Pandemonium Books & Games — Attraction in Cambridge

Long review incoming. I've been going here for years. I can't give it a perfect score just because of one employee mentioned in other bad reviews (the one that flips out when you ask him about deals, and he seems to hate Pokemon buyers), it's largely good.

First, the bad: aside from that guy, their prices on some things like dice are a bit ridiculous. I understand as a physical retailer, prices have to be a bit higher, but $16 for a small box of tiny dice is excessive. The basement can get a bit stuffy, and even a bit smelly on hot days, but that's gonna happen when you stick 40+ people in a hot basement, even if the stereotype about TCG players being unclean wasn't partially true, though ever since they added more space to the basement, this hasn't been as big of an issue. And while I play multiple TCGs and games, yugioh and some other games seem to be more of an afterthought for this store, it's definitely primarily an MTG store. While Alex, the yugioh judge, is honestly pretty awesome, the entire tournament hinging on solely his attendance is pretty disappointing.

Now, the good: other than that one jerk, the employees are all very friendly and generally know what they're talking about. Again, Alex is a great yugioh judge and he's fun to just chat with and play casual games with. While you have your stereotypes, most of the community here is wonderful and open and will welcome new players. While thievery exists which is inevitable in any game shop, this place has a ton of cameras, and almost every time I've heard about anything being stolen, I've heard about them being caught later. MTG players here have multiple formats to choose from, and while other games are often only given a single format, the amount of sweaty tryhards are minimal, and most people clearly play just for fun, whether it's a meta deck they're playing or not. The yugioh here, while meta decks are present, is more rogue-leaning for the normal tournaments, which I think is how a locals should be outside of tournaments with bigger prizes.

I got bored earlier and read the reviews out of curiosity, and some stuck out. While reviews about that one bad employee are accurate, allow me to debunk some other bad reviews that are not, as I'm a semi regular and I also work customer service, so I can easily point out entitled customers.

A frequent one mentioned: masks. There's a lot of bad reviews about them periodically requiring masks. If these morons bothered doing any slight amount of investigation into why, it's because several immunocompromised people come here. It takes no effort to wear a mask to protect others, and saying it's suffocating you is completely laughable and weak. Wear the freaking mask and stop whinging.

It's true that it can take people at the counter a while to get to you... If you go at peak hours when there's 40+ people in the store with multiple tournaments being run. Some customers simply are not patient. Related, I saw a couple about asking employees to help them at unreasonable times (ie, an employee eating lunch on their break) and giving a bad review because the employee refused to help. This place does not have a private employee seating area, maybe you confused the employee only storage area for that? Where the heck do you expect them to eat? Asking an employee to help you on their break is peak entitlement.

Don't get me started on the people who leave a review only once they have a bad experience after years of going. What stopped you from leaving a good review for all the good times you had? Or are you just a Karen who only wants to complain?

Lastly, speaking from personal experience in a customer service job, I guarantee at least 80% of the complaints about rude staff are from people who are rude to them first. Unlike a supermarket or something, this is an industry with more leeway on how employees can talk back to their abusers, and how dare "The Help" talk back to Your Eminence, after all, right? Spoiler alert: the customer isn't always right.

Anyway, this place is worth checking out for any nerd....

I understand that this store has a mask policy, but I've never walked into a store where the employees can freely speak to customers in a rude tone over compliance with store policy just because they think they are warriors of public health. I work at a hospital where the restrictions are nowhere near as strict; in fact, the doctors and nurses I work with can have a sip of coffee or whatever and still be in compliance with our hospital's policy. Are they evil little COVID spreaders? No. Apparently the front desk worker at Pandemonium is an MD with a specialty in Infectious Disease prevention even though the masks they give provide very little protection against disease. Ever heard of an N95?

It's weird to behave in an incendiary manner against a customer minding their business and guilt them instead of deescalating a conflict like an adult. I was unhappy because a stranger felt okay harassing me and the front desk employee could not just make their concerns known himself, he had to instead talk about how stupid I am to her and only spoke up about this issue when I told a family member that this lady was being rude and weird to me. I even asked why the front desk staff didn't just communicate this with me. Very unhappy by the treatment, especially because I had no issue with the policy - next time, just ask me to leave from the get go instead of being cowardly and flippant. Crazy too because they only reinstated this policy yesterday. So if I had come in on the day before, what then? This issue has been going on months prior. I got COVID once because of the uptick even while masked and being cared for by masked staff getting a vaccine. It happens. I didn't go find the nurse who gave me the vaccine and chew her out.

Honestly speaking, if it really mattered, why did nobody else say anything when I was downstairs drinking coffee? None of the staff there had an issue and I saw people at the tabletops without masks. Maybe I should have been a favorite customer, that's the problem lol.

Please consider shopping elsewhere, you deserve better respect from helpful employees who know how to work a job. I want to get into tabletop gaming, so I'll take my business to Warhammer or Eureka in Brookline. They have the...

Great place with a great selection..Staff could be a little more knowledgeable about how pre-orders work or what games they have available for pre-order or when they will be on the shelves.. I had asked them about a couple games and their release dates and was met with blank stares and a vague suggestion to check the web-site. I come to an actual game store so I can get what I want and do my buisness right there.. if I'm going to order thing online I'll go to Minature Market, where things are much cheaper. I like supporting local businesses and not having to wait a week or two for an order, but when staff can't give you basic info on when a game comes out, etc.. they almost force you to go to and online place, or at least another store haha..

Other than that, it's a great place. Huge selection, lots of paints for minis (they usually have their paint display stocked well, but sometimes the popular paints will be cleaned out, which is also a little frustrating when you need something specific). I wish they would stock AK Interactive paints, effects and diorama materials but most places don't, so no harm there really.

Lots and lots of DnD minis to choose from, which is awesome. Tons of great board games and the staff seems pretty knowledgeable on the games themselves and the manufacturers, which is nice.

They host a lot of game nights and have a huge play area downstairs with lots of tables and room. They also have a lot of books, shelves and shelves of books. Not just game rule books either, lots of fantasy, sci-fi and horror stuff on the shelves which is great!

Overall I like this store a lot, there's a few things they could fix, but definitely worth a trip to if you live in the area and are a gamer...