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The Manaverse Podcast is a podcast created for you, the gamer with aspirations of building your own local game store (LGS), the entrepreneur running an LGS who wants to grow their business, and the player who wants a behind the scenes look into their favourite hobby. If you’re looking for inspiration, new ideas, and interesting perspectives then Tom Traplin has you covered. Learn the business of selling some of the best games in the world including Mtg, Warhammer, Warmachine, Dungeons and Dr ...
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Kris Pope, from Coyote Trapping School, provides instruction and educational content for people interested in getting started, or getting better, at trapping furbearers and predators. Many people consider trapping a dying art, but there is still plenty of interest whether from outdoorsmen and women who are looking to further their outdoor skills, wildlife managers looking to enhance game populations through predator control, or survivalists interesting in knowing how to obtain food and fur i ...
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Trapping Inc is the smash hit Canadian TV series that follows northern Alberta trappers Rich and Sandi Mellon's life on the trapline in the Canadian wilderness. The Scuttlebutt Podcast is the back story or inside scoop into their lives and the personalities, companies, products and issues that shape modern trapping. Rich and Sandi have been married for 40 years and have a cheerful approach to life that shows in their dedication to education, conservation and concern for the management and fu ...
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In this special update episode of the Manaverse Podcast, host Tom Traplin sits down with Blake Edward Hawkey, one of the co-founders of 2nd Hand Geek. Together, they discuss the evolution of the platform since its inception, the exciting new features available, and how the marketplace can benefit both players and local game stores. What You'll Lear…
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How Game Stores Can Change Lives and Build Community In today's episode of the Manaverse Podcast, I dive deep into a topic that's been on my mind a lot lately: the growing loneliness and division many of us are experiencing in the modern world. With nearly a third of adults in the U.S. feeling lonely on a regular basis and our society becoming more…
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This interview that you’re about to hear with Scott Church is fascinating. Scott is the owner of Category One Games, an online only store he started way back in the mists of time, also known as 2004. A 20 year old online only store is interesting enough, but Category One Games specializes in dead TCG’s. Games that have been written off and dumped i…
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Welcome to another episode of the Manaverse Podcast! In this episode, I sit down with Travis Severance, the co-owner of Millennium Games in Rochester, New York. Join us as we dive into Travis's incredible journey in the gaming industry, exploring the challenges he's faced and the strategies that have made Millennium Games the largest game store in …
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Andrew Johnson comes onto the podcast to talk about creating Manapool.com, a marketplace just for Magic cards. Learn about the hottest new marketplace for Magic players and local game store owners to buy and sell Magic singles, and how Andrew and his team of co-founders and building a great solution for the Magic community. Sign up for a Manapool.c…
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Welcome to another episode of the Manaverse Podcast! My name is Tom Traplin and I am your host and this is the podcast where we talk about building successful friendly local game stores. Today, we’re talking with Michael Bahr, the mind behind the LGS Net Income newsletter and former owner of Desert Sky Games in Arizona. Michael relatively recently …
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In this episode of the Manaverse Podcast, I interview Marcus Kearsey, a game designer for the Altered TCG team. We discuss the unique aspects of Altered TCG, including its non-combat focus, digital integration, and innovative deck-building mechanics. Kearsey shares his journey into game design, the challenges and rewards of developing a new TCG, an…
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Welcome to another exciting episode of our podcast! Today, we dive deep into the world of gaming retail with Joshua Pyle-Carter from The Deck Box. Joshua shares his incredible journey of building a successful gaming store from scratch. We explore how The Deck Box has created a community-centric environment, offering a personalized client service th…
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In Part 4 of my interview, Joshua Pyle-Carter digs into the future plans for The Deck Box, with their 10-year anniversary quickly approaching this summer. Josh talks about the balance between online and in-store sales, stressing that each requires a vastly different approach and business model, and why he favours the local first approach for his co…
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This is Part 3 of my interview with Joshua Pyle-Carter from The Deck Box, Halifax's Premier local games store. We delve into inventory management, pricing strategies, and how Josh empowers his staff to make good decisions without requiring his input as the owner. Joshua talks about balancing pricing for different card rarities, adapting to market c…
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This is Part 2 of my interview with Joshua Pyle-Carter from The Deck Box where we focus on personalized client service as a key factor in his success. Understanding individual customer preferences, especially in complex games like Magic: The Gathering, is crucial and so is guiding customers based on their interests and experience levels, rather tha…
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This is part 1 of a 4 part interview I did with Josh Pyle-Carter. He’s the owner of The Deck Box, a massively successful and tremendously cool tabletop game store in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In this part of our interview, Josh tells the story of starting his first game store in PEI on a shoestring budget and how being profitable from day 1 was basical…
