Monday, January 15, 2007
SpartaCon 2007
Miniatures Games
On Saturday, I traveled to Lansing, Michgian to attend SpartaCon, one of four big conventions held every year in Michigan. I look forward to the convention every year, and have missed on one in the last decade.
One of the things that strikes me about SpartaCon is the high quality of the terrain and minaitures that Michigan gamers offer. All of the games looked as good as, if not better, than anything I’ve seen at Historicon, and a few were among the best I’ve ever seen—even in pictures. You can see photos of the event in the gallery.).
Attendance seemed to be a bit off from previous years—although I don’t have any idea what the official results were. Part of that could be just my impression, though, since the event was held in a larger room than last I was there.
There were ten to twelve games held in each of three sessions, and all of those games were full. In the first two sessions, there was plenty of World War II, plus two Samurai games, a Viking skirmish, Cog Wars, Plains War (mine), Crimean War, Wayne’s Legion, Medieval naval Cog Wars, Warhammer Ancients (Romans), Bob Beattie’s Back of Beyond Game, Tod Kershner’s (He of Pig Wars and Warfare in the Age of Reason fame) 100 Years War, American Revolution, French and Indian war, modern micro armor, a DBA Tournament and several that I apologize for forgetting. I didn’t stick around for the third session. Visually, the most outstanding games were a Samurai skirmish, an amazing Flames of War Stalingrad game and a French and Indian war game.
The convention had four dealers, and some large table space for flea market activities (that’s a bring-and-buy for our friends over the pond). I was able to unload a couple of boxes of books and magazines.
One of hot topics of conversation was the death of the hobby store in Michigan—at least as far as miniatures gamers are concerned. The recent closure of Hobby Hub in Lansing has left that city without even a general hobby store; since the Alcove in Royal Oak cloased ten years ago, there hasn’t been a good miniatures store in metro Detroit. A lot of reasons were bandied about: bad management (there were a couple of well-known cases of that), bad service that drove customers away (there are a couple of known cases there, too), bad business climate in Michigan, young people drawn to video games, the graying of the hobby, the well-known cheapness of historical gamers and the internet.
In the end, there were no real answers.
Still, it’s a sad situation. Conventions like SpartaCon, and Pro-or-Con in the Detroit area show what a vibrant hobby miniature wargaming is.
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Sounds like a good time! I am bummed that I missed it. The fates have conspired to have me miss Spartancon 3 out of the last 4 years! This year a family event kept me away. :(
The demise of the hobby store is truly sad. All we have left in the Lansing area is a comics/warhammer/clicky games store. I had not heard about Hobby Hub, although they got out of gaming for many years ago & focused on toys & RC. Just shortly before the demise of Riders they got back into gaming. Even then all they had was one singled sided unit about 6 feet long & that was mostly focused on card & clicky games. You make a good point about the internet. There is no doubt that Ebay has to have made a huge dent in the hobby business. I am just as guilty as anyone. Even when we had hobby shops here, whenever I needed minis I hit the net or bought them at conventions. As a gamer on a pretty thin budget, the bottom line matters a lot to me. Buy hitting the net or a con I could usually knock 20% or more off of local hobby store prices. The only thing I usually bought locally was painting supplies (& items from Riders bargain bins.) I do miss Riders. They used to be a pretty good store, but they just kept cutting back on the gaming stuff to add more trains & RC. What game stuff they did carry, the basics (Troops etc) was usually out of stock. The management just did not want to spend money on ordering gaming stuff. The only thing considered viable was collectible card games. In doing so they managed to alienate most of the local gamers, which only sped up thier demise.
Posted by on 01/18 at 11:56 AM | #
I miss dealing at the con’s that I grew up in. I am one of the original family that owned the Alcove.
Many reasons lead to the sale of that store and much consideration.
The demise of the local game store has much to do with as you say the internet sales and undercutting of base profits. We tried to cut the best deals possible for any and all customers. Most people live on a budget, if as a store owner you don’t look at that and appreciate your customers for spending what they can when they can, it’s like shooting yourself in the foot.
At the point that Riders was cutting back their stocking, was probably close to the same time that the distribution channels in the game industry collapsed.
Thanks to all that shopped with us for so many years.
Posted by on 04/06 at 06:20 PM | #