While on a short break recently I took the opportunity to visit one of the FLGS and was quite shocked to see the drop in the amount of items on offer in the last six months.

There were the usual big seller items – but the smaller more niche items have disappeared completely from the shelves.

Would be quite interested to see if this is common across the UK and US.

I have to admit I miss going into a game shop, looking through the books and games and making an impulse buy….

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si post fata venit gloria non propero

IMO RPGs are probably a small % of sales for a LGS compared to boardgames, wargames and comics these days.

Not sure the last time I bought an RPG in a LGS (must of been years ago), but I got a Talisman expansion just a couple of weeks ago.

There's a couple of FLGS in my area, most just sell the most popular stuff RPG wise, but the store I go to has all kinds of different RPG, boardgame and comic choices. I actually found copies of Legend books and other Mongoose products there along with many other RPG lines that aren't as popular as say d&d and pathfinder. It's why that store gets my business.

Interestingly - in my original post I was referring to all products, Board Games, TCG's, CMG's, RPG's, etc. (I did note that the Mongoose product lines were all but gone same with a few other companies )..

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si post fata venit gloria non propero

Oh ok, well that Is interesting then.
Where I am in Queensland, Australia, there's several Gaming shops. For sure the RPG area is smaller than I remember from years ago, but they sell loads of boardgames, tabletop Wargames (Warhammer and some other Tabletop Wargame).
They also stock loads of comics, graphics novels etc..

These FLGSs seem very proactive and involved with the community though, they have gaming areas, host mini-conventions and all sorts of stuff.

The stores I have visited:

2 comic stores, all they have is some RPG stuff and card/Euro games, and even that seems much diminished from before.

A big miniatures oriented store, pared down to a few product lines, nothing else to speak of. If it isn't a hot seller, they aren't carrying it.

I have yet to see ANY Mongoose stuff in any of the stores I've been in. I admit it is possible there may be some RPG stuff sitting around that I didn't notice, but things seem pretty sparse.

I think it's a symptom of people not having as much disposable income anymore. Welcome to the new "normal"; the economy barely limping along, not getting much better, but not much worse either. Kind of like Japan with their 20+ year economic crisis.