Steamship Games — Attraction in Minneapolis

TLDR: 5/5. Excellent staff. Love the store's atmosphere.

I walked into Universe Games knowing the type of game I wanted and the the people I would be playing with, but not knowing what actual game would meet my requirements. My uncle had said the night before that he wanted to play D&D, but I knew he didn't want to go through the amount of prep work that would involve. The woman on shift at Universe Games was enormously helpful. She knew her product well enough to make some preliminary suggestions. As I ruled out options, she messaged the store's other, off-shift employees, as the genre I wanted wasn't her specific area of expertise. We must have spent at least twenty minutes going back and forth, narrowing options, until I was able to settle on a game with the right features and an acceptable price point.

This bears repeating: Not only was the on-shift employee able to take time to help me find the right game, but she was able to tap into the knowledge of Universe Games' off-shift employee's. It paid off in this case; my uncle and cousin loved the game I showed up with.

I later found that the game I bought is a bit cheaper online (no surprise). I don't care. I didn't just want a cheap game; I wanted the right game. That wouldn't have been possible had I shopped online; best-case scenario, I would have spent hours reviewing "Let's Play" videos, and I STILL might not have discovered the game that I ended up purchasing.

I'll mention-- the store's network was having issues that delayed me being able to pay for my purchase. It wasn't a big deal, as I wasn't in a hurry. Since I visited the store only once, I'll assume this...

#EDIT# The owner responded quickly and was very understanding of my frustration. He explained the source of the confusion and it seems that this was a genuine miscommunication. I increased my rating to 4 stars.

#Original # Universe texted an offer on Black Friday 2014 that they declined to honor once I arrived at the store. The offer was supposed to be buy 1 get 1 free on all board games and dice. The message came out via their loyalty program Friday morning. There had been no attempts to send any further communication by 6pm when I arrived at the store. They stated that they would not honor the advertised deal because they INTENDED to say buy 3 get 1 free and they didnt want to SPAM their customers again with the correction. One of the employees offered to let me have the BOGO deal as long as the free one was less than 50% of the purchased one... this was essentially useless since most of their games are roughly the same price...unless I wanted to buy an $80 game there was little to nothing that I would be able to use the deal on anyway.

The manager claimed that the text was a typo. No, it may have been a mistake but not a typo! the text clearly said "BOGO" which is not a simple typo if the intent was buy 3 get 1 free. I also dont believe that it was impossible to communicate the mistake to their customers. I went to the store a full 7 hours after getting the text. I am a member of their loyalty program so they have several methods of contacting me. Finally, mistakes happen but the business should have been willing to offer something more reasonably close to the...

Friendly staff and customers. Willing to answer questions. Selection of games in stock is good for their size and they are willing order anything not in stock. Steamship Coffee also has good coffee and tea and you can get an all day coffee for extended gaming sessions.

If you are making a large purchase or think you'll come in a few times, consider joining the VIP program. You receive discounts throughout the store and typically when they run promotions you get a better deal. It does have an annual fee but it can be paid for using five star points (from the loyalty program that's free to sign up for) and eventually made permanent.

If you are a Magic player, the player base is friendly. They typically don't receive intensely competitive players. Update: free FNM with prize support was too good to last. They have switched to $5 with a pack per win.

Parking can be a little difficult; Lake Street is often busy. I usually end up parking a block...