Changes at Pandemonium Books (Cambridge, MA)

[DevP]

Many of you stock your games with Pandemonium Books in Cambridge, MA. (I've picked up quite a few independent titles there over the least few years.) I just heard today that they are moving to a possibly larger location, one subway stop away. More importantly, it looks like they're trying to evolve into more of an activity space, with attention to in-store games, workshops, possibly even coffee & snacks for sale. (The last part I see possibly making the store work as a sociable space as well, which is good.)

If you distribute though Pandemonium (or live nearby), it would be worth following the changes here, both for how it could affect the local gaming scene, and how it could continue to help independent designers. Original email quoted below...

Dear Pandemoniumites!

TO THE PROMISED LAND

I am sure that rumors have been circulating for awhile, but Pandemonium will be
moving to Central Square at the end of January 2006.  After 16 years of
operations, I feel it is necessary for the store to change, expand and do new
things.

It's my dream to transform Pandemonium into essentially a small, permanent SF
convention. The idea is that anything one could do in a weekend convention
(aside from sleeping overnight) should be available at Pandemonium over the
course of a month or a quarter: from panels to gaming tournaments to
live-action roleplaying events. For that we will need a space that is large,
inexpensive, T-accessible, and with access to parking.  Since such a space is
not available in Harvard Square, we have to move.  Scary, but exciting!

VOTE FOR WHAT YOU WANT

I have put together an online survey to allow our loyal store customers to have
a direct say in what the new store will be like.  We here at Pandemonium are
considering a lot of different options.  Since our budget is limited, we need
your input to decide what features you want the store to have.  Please go to

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=557911527778

and fill out the survey.  As an added incentive, additional information about
the new location is given there.  The survey itself takes about 10 minutes,
longer if you take time to answer some of the open-ended questions.

Thanks for all of your support, both past and future!

Tyler Stewart

[Luke]

WOHOOO!! Rock on!

Central Square to the moon!

-L

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Awesome! Their old space is painfully cramped. But it does mean that there will be a whole T stop between Million Year Picnic (the best comic shop EVAR) and Pandemonium.

Luke, that's where I got my copy of Burning Wheel, where I almost wouldn't buy it from the guy because I thought the $15 price tag was a mistake.

But you know what hurts? I'm just not excited by RPG stores any more. God, that hurts to say. I thumb through and go "nyeeeehhhh... no, I don't want this." I hope that more space means, maybe, an indie shelf, more books of illustrations, and a place to see neat new things. But I'm usually disappointed in these matters.

[DevP]

Joshua, in a lot of ways it seems like Pandy's is already close to what you'd want (and possibly getting better with the move). They already have a great indie game shelf. (Not just Forgite indie, but various other small press titiles. I saw Now Playing there before I saw Primetime Adventures.) I'll tell ya, there's a huge difference between hearing about "the Mountain Witch", and walking by and seeing this gorgeous game I didn't know I wanted, mere feet away.

[Mike Sugarbaker]

This isn't strictly on topic, but since I fear it'd be viewed as confrontational in a lot of other retail-related topics:

The great store Endgame, in downtown Oakland, CA, just added three shelves of mostly Forge-ish RPG material to their RPG wall. And stuff is selling, reasonably well even.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Mike, you should put up a thread about this specifically.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Joshua, let me do the moderating, thanks.

Mike, your post is perfectly on-topic for this thread. Let's keep discussing this phenomenon, especially the notion of fostering a particular social culture in the store in addition to dedicating specific shelf space.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Sugarbaker]

Sorry I'm just finding this thread again; I want to call out another thing Endgame does with its RPG section that I think makes a big difference to the in-store culture.

They put in - are you ready? - a chair.

A cheap, but decent-looking, padded Ikea thing, and a tiny table next to it with a couple of random game magazines on. It's the kind of thing you need to have extra space for, but it reinforces the idea that RPG books are books - and beyond that, it does all the things that chairs in Barnes and Noble do.

Maybe Pandemonium already did this, or it's more common than I think. But I've never seen it elsewhere.