We’re very excited to announce another fun feature for BoardGaming.com … Local Game Store pages!
One of our goals has been to figure out a way to support Local Games Stores. After all, going to your Local Game Store (LGS) is a great way to discover new games to play. Not only that, but supporting your LGS helps support the board gaming industry as a whole.
If you’ve been with us from the beginning, you have seen boardgaming.com evolve. Our LGS pages are a big stage in that evolution. How this feature continues to evolve will depend a lot on you, your feedback, and how much you end up liking and using the LGS pages.
So… let’s get started!
1. Use our new Store Locator page to find your LGS.
You probably spotted the new “Stores” tab in the main nav. For now, this will take you to the store locator page.
Right off, you will notice that your store is probably not listed. But, there is a link to add a store on that page. While we are in the early testing phase, we’re only going to allow users who are Gamer Level 6+ to add stores. Later, we would like to open that up to all users.
Update 3/17/14 – Gamer Level requirement to add games is now 4+
2. Mark a store as your favorite.
For now you can mark up to two stores as your favorite. These stores will be included as quick links in the sidebar. Plus, there may be future quests related to being loyal to your favorite LGS.
3. Use the comments on the LGS page for … whatever makes sense.
Maybe you’d like to share what you like about the store. Maybe there’s an event coming up that you’d like to let the community know about. Maybe you just played an epic game at the store and want to share the highlights!
Like game tips and discussion pages, we may create categories for different types of comments.
4. Follow a store.
Following a store will allow you to get notifications when users add comments. We’re considering setting up email notifications for LGS pages as well.
New Local Game Store Quests!
You can also find these quests on the Reporter Quests page.
Choose Your Favorites
Find your favorite local store on our Store Locator page (or add it if it’s not there) and select it as your favorite.
Follow a Local Store
On a local store’s page click “follow” to start following that store and you’ll receive notifications when new comments are posted.
Comment on the community board
Add a comment on your favorite local game store page to tell people what you like about your LGS.
Feedback
Please share your feedback in the comments below.
- What do you like about this feature?
- What would make this feature even better?
- What quests would you like to see related to local game stores?
- Did you find any errors or bugs?
FAQs
We’ll update this area as the questions and comments roll in.
Q.1. How do we update the Store Logo?
Logos are usually protected by intellectual property rights, so we will need to work directly with the store owners to be able to use their logos. We’re hoping that we’ll be able to create store badges using logos, similar to what we’ve been doing with game art in cooperation with game publishers.
Q.2. What about photos of the Store?
That is another thing we would like to add, in cooperation with the store owners.
Q.3. A calendar of events would be cool
Yes, indeed it would. Something to consider for the future.
Q.4. Does hearting a store do anything right now?
Besides showing your love for your store, not yet. We would like to work this into future store quests, though.
Q.5. What types of store quests do you have in mind?
In 2012, we tested a system at Gen Con for giving people online rewards for demoing games at booths and playing in tournaments. It worked there, but the logistics of doing something similar with stores around the country (world?) is something we’ll just have to experiment with. We’re hoping to create a system where going to a store, demoing a game at a store, playing a game at a store, and of course buying a game at a store, could result in boardgaming.com rewards and quest achievements.
Q.6. Regarding the Store Finder …
Quite a few suggestions have revolved around searching by state and/or country, displaying multiple stores on the map, etc. We hear you, and will try to work these suggestions into future updates.
Q.7. Will we be rewarded for recruiting a store to get involved?
We’ve thought a lot about that, and we would love to be able to do that, but besides getting a store owner/manager to use your invite URL, we don’t have anything set up yet. You are more than welcome to offer ideas on this topic.
I’m excited about this, just gotta make level 6 so I can add my favorite LGS!
@Jeff, The rewards would have been added if the quest was marked as completed (I just tested that), but the box showing that it was completed didn’t pop up. I’ve fixed that part now as well.
Love the new Stores page! Even though I don’t go there very often due to distance, I appreciate the ability to show my FLGS some love and the potential it provides to find others in the same area.
I’d love to see a similar feature added for local cons, which would also help the gaming community connect and discover great events that aren’t run by local stores.
FYI, The “STORES” tab displayed as “AWARDS” at first, but after clearing browser data as suggested in another comment, the issue corrected itself.
Thanks for all of the hard work in making this a better site!
Close — it marked the quest as completed but none of the XP/Gold rewards were added.
I think I just fixed the LGS Comment quest. You should be able to delete your previous comment and then try adding it again.
Regarding the idea of printing out a “profile card” to share with other people … I updated the user profile pages with a little CSS magic to format specifically for printing. It removes the Gold stat and a few other things and also adds your invite URL. So, now you can print out the first page of your user profile, and cut out the rectangular block at the top to share. This was just a quick update to provide a way to share an invite URL. If you like this idea, we could refine it a bit more.
Oh, and you’ll probably need to refresh your browser or clear your cache or whatever to load the newest CSS file, before printing the profile page.
I am excited to see how this feature evolves. This is a great idea and I think will contribute a lot to the site!
Very neat feature to be added, and lots of room for growth as the network gets filled in. On a site note: the Comment quest appears to not be working, as I left a comment on a new store I had input and favorited, and the quest is still incomplete.
By all means, use the Local Game Store pages to add comments and connect with other people in your area. As for emails specifically to members of your group, there’s always Gmail and Google Calendars.
If BG users favorite and follow a LGS page, then you have a means of finding out who might be in your area (via the Fans widget in the sidebar of the store page).
I think I’m seeing that the next needed feature would be the ability to send Private Messages to other users (to exchange emails).
Until Private Messaging is an option, one suggestion might be to plan and attend an event at a store to meet other BG users.
Perhaps we could create a way to print out a profile card that you can hand to and share with other people. This could have your invite URL, avatar, gamer stats, selected badges, etc.
Great idea. I will try it out right away.
Beep. Beep. Whooooop!
It’s awesome to see the site continuing to expand, and game stores are a fantastic next step! It would be a lot of work to set up, but as Granny points out, having gamer specific tools to link up with groups could really make boardgaming.com a destination site for many people to regularly use.
Groups would be great. One of my game groups uses Meetups… which is a decent solution, but a system developed specifically for gamers would be great. It would be nice if there was an easy way to connect with people locally who like similar games. All the data is there.
Groups is a great idea. I would love to be able to get in contact with users in the Denver area, and expand my group of boardgaming friends.
@Jay … Groups is a good idea. We’ve been thinking we might include the development of that feature as part of some future kickstarter-like project (but that would be a separate discussion). One issue with groups is that for it to be effective, I think everybody in the group would need to have and use an account on BoardGaming.com. The stuff we develop for stores will likely make a future Groups feature easier to implement.
I agree this a really cool idea although I’m not a normal local game store visitor, since I live so far out of town. However, I’ve added a few that I know about near me.
Somewhat related to this, I think it would be great if we could add local game groups. This may be more difficult to implement, but I would think it would be extremely useful (i.e. not all game groups meet in stores either).
This is a great new feature, and I look forward to seeing how it grows. Local game stores need all the help they can get.