Welcome to the Manaverse Podcast
The Manaverse Podcast is where we explore what it takes to build a successful friendly local game store! Since 2015, I’ve been interviewing a wide variety of game store owners and industry professionals doing some really interesting things in the world of trading cards, minis, games, and more.
If you want to learn how some of the best game retailers in North America have built their businesses and local communities up from the ground floor, you’ve come to the right place!
MVP119: Gnome Games and The Gnoshery, Tales From the Head Gnome Pat Fuge
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...
MVP118: Rob Gruber The Elf King on Good Times Games
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...
MVP117: Digital Accessibility Lawsuits Are Here, What You Can Do To Protect Your Game Store
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. Digital accessibility...
MVP116: Magic 30th Anniversary Beta Packs, Game Cafes vs Game Stores, The Future of the Industry
New round table episode! Wizard's new $999 Beta booster pack product, The future of the friendly local game store, Are game cafes the natural evolution of the FLGS? What separates good retail from bad, And more. Matthew Vercant and Pat Fuge join me to discuss the...
MVP115: Running a Hands Off Game Store with Jason Garvin from Total Escape Games
Today we're talking with Jason Garvin. Jason is the manager of Total Escape Games, a premium retailer of tabletop games, carrying a vast array of role-playing games, card games, miniatures games, board games, and more in Broomfield Colorado. Jason is going to give us...
MVP114: Is the FLGS Business Model Dead?
Hey, welcome back to the Manaverse Podcast! I'm your host Tom Traplin and this is the podcast where we explore what it takes to build a successful friendly local game store. Before we jump into things, Q4 is coming and I'm looking for more game store owners to feature...
MVP113: The Secrets of Unplugged Gaming’s $14K Grand Opening Day
Jake Tanner is the owner Unplugged Gaming in Manlius New York. Jake came into the tabletop gaming business from a different angle than most of the game store owners that have been featured on the podcast. Before launching Unplugged Gaming, Jake, along with his...
MVP112: How to Generate Free Traffic From Google That Turns Into Customers and Sales For Your Game Store
For most game store owners, SEO is techno jargon. Something that only the biggest ecommerce businesses need to think about. I've also heard variations of the sentiment that it’s impossible to compete with the big players like BGG and Amazon in the search engines....
MVP111: BGE Tabletop and Dustin Staats on Launching a Game Store in 2022
The Future of BGE Tabletop Dustin is the owner and founder of Board Gaming with Education and BGE Tabletop. He has experience teaching English as a second language to a variety of age levels – from kindergarten to university. He also works in the field of education in...
MVP110: The Three Biggest Lessons of 2021 and a Look at 2022
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a great time celebrating the arrival of 2022. One of the things I like to do at the beginning of the year is to look back a bit and see what happened over the past 12 months and establish a bit of a theme for the coming year. So...