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This episode of the Manaverse Podcast features Eric Dieulangard, the CMO of Equinox. Today we're discussing "Altered," a new trading card game scheduled for release in the summer of 2024, and diving into how the game's innovations fit into the business model of your friendly local game store. Eric elaborates on Altered's unique features, including …
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Welcome to another episode of the Manaverse podcast! I’m your host, Tom Traplin, and today, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Tyler Brotton, an ambitious entrepreneur charting a unique path in the gaming industry. From starting as an online card trader during the COVID-19 pandemic to his current venture of setting up a brick-and-mortar game s…
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The launch of Lorcana has been a roller coaster for game stores. The absurdly high demand combined with a very limited supply of product has created a perfect storm for game store owners looking to sell, as well as consumers and collectors looking to buy. Online communities of players/speculators have accused game store owners of scalping and gougi…
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Alan Blakeborough, Founder and CEO of 2ndHandGeek.com, talks about the new online marketplace that supports friendly local game stores. Alan and his team are creating a new competitor to the $9 billion marketplace of eBay, where the fees are competitive and 1% of each transaction gets paid back to the friendly local game store associated with a use…
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Frank Rossi and Jordan Shankman are the featured guests for today's episode of the podcast. Frank and Jordan are the owners of Petrichor Productions in the Greater Atlanta area and they specialize in video production and helping businesses bring their brand story to vibrant life. The Petrichor team recently worked with Jason Mastowski, the owner of…
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Commander players are the ultimate casual Magic player for game stores. Having a thriving and vibrant Commander community is a huge asset since Commander players often spend the most money on the hobby and buy all sorts of cards that conventional Standard or Modern players wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, and are happy paying for them! The more…
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Robyn Lowy, the owner of Mindtaker Miniatures in Vancouver, Washington, talks about how she built a truly unique take on the friendly local game store. Find out how Robyn started by buying and selling miniatures online and expanded the business into a fully fledged miniature powerhouse. If you've ever thought about carrying miniature games in your …
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Brendan Carrion, email marketer/game designer/podcaster with Athoria Games in Arizona, is on the podcast to talk about the nuts and bolts of marketing a game store and getting new customers, what makes Athoria Games tick, and discuss the state of the gaming industry as a whole. Good times. Don't forget to connect with Brendan here. Links Mentioned …
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We've got Jamison Sacks on the podcast today. Jamison is the owner of Common Ground Games in Dallas. Founded in 2013 by Jamison Sacks & DR Hanson, Common Ground Games brings a premiere retail and gaming space for all of D/FW to enjoy and has well over a thousand five star reviews on Facebook and Google. Links Mentioned https://www.boardgamesdallas.…
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We've got Michael McKinney on the podcast today. Michael is the logistics manager of 95 MTG and 95 Game Center in Wilmington and we dig into some really interesting aspects of the way 95 Game Center runs and how it built up the singles side of the business. We talk about the differences between the pay-to-play model versus a free game space, how 95…
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Daniel Vander Kooy comes onto the Manaverse Podcast and talks about the OGL, whether Wizards of the Coast is killing the golden goose, what's happening in the hobby industry, and how game store owners can prepare. Get a customized digital marketing strategy for your game store by booking a free 45 minute strategy session with us. We will do a deep …
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Erik Bigglestone makes his return debut on the Manaverse Podcast to share his experience dealing with an ADA lawsuit last year and talk about ways for game stores to protect their businesses from predatory actors. We discuss how Games of Berkeley was targeted last year for an Accessibility claim out of New York, the pattern of certain plaintiffs an…
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Hypothesis: Customer Lifetime Value highly correlates to a high number of positive interactions within the first 100 days, and the likelihood of those interactions is highly correlated to to the quality of the experience in the first 100 seconds. Your game store may not be selling gym memberships, but games and hobbies are still part of your custom…
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We've got Adam Scholtz on the podcast. Adam is the owner of Cosmic Games in Bellingham. Cosmic Games is Bellingham's premier source for Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon Trading Card Game, Video Games and more. Links Mentioned for Cosmic Games https://www.cosmicbham.com/ https://www.facebook.com/cosmicbham https://www.instagram.com/cosmicgamesbham/ htt…
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We've got Maryam Al-Hammami on the podcast. Maryam is the co-owner of The Game Chest, a four location local game store business in California. Maryam and I discuss what it takes for a game store to grow into a multi-location business, how making the in-store experience welcoming and diversifying your inventory can change everything, why hiring a gr…
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We've got David Finn on the podcast. David is the owner of Giga-Bites Cafe in Marietta, near Atlanta. Giga-Bites Café was founded by David Finn 14 years ago and is the host for a gaming community of thousands, and is Atlanta's best stocked tabletop retail space. David is also the owner of Bridge Distribution specializing in a huge variety of hobby …
