The Gamers Haven — Attraction in Spokane

Me and my roommate have spent over 400$ at this store, in Warhammer alone. We consider it the best store in the Spokane area, but we will not be returning again. On a pretty average weekly trip to go get Spongebob popsicles with my brother and roomie, we decided to stop by The Gamers Haven to grab some minis for a new campaign our other roomie was running, and possibly some paints. We did our walk around the store, checking out minis and paints. I found my little lad, my roomie found her little las, and my brother was left out (they didn’t have any goblins :/). We decided to wait til next payday for the paints, put them back on the shelf, and found ourselves back at the minis section because of my indecisiveness. Right as I said to my roommate “I think I know what I’m getting, you ready?” a man and a woman walk through the door and the man loudly says “Hello guys!” or something along those lines. I ignore him because I know how easy it is to get engrossed in discussions about nerdy stuff, especially in a nerdy store. He walks around the counter and I think “Oh! He works here!” and begin to approach the counter when he comes back around from the other side and addresses my friends and myself. He says “Hi guys, I’m the owner of Gamer’s Haven, and we got a problem.” We all look at each other, obviously confused, “Uh, what’s up?” He leans on a table and crosses his arms, continuing “Well, the problem is, we have you-“ he points to my roomie “-stealing on camera, from our dice display. On top of that, we just had a customer say that you were putting paints in your pockets” We were shocked. My roomie immediately emptied her pockets, nothing but keys. He deflates a bit and says “Alright, well, we still have you on camera stealing dice just a couple days ago.” I pipe up and say “Ok, you mind showing us the footage?” and he returns back “We can look at it when the cops show up if you like.” I thought I was shocked before, but this fried me to a crisp. Store is dead silent, just the store owner, I assume his wife, the guy working the register, my brother, my roomie, and me. My roomie and me are holding our minis, we were just about to buy, stunned. He breaks the silence and says “Ok look, it doesn’t really seem like you guys were stealing, in fact when I looked at the cameras yesterday, I was actually just checking to see if my worker was doing his job. I’m a small business owner, I got kids I need to feed. It doesn’t matter if you guys took anything or not, just don’t do it again. No harm no foul right?” Well, funny enough, there was some harm, so there was a foul. In this two minute interaction I learned a couple things about this business I thought I might share.

1. What kicked off this entire fiasco was the fact that the owner didn’t even trust his worker to do the job he paid him to do. (They don’t, they’re either playing magic or painting minis. Which is fine, they get to you fast when you’re at the register.)
2. He saw what he thought was stealing, which was just my roomie putting her hands into her pockets after looking at singular dice. (At the end of the day, we actually did end up buying a fancy singular d20 for a set that i had just lost the d20 for.)
3. The owner was willing to call the cops over polyhedral dice and craft paint. (I know how expensive paints and dice can get, but both times my roomie was in the store she was wearing leggings, how in the hell would she even get away with that.)
4. When he realized we hadn’t stolen anything, he tried to backtrack and make excuses, guilt us with the small business owner spiel, instead of just coming outright and apologizing. Had he apologized we probably would have bought our minis and left, but instead, he decided to scold us, like a group of children. I turned to my roommate and said “Let’s just go to the mall.” We politely put our minis back on the shelf where they came from, turned around, and left that store. We left feeling humiliated, embarrassed, and angry. Good atmosphere, decent Warhammer selection, sub-par service, crazy...

The building seemed small, and unassuming from the outside. Posters, and markings in the windows indicating the plethora of games and events that the store supported. While I try not to judge a book by it's cover, I certainly didn't realize what I'd be stepping into.

I've imagined it must be like stepping into the Tardis. Seems small, and unassuming on the outside, but expansive, and immersive on the inside. Walls lined with various figures and bits ranging from the common, to the rare.

Ultimately, in spite of the massive amount of games (I even learned to play Super Dungeon Explore), or the extensive effort that's put into an amazing play-space... the people are what made the experience worthwhile.

Want to learn a game? They'll give you the rundown. Have some old Magic cards to sell? They'll explain the value and give you the options they can provide. Wanna play a game against the person who consistently rolls poorly? Bob's typically available, and always ready to show off his reliably poor dice rolling.

These folks have brought together a community. Groups of individuals who often don't know how to interact with people, come out of their shells and become open. Opportunities to meet some fantastic individuals that would be lost elsewhere. Beyond making a sale or offering a product, there is a community of gamers who are willing to offer games, advice, trades, laughs and friendship.

I'm an unashamed gamer. Yet my family hardly knows much more about the games I play, than how to roll dice. Still, when birthdays/holidays come around, I can send them to The Gamer's Haven, confident in the knowledge that whatever they find me will be well worth the trip.

Frankly, you can get most of this stuff online, or from a big box-store at a discounted price. (Show the staff a better price, and see if they can't make your trip worthwhile) But you owe it to yourself to see what's different about The...

The staff is fantastic but communication can be very sparse or inconsistent. I’ve ordered over the phone or through Facebook, often I’ll be told an order is placed with no “when” for fulfillment or no follow up from staff (this has happened several times). I’ve also been left on read or not known who I’ve talked to, so no accountability or ownership and then received shrugs.

I’d also wanted to set up some other ventures, doing dungeons and dragons there (with a monthly group) and even talking about teaching new players, however the communication turned from a let’s talk about it to a wishy washy response and turn around.

It’s still a wonderful space and the players are welcoming but it’s made me go elsewhere for orders and other spaces to play or even talk to other venues to help get people into D&D. It is sad that rather than feeling like there is that care...