore.com/warhammermarkerstokens.html
Weapon destroyed isn't hard to remember, but I usually forget shaken, stunned, and immobilized.

[vicmohammad]

I think we chatted before about gaming stores in DeKalb. As a townie who has gamed all throughout in DeKalb for the last 15 years or so I can say with some authority that the best gaming stores do very well here because they carry things that otherwise we would have to drive out to Geneva or Rockford to get. My best advice to you is to carry a little bit of everything to start (Card games, RPGs, minis etc etc) and then see what people suggest to you.

Let's be honest, with few exceptions, the price of gaming supplies is pretty universal. There really isn't much of a difference for picking up a booster of Magic from one place to another except for location (which you will already excel at) and the atmosphere for the store.

I'd also suggest that you don't go whole hog for any one game. I mean, don't devote the entire store to mini gaming and ignore those people who just want tables for CCGs for whatever.

I think you'll be extremely successful. At least I can guarantee all mine, my girlfriends' and my friend's business.

[tanek]

Great News!

John and I officially signed our lease for the location last week, so there's no turning back now.

We will be at GenCon all 4 days this upcoming week so if any of you are going to make it and want to do lunch or just hang out let me know. I'm not really sure what we're going to do for 4 days yet seeing as we didn't sign up for any events, but we'll find something.

Right now our plan is to have 4-6 gaming tables for miniatures and two large tables for people that want to play board games, CCGs, chess, roleplaying...whatever. Once the carpeting is complete and we can get in there we'll have a much better idea.

We aren't currently putting in a paint area, but we're going to have a rather large basement so maybe down the line we can work something out. When we open up Seahawk please come in and talk to us about the paint organizer and we'll get something worked out for you for sure.

Thanks NIMGCers

Seth

[bloodangellh]

This is the only suggestion I can come up with for now. The owner of the local gamestore in my hometown is a complete ass to customers that are not his personal friends. Completely turned me off to the place very quickly. You guys sound like nice people who are gamer savy, so I'm sure you wont make the same mistake.

Best wishes for your success.

P.S. Will you guys carry Palladium books products? Mainly Rifts?

[tanek]

Yeah we are stocking a few different Rifts books...basically we don't know what's gonna sell yet so we're trying to stock a little bit of a lot of things. once we know what the DeKalb community want we will order more of that. If there's ever something you're looking for that we don't carry please ask, chances are we can get it for you.

[ddaypunk06]

We will prolly hang out at your shop a lot seeing that we all play a diverse number of games lol. I myself play 40k, and various RPG's. My buddy who is joining NIMGC plays hero clix and what not...he wants to talk to you about that actually. So you might hear from him soon.

[siriq]

i was in there today and there was tons of stuff there that awsome. lots of miniature gaming stuff like warmachines and that one ww2 game that adam plays.

[tanek]

Welcome Back NIU Students!

Great news for our store:

Our official opening date is going to be September 11th. We will be having a ribbon cutting ceremony at 5:15 pm at the store, you're all welcome to come if you wish. There should be some memebrs of the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce and probably even the Mayor of DeKalb!

The store itself still has a lot of coming around to do, but I think we're pretty much on schedule for our opening. once we are open the tables are available to any gamers that wish to use them during store hours. Hopefully we'll be seeing a lot of each other during the school year!

If there is anything specific that anyone wishes to order please contact us. We're pretty much going to be in the store all day every day until our opening (and even then on) so feel free to stop in. We really want to help broaden the gaming community at NIU and DeKalb, so feel free to utilize our abilites to get specific pieces to complete an army, or let us know if you want to try out a certain game that we don't have in stock. If you don't have time or don't want to stop in by all means give us a call and let us know.

Hopefully see you soon!

Seth McClure
John Clemens

On Board Games
811 W. Lincoln Hwy
DeKalb, IL 60115

phone #: [phone]

[ddaypunk06]

Cool Cool, I live right down the street from you guys in Old Orchard, maybe I will stop by today sometime :-D.

[dragonbait]

I'm an envoy for Wizkids, and I'm trying to look for a place to set up as a venue so I can run supported events. All I'd have to do would be sign you guys up on the site as a venue, then have you claim me as a primary envoy. If I can scrounge up enough players, I can get free prize support monthly. I am able to run Heroclix, and Mechwarrior, if anyone is interested/has heard of them. Thanks, take care!

[Andrew]

Well I happily bought the blue dice I sought today. Go OBG!

This is the paint tower I'm looking for:
www.paintier.com/Paintier80.html

[vicmohammad]

Could you guys post your hours?

[RARE CHOICE GAMES]

I believe I heard them say 9-9...not positive but I think.

[siriq]

store rocks hope things go well

[heatseeker]

i think they did post their hours on another thread and it it 9-9 everyday.

[vicmohammad]

will be buy to blow some money this weekend!