Dangerous Gentlemen Gamesellers — Local services in Longview

DG is perhaps a hidden gem of Longview. While one of the best shops in the region, it's not perfect, which I'll detail below.

I grew up thinking board games were way too geeky to even play. But after a friend convinced me to come to the shop and play a few games, I quickly found a place among the other regulars at the DG shop, as we have come to call it.

Trent, the DG owner, is very kind and is great at recommending games and even playing them with you to help you narrow down your wish list before purchase! The DG Shop is fairly clean and organized and the bathroom is quaint and spotless! Although some have complained of a gasoline or BO smell. When making purchases, you can see the behind the register is extremely messy. While this didn't affect customers, it is very strange. Snacks are sold in the $1-2 range including protein candies like PayDay or Slim Jim jerky and energy drinks or tea to keep you gaming all night long until the loose closing time of midnight-1am. However, since the only wholesome available food is the adjacent restaurant for $10 average and closing at 6-7pm, DG needs something more than snickers to keep people healthy and gaming into the wee hours. I'd suggest liquid pre bottled Soylent, which could be sold for $4-5 and is an entire meal while testing like almond milk. The same thing is being introduced to esports players.

The community of players is what makes the magic happen at DG. The tall and expansive shelves of games are impressive to look at, but there is also a "free to play here" shelf with something like 50-100 games! Regulars tend to be extremely well read across a range of subjects and memorize and strategize over endless amounts of games. They enjoy playing new and old games alike and every Tuesday at 6pm people show up and play whatever someone has.

The main problem with the board game industry in general is that there are no refunds or way to demo most games. Trent could work towards alleviating this by buying and selling used board games like how GameStop does for video games or more openly advocating digital storefronts like tabletop simulator on steam, where you can demo games and play with friends from free to $8 after the $20 setup. I don't think the digital games eat into the market since it's such a different experience to play with the games with your hands in person...

Dangerous Gentlemen is the only store of it's kind in the LVK area, and I think it is great in that aspect. The store owner carries a great variety of tabletop games. I can't think of a time where I wanted to find a specific game, and not been able to find it on the shelves of this store.

But to that extent, I have also never purchased a tabletop game from Dangerous Gentlemen, due to the owners high mark-ups, and unwillingness to price match on games that have been on the market for quite a while, and have the same median price range at any other retailer. I once attempted to purchase a copy of Marvel dice masters, which is a $15 game, and found that he had the game marked at $25 simply because it was the only copy in town, even though there was a scheduled shipment for later in the month. (I later bought this game at a retailer in Beaverton, at face value)

The second issue with this store is that even if you don't mind paying more than the product is worth, you may not be able to handle the stench of the place long enough to find what you are looking for. The place smells like spoiled milk and rotten eggs, with the undertones of a teenager that hasn't showered in a few weeks.

I am a heavy proponent for supporting local businesses, but the owner of Dangerous Gentlemen makes it very difficult for me to want to give him my hard...

Disappointed that this store was firing FNM with little/no mask wearing and no physical distancing (the county is in phase 2 as of writing this). We likely won't be back. I didn't appreciate the owner basically saying "who's gonna stop us" and also claiming the requirements/guidelines are unclear. No more than 5 people should be gathered in one space if they aren't from the same household and no more than 5 people should be seated at one table at a time. It's in the governor's safe start plan. Please be more responsible and at least make sure all your patrons are wearing masks at all times since distancing is not possible with your store's current setup. Covid is real and businesses need to be better at taking guidelines seriously if we are ever going to be able to get...