02599: Exciting Gaming Library News!


So we just got home from the 7th anniversary celebration of the Gaming Library, which is pretty much one of the more well-known tabletop game retailers in the country. It's because of retailers like them that we no longer rely on Singapore-based gaming shops to continue to fuel our gaming hobby. Despite the hassles of getting from BGC too Mandaluyong on a Wednesday night during rush hour, we still made the trek to show our support and to see if we could snag any deals.

But the other part of the night were announcements related to a series of programs that Gaming Library has planned to continue to give back to the community and to hopefully get more notice from game publishers and designers out there.

First, Spectre Manila is also going to become a sort of gaming community location for Gaming Library much like DyceNDyne was before. So  it also means starting a series of themed game nights including a possible RPG dedicated night and a nice for playing unreleased games or at least advance copies of games, which is pretty exciting news indeed.

I'm most excited about The Collective, which is their effort to make buying games a little less risky for hobbyists. Basically it's a leasing program where you pay a P1,500 security deposit (unless you're already a Gold+ Member with Gaming Library) and you can lease one game for one week for 10% of its retail value. This can go one for up to three weeks thus 30%) and should you decide to buy a copy of the game, you'll get a new copy with your leasing fees deducted from the retail price. So basically it's like when you test drive a car before purchase. This will be piloted at their Greenbelt 5 retail location so we're definitely going to stay tuned for that.

It looks like they'll be using some of their demo / playtest copies for the leasing library, but they're also introducing a buy back program where you can sell your pre-loved (but still complete) games in exchange for store credit. These games will then either become part of the Collective or in time they hope to offer them at discounted rates under a pre-loved games section of the store.

And they're also working on a Tabletop Scholarship program, which is basically trying to get people to serious study games and to help teach games to other people. Tobie of course is my go-to gaming mentor but I understand that not everyone has someone that awesome in their lives. Details were limited at the time so I'm curious to find out how this program will develop.

On the whole, it looks like Gaming Library is taking some major steps to be more than just a board game retailer but also a bigger driver in the community than it has been in the past. And that's great news for fellow enthusiasts in this hobby and I'm certainly appreciative of their initiative.

In other news we just confirmed that we now qualify for Gaming Library's Emerald loyalty tier, which something we are happy about and slightly ashamed about since it speaks to how much we've invested in this hobby. But no regrets! Gaming is forever! LOL

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