All Wizards Retail Stores to close by Feb. 2004

[JohnnyBlaze]

I found this article reading my local newspaper- The TImes Union of Albany, NY it was in the Business section on Tuesday December30th:

Guilderland - The Game Keeper, a Crossgates Mall store that sells board and rol-playing games will close at then end of February, an employee said.

The eight-employee store is one of 64 retail shops run by Wizards of the Coast Inc., a Renton, Wash.-based subsidary of Hasbro Inc. The company announced on Sunday that it will close the stores in an effort to concentrate on its core business of manufacturing role-playing and trading-card games.

Wizards' games, which include "Magic: The Gathering" and "Dungeons & Dragons," are among the biggest brands in the hobby game industry.

The Crossgates Mall store, which also specializes in chess sets, is taking 20 percent off of its prices, according to senior sales associate Ben Rejiester.

Wizards of the Coast has retained Gordon Brothers Group LLC of Boston to assist with the store closings, which are all expected to be completed in about 60 days.

The company was founded in Renton in 1990 and acquired by Hasbro in 1999. - Alan Weschler with The Associated Press.

So this formally kills the Pokemon game in my area. This was the only store that still had league and sold product. All of the other gaming stores gave up in Pokemon about 2 years ago. Try finding product around here. I wish I could start up my own league but with work and family commitments I just cant.

The thing I cant understand that in the article is that "It (WOTC) will close the stores in an effort to concentrate on itscore business of manufacturing role-playing games and trading-card games." Tehy can concentrate and manufacture all they want. But if there are no outlets to play people will not play. Its such a sad day for me when I found this out.

 

[Sensei]

Hey Johnny,we already have a thread discussing this issue Here.Please feel free to copy this and post it over there.Thanx for your understanding.

`Sensei