Our gaming community loves a tremendous variety of games and we stock our sales shelves with a number of games that fall into four broad categories. These categories are not one-size-fits-all, but they are a one-size-fits-most with a vast majority of games being either a Board Game, a Card Game, a Tabletop War Game, or a Role Playing Game. However, some games blur those lines, and we love those games just as much as our old favorites.
With access to several thousand different items than we can stock, we are always willing to order games for you, and for our further-afield fans and friends, we will ship items to you whether we have it on the shelf or if we have to order it in special for you!
Board Games
Most of us grew up with a handful of classic games. Monopoly, Chess, Checkers, Risk, Scrabble, maybe even Othello, Backgammon, and Go. However, starting in the late 1990’s in Europe and then the early 2000’s in the United States, there were several changes that happened at the same time and all of them fed into the Board Game market. As a result, the market exploded with endless possibility.
It’s unfair to say that there weren’t innovative games prior to the turn of the 21st century, some of which are highly sought after as collectors editions or as interesting one-offs that are basically cult classics today amongst board game lovers. However, with the advent of Print on Demand services for cards, books, and pamphlets, creating a game became significantly easier and cheaper. 3D Printing came on the scene making prototyping of components significantly easier and cheaper, and then Kickstarter and Crowdfunding sources were another huge boon to the gaming industry, allowing independent publishers a sales outlet without having to deal with one of the major hobby and game distributors.
We are currently in a Golden Age of game development, design, and playing, and while that affects all types of games equally, none are affected as much as Board Games and Role Playing Games.
When we first opened our doors in November of 2014, we had access to about 50,000 different board games and board game expansions. Currently, that number is up over 150,000, and it is growing every month as new developers get their games into production! These games are in a variety of different categories in the store that include: Family Games, Gateway Games, Party Games, Legacy Games, Deck Building Games, Worker Placement Games, 2 Player Games, and more!
Shop Favorite Board Games: Scythe, Tapestry, Catan, Dominion, and the Pandemic Legacy Series
Card Games
When we say Card Games, we’re not referring specifically to games like Bridge or Cribbage, though we do carry decks of cards. We’re not talking about deck building games like Dominion, either. Instead, we are referring to games like Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Dragon Ball Super, and other collectable Card Games that are incredibly popular in the shop. They’re so popular in fact, that when we designed the currently location, the Battlefield was designed specifically for our Collectable Card Game players and it is almost 1/5 of the total floor area of the whole store.
It is common for players of these games to collect cards that they may never use in the game, but they want them because of any number or reasons ranging from a player loving a certain version of the art on a card, or investing in the cards to hold on to and sell or trade later. Most of our players are some of both; they love to play and they love to collect their favorite cards. We sell packs of most Collectable Card Games that are the most popular in the shop and we also have a library of single cards that we sell both online and in the shop.
For our pricing, we use TCG Player.com and we use their Market Value as it is a metric of the last of any version of a card that sold on TCG Player. We will take trade ins on Pokemon and Magic: the Gathering, at 50% of that Market Value for Store Credit and we are negotiable on cash payouts.
These games are some of the most popular in the shop, and each of them have different ways to play. For more information on Pokemon, Friday Night Magic, or any of our other designated weekly events for our Card Games, please check out the Events page!
Shop Favorite Magic Formats: Commander, Draft, Pioneer, and Modern.
Tabletop War Games
Tabletop War Games is a large category of gaming that encompasses several games that are near and dear to us here at Game State. From the world-wide phenomenon of Warhammer 40,000 (or Warhammer 40k for short, or 40k for even shorter notation) to the X-wing Miniatures game to things like Marvel: Crisis Protocol, Star Wars Legion, and Battletech: we support a ton of different games in this genre here at Game State and we have access to dozens more like Bolt Action, Warhammer Kill Teams, and Heroclix!
Fun Fact: War Games were one of the first types of games developed (so far as we know), based on the strategy sessions of generals who were attempting to plan and coordinate battles with their officers.
What these games have in common is miniatures. They are all miniature based games that have mechanics that revolve around interactive battlefields that use scenery or defined territory on printed maps. These games are different from role-playing games which often also use miniatures because the main action is moving the figures around the table, using their special abilities and using dice to sort out the results of stated action. The focus is on the mechanics, not the story telling, and the opposite is true in role-playing games.
These are also more hobby-based games which may have a higher entry cost than say board games or casual games, but they also almost all include secondary hobbies such as building and painting the miniatures. Star Wars X-wing and Star Wars Armada are exceptions to that because they feature models that come pre-assembled and pre-painted. However, some players choose to customize their paint schemes or even work some modifications into their favorite ships.
Shop Favorite Tabletop War Games: Warhammer 40k, Star Wars X-wing, Star Wars Legion, and Battletech
Role Playing Games
Role Playing Games, or Roleplaying Games, or RPG’s for short, are another extremely popular game type in the shop. While we focus on Dungeons and Dragons, we are happy to bring in and feature other games like the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Savage Worlds, and several others. At their heart, RPG’s are a collective story telling experience where the Game Master (sometimes called the Dungeon Master, Narrator, Storyteller, or lots of other names), tells the players what their characters are experiencing and then the players choose how their characters react. Some actions are cinematic and happen as the players and Game Master describe them, other actions require dice rolls to determine whether an action was successful and then other random things like damage or treasure gained or whatever the outcome dictates.
For years before the store was open, Kevin was one of the people at Silver Gryphon Games, an independent game publisher that produced two separate game systems, worked as a Savage Worlds Licensee, and was nominated for seven years in a row for the Ennie (the Oscars of the Role Playing World) for “Fans’ Favorite Publisher,” an honor bestowed to only the top 1% or so of the game companies on any given year.
There are role playing games being run in the shop almost every day of the week. We have two designated nights for them on Tuesday and Wednesday, but any number of groups operate in Game State and meet any time from open to close, some staying all day long. We love seeing that in the shop and new players are always welcome to come and watch and ask questions! While we don’t emphasize any one roleplaying system or game over the others, Dungeons and Dragons is currently the most popular in the shop with a majority of the players playing the most current edition.
Shop Favorite RPG’s: D&D (5th/5.5 Edition), Savage Worlds, Storyteller, West End D6