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We've got Christopher Wood and Deon on the podcast today. Chris is the owner of Modern Table Top Gaming, a WPN Premium store in South Chesterfield, Virginia. MTTG is a fantastically executed game store with an epic sign out front and we dig into what makes the store tick and how they earned the WPN Premium status. https://moderntabletoprva.com/ Che…
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We've got Whitman Bottiger, the owner of Critical Hit Games on the the podcast today. Critical Hit Games is a WPN Premium game store in Abingdon, Maryland carrying the classic selection of TCG's, miniatures, RPGs, and board games with a special focus on custom TCG formats. Game stores can be an intimidating environment for customers who've never be…
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I've got D from Versus Games in San Francisco with me on today and one of the most consistent threads in our conversation on what makes Versus Games successful is marketing. We kept coming back to how much D's marketing background shaped the business from the start and how important it is for game stores to have their marketing locked down if they …
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We're going across the pond to talk to Patrick ten Hoorn, the owner of Spellenhuis in the Netherlands! Patrick talks about his journey of taking his dream to open a stylish game cafe and turning it into a reality, navigating the choppy waters of the hobby industry, and how he grew the business into multiple locations. Links https://www.spellenhuis.…
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Rich and Sandi are out on the trapline for the second trip of setup for the fisher and marten season. Talk about the challenges and the answer questions on the bait they use and how Rich makes his lure. Join us for ALL 8 seasons of Trapping Inc at https://trappinginc.locals.com/بقلم Richard Mellon
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Today we're talking with Pat Fuge. Pat is the Head Gnome of Gnome Games, Wisconsin’s Family Game store, with locations across the Fox Valley for customers to shop and play in. Pat talks about the early days of Gnome Games and how his approach to planning has helped expand to multiple locations and even venture into the world of gaming cafes. Links …
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Today we're talking with Rob Gruber, aka The Elf King. Rob is the owner of Good Times Games in Prince Rupert, British Columbia and he's built an incredible business by becoming somewhat of a local celebrity and personality. Rob plays the game store game a little bit differently and today we're going to talk about his approach to working within a sm…
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Here's what we know If you've been active in the game store owner groups on Facebook you've probably seen the posts recently about game stores and publishers being targeted by a law firm in New York and being sued for lack of ADA compliance. So far they've sued Crafty Games of Washington, Games of Berkeley in California, Black Rowan Games in Tracy,…
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New round table episode! Wizard's new $999 Beta booster pack product, The future of the friendly local game store, Are game cafes the natural evolution of the FLGS? What separates good retail from bad, And more. Matthew Vercant and Pat Fuge join me to discuss the future of the friendly local game store and speculate on the future of Magic: the Gath…
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Today we're talking with Jason Garvin. Jason is the manager of Total Escape Games, a premium retailer of tabletop games, carrying a vast array of role-playing games, card games, miniatures games, board games, and more in Broomfield Colorado. Jason is going to give us some insight into the origins of the store, dealing with the day to day operations…
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Hey, welcome back to the Manaverse Podcast! I'm your host Tom Traplin and this is the podcast where we explore what it takes to build a successful friendly local game store. Before we jump into things, Q4 is coming and I'm looking for more game store owners to feature on the podcast, so if you get an email or phone call from me in the near future d…
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Jake Tanner is the owner Unplugged Gaming in Manlius New York. Jake came into the tabletop gaming business from a different angle than most of the game store owners that have been featured on the podcast. Before launching Unplugged Gaming, Jake, along with his business partner, owned and operated a highly lauded digital marketing firm called Digita…
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For most game store owners, SEO is techno jargon. Something that only the biggest ecommerce businesses need to think about. I've also heard variations of the sentiment that it’s impossible to compete with the big players like BGG and Amazon in the search engines. That’s only half true. SEO definitely sounds like the kind of techno jargon you'd hear…
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Dustin is the owner and founder of Board Gaming with Education and BGE Tabletop. He has experience teaching English as a second language to a variety of age levels – from kindergarten to university. He also works in the field of education in various capacities. BGE started off as podcast in 2017 and has expanded into a platform for educators to lea…
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Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a great time celebrating the arrival of 2022. One of the things I like to do at the beginning of the year is to look back a bit and see what happened over the past 12 months and establish a bit of a theme for the coming year. So that's what we're doing today. Let's discuss three of the biggest lessons I learn…
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This is the second podcast in a series that I'm calling Launch Lessons, where I'll be breaking down the Six Pillars of Digital Marketing and show you just how powerful and important they are to your business's growth. If you haven't listened to the last episode on how much your email list is worth, go back and check that one out. Today we're talkin…
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