RIP Playin' Games

[major_clanger]

On the way back from an errand in the Tottenham Court Road area I took a slight detour to pop into two of my favourite shops in the area - Gosh Comics and the Playin' Games boardgame and RPG shop. The former is still doing fine (and I picked up a couple of new Mike Mignola collections - BPRD #12 and Witchfinder.) But round the corner to Museum Street and Playin' Games was signless, empty and bare. Looking online I've found a comment on a gaming site that it has indeed closed, which is a deep shame as it was one of the best gaming shops in London or indeed this end of the country - it was second IMHO only to The Games Shop in Aldershot*.

Presumably it fell to the combined onslaught of online retailers, Games Workshop and their monoculture shops ("There is no other games system than Warhammer, to suggest others is HERESY!") and, quite probably, Forbidden Planet's growing Games section. FP can't compete on range, but they can compete in terms of sucking in customers, and that's probably what counts.

(*Probably the only time I ever have or ever will recommend Aldershot or something in it.)

Comments

[multiclassgeek.livejournal.com]

PG had been going through some... interesting times.

I worked there, briefly, and while the Store Manager was genuinely enthusiastic (if a little short on actual management skills), the Overall Owner really didn't "get" gaming at all, and was kind of a douchebag. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if OO decided to give it up, and focus on his other shops.

Orc's Nest is well-named, because most of the staff are about as friendly as the aforementioned green-skinned humanoids. Leisure Games, OTOH, is a good shop, with knowledgeable staff, and there's a board-gamey shop near Warren Street (which might be the chess shop ffutures is mentioning)