FLGS Shenanigans

I like supporting my Friendly Local Game Store, I really do. The owner is a decent guy who doesn't always get the respect he deserves in the local gaming community, but sometimes the dude drives me nuts. Special ordering stuff from him is a pain in the patoot. Maybe I'm just a bitchier than average customer but I believe that a good FLGS ought to go out of the way to make special orders happen. Otherwise, I'll just get my stuff from online vendors or direct from the publisher. I can't see why an FLGS owner would want to encourage me to do that, but that seems to be what happens with this guy.

That's an old complaint of mine and I don't let it get on my nerves. If I can get something off the FLGS shelves I will. If I can't find it there, I get it online. No big whup. Now there's a new wrinkle. The FLGS offers a store bonus program. Spend so much money there ($200? I don't even know.) and you score a store credit worth ten bucks. Nice program. It really helps offset the fact that sometimes his full retail prices exceed the cost of obtaining games online. I don't think about this program much, but last time I was in the store the owner mentioned something about being at or near the cut-off for a new $10 bonus. I wasn't really paying too much attention to what he said. I was too busy trying to find the Pocky display that was hidden under the Elvis action figure.

My friend John has talked about running Mutants & Masterminds and my daughter's birthday is coming up. I'm sure Elizabeth would dig having a set of her own dice that she could roll when she injects herself into one of daddy's games. So anyway, I have a couple possible purchases on the horizon that I would like to make at the FLGS. M&M I could easily get online, maybe at a discount on the eBay. I also know that my local independant bookstores has a copy, but normally if I have to choose I would prefer to give the FLGS my money. Curious as to exactly what he said last time I was in, I sent the owner an e-mail asking for a clarification. That was Tuesday.

Today I get an e-mail from the guy with a "MUST READ" flag in the title, in which he announces to his mailing list of regular customers that his sales/inventory machine has crashed and all store bonus credit has evaporated with it. Normally, that would not be a big issue for me. Easy come, easy go. After all, he didn't have to offer the bonus program to begin with. What's pissing me off is that he still hasn't responded to my email from three days ago. And if I did have store credit, I had fully planned to go in on Wednesday or Thursday and bought some stuff. Why no response to my email? Is an inquiry from a regular customer not worthy of a response? I've known this guy for maybe a decade and he doesn't strike me as that kind of jerk.

Still, I'm not happy with this turn of events. The RPG.net Store offers typical online discount prices, sells many of the oddball products I like, doesn't cause me these kind of headaches, and the proceeds help support my favorite gaming website. Why shouldn't I use them in preference to my FLGS? How much do I value the ability to flip through the game prior to purchase, especially when I have to cram my fat ass into a tiny overcrowded store in order to do so? Has the local guy given me any good reasons to remain loyal? I can't think of any right at this moment. I'm trying not to be hasty here. I'm not rushing to buy the stuff from another source. But I'm not exactly making it a point to get back to the local store either.