Game Stores
March 10th, 2010I’ve been thinking about game stores lately. Yesterday, I was driving through Bakersfield on my way from Fresno to UCLA, and it made me think of the hobby store where I used to buy games as a kid. Back in the 70’s, there weren’t a lot of stores solely dedicated to gaming, certainly not in a smaller town like Bakersfield. If you wanted to buy an Avalon Hill game or an RPG, then you usually had to go to your local hobby store.
I wish I could remember the name of the hobby shop where I used to get my games back then, maybe some of my old Bakersfield friends will help me out on this one. It was a small store out in Oildale, which at the time was still very rural, with lots of open fields and dirt roads. I think the store specialized in ceramics, but there was a very small area over to right as you entered that was dedicated to games. There was a large wooden rack that held everything from Dungeon & Dragons modules to historical miniature gaming magazines. I seem to recall that there was a display case with a lot of those smaller scale historical miniatures for war games. Maybe that was something that interested the owner and he or she just decided to make it a part of the business? Read the rest of this entry »







