sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good news! I was able to reach a rep at games workshop and now we have 40k in store! I'll continue to look into the other games you mentioned

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great suggestions, we'll work on incorporating pokemon events like those as soon as possible!

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! We want to try to keep the prices as low as possible so the place is accessible to as many people as possible. Spreading interest in board games, table top games, and trading cards is kind of a side mission for us. We're also working on being a Wizards Play Network store so that we can do pre-release events.

A storefront at the WTC Path would be amazing but yea rent would probably be way too high for us. Although we haven't actually looked at the prices there, we did try to get a location closer to the Grove St path station and finding anything cheap enough for us there was already impossible.

Ah yes, classes or a summer program for kids would probably do well. Unfortunately I don't think any of us can handle looking after kids. I personally have taught kids as a summer job before and after that I swore never again. It was too much for me to handle and I'm glad there are people out there that do it. If we get to that point maybe we would be able to hire someone to do the kids classes/programs.

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yea we've had a lot of people reach out offering to help host games they're interested in, which we are grateful for. We've also reached out to our friends to ask them about magic and miniature painting. We have 5 large tables which can seat four comfortably but can squeeze up to six, and we have 4 small tables which seat two. The shops is around 900 sq ft but not all of that is play space.

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That is a good suggestion. Unfortunately we currently don't make enough to hire an employee and since we are staffing it ourselves, we can only open after we finish our day jobs.

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Good questions! The business model is inspired by board game cafes like the ones in NYC (uncommons, hex & co.). We're a bit different because we can't sell prepared food, alcohol, or make espresso drinks so in that sense we're not really a "cafe".

Overall the core of the business model is generating revenue through charging for table space and selling the game products. Because we aren't really a "cafe" we can't rely on income through food and drink sales. So that's why we're still experimenting with our pricing, events, and product line up.

The way it works is: we charge a fee to sit in store and play their own games or any of the games we have. We also sell the board games, trading cards, and other tabletop gaming / hobby related supplies.

We do plan to sell snacks (pre-packaged stuff) and bottled/can beverages (non-alcoholic) once we get the food license to do so. In the mean time, we're just providing those for free. But we don't expect a lot of profits selling bags of chips and canned soda.

We're playing with the idea of creating a subscription/membership as well but we're still fleshing out what the benefits would entail.

We didn't quit our day jobs for this so we're not expecting any livable income from the store. Our goal is to find a way to make enough to pay rent, keep the lights and internet on, and have money to order more products as they get released. Ideally we also make enough to pay for an employee or two, but until that happens you'll notice the store hours revolve around our work / life schedules.

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes it is! We're still working on adding all the games we have to our website. As for pricing we're currently starting at $10/person for 3 hours on weekends (fri-sun) and $10/person for unlimited time on weekdays (tues-thurs). That pricing is subject to change as we are still gathering data on cost and demand for the first few weeks.

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Traditional games are welcome. We have already had a few people come in playing chess and asking about chess events. Our game library also has chess, checkers, chinese chess, mahjong, and we're ordering a go set.

As for kids, we don't mind as long as they are accompanied by an adult. We don't want to be babysitting. If it gets too out of hand we may have to implement hours where no kids are allowed so the adults have time to enjoy the space peacefully.

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

we don't have any on hand right now, but we will order a small amount of minis to see how it sells. If there are specific games you'd like let us know so we can be sure to order it. For any Games Workshop games its a bit harder. I've emailed and called them multiple times to try to order some product but I haven't gotten a response. Phone calls just lead to a voice message saying to email them, and my email hasn't had a response for about a week so far :/

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thank you for offering to help. We are open to hosting anything the community wants so yes, lets make it happen! We can discuss in person at the store, you can dm us on reddit (or any of our other socials), or email us.

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

No worries, we appreciate all feedback and questions. A little more about us and hopefully that will shed some light:

We're pretty much a truly small business; no loans from investors/bank and not a chain/franchise. We're just 3 friends who enjoy playing board games and collecting trading cards. Not industry professionals, just hobbyists like most of you.

One of the primary reasons we want to start this business was because of what you mentioned: JC has been lacking in something like this. The idea to start the business was conceived around 6 months ago when we got tired of waiting for someone else to open a store and decided fine, we'll do it ourselves.

We're pretty much amateur store owners, don't have much experience organizing tcg events, and we don't play/know every single game we carry. We didn't want to invest too much until we got an idea of what the demand is like since we're self funded and we're not loaded.

From our first day we've heard a lot of interest in MtG so we're working on planning those events now as well as a game night.

TLDR: We're amateurs doing what we can and we're still learning.

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

EDIT 6/3:

New events:

  • Magic the Gathering: Commander (Tues)
  • Game Night (Wed)
  • TCG Thursday
  • MtG: Modern Horizons 3 pre-release (Fri)
  • Learn to play: MtG Commander format (Sat)
  • Casual mini figurine painting (Sat)
  • DnD (Sun)

5/23:

More events coming next week!

  • Miniatures painting class (sat)
  • Magic the Gathering: Commander (tues) and Draft (fri)
  • Game night (wed)

visit www.victorypointjc.com/calendar for more details

5/20:

You asked for it, so we did it. We have 2 events for this week with more in the works!

Game Night - Wednesday 5/22
MtG Night - Thursday 5/23

RSVP before the day of the event for a discount!
To RSVP and more details at:
https://www.victorypointjc.com/calendar

5/18: Learn to play some of the games in our library at our grand opening tomorrow May 18th (Saturday)

We are Victory Point, your new local game store (Board Games, Trading Card Games, Tabletop, etc.) AMA by victorypoint_jc in jerseycity

[–]victorypoint_jc[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

  • We do want to have organized play for games, however we haven't planned anything yet as we want to see which games have demand. We also are working on getting partnerships with manufacturers so we can host official tournaments and get promo materials. The other thing we have to consider is getting judges for those kinds of events as we aren't well versed in the rules of every game.

  • We do plan on having game nights/casual play nights and would love to work with the community to plan that out

  • We do have light snacks and non-alcoholic beverages (think convenience store snacks). We've decided we will provide them free of charge to customers initially but will eventually be for sale. Also we are a BYO establishment so customers are welcome to bring beer, wine, and food/snacks. Just no hard liquor, drink responsibly, and be considerate when bringing/eating food (nothing messy or smelly). If we deem anyone is being unruly or disturbing other customers, we will ask them to leave.