The board game cafe vs store question is usually answered with “both.” Most cafes sell a shelf of games, and most stores have tables in the back. The Ludarium is answering it with “neither, and specifically not the store part.” We will teach games, recommend them, and tell you exactly where in Indianapolis to buy them. We will not stock a single one for sale. This article explains why, including the money we are leaving on the table and why we think it is the right money to leave.
What is the difference between a board game cafe and a store?
A store is a retailer. Revenue is product. The play space exists to move product.
A cafe charges for the visit, through a cover or food and drink, and often sells games on the side because customers ask and the margin is there.
A lounge, which is what we are building, sells membership. The room and the people in it are the product. We covered the full contrast in why we’re building a game lounge instead of a game store. The question here is narrower: once you are a lounge, why not add a shelf?
Why does a retail shelf change the room?
Because a shelf is never just a shelf. It is a second business with its own needs, and the second business starts voting.
It needs square footage. Every linear foot of retail is a foot that is not a quiet table or a locker. In a first space sized to be full, that trade is real.
It needs inventory decisions. What to stock, how many, when to discount, what to do with the copies that do not move. Someone has to spend hours on that, and those are hours not spent hosting.
It needs a distributor relationship. Minimum orders, terms, the slow discovery that the hot new game is allocated and you will get two copies in March.
It changes what the host recommends. This is the one that worries us most. A host who knows the shelf has forty copies of a game that is not selling will, without meaning to, steer tables toward it. The recommendation stops being “you will love this” and starts being “we need to move this.” Members can feel the difference, even when they cannot name it.
The game store already lost this fight the other way. It gave away the room to sell boxes, and we wrote about that in what coworking got right that game stores got wrong. We do not want to lose it in reverse by giving away the host’s honesty to sell boxes.
What about the margin we are giving up?
It is real, and we are not pretending otherwise.
Game retail margins are thin compared to food and drink, and store owners writing in the trade press have shown how a modest across-the-board discount can erase a shop’s gross profit when it tries to match online prices. But a small curated shelf of games members just played does sell, and other venues report it as a meaningful line. We are choosing to forgo it.
Here is the comparison as we see it.
| With a retail shelf | Without | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | A modest additional line | None from games |
| Staff time | Ordering, pricing, stocking, returns | All on hosting |
| Floor space | Shelf and backstock | Tables and quiet zone |
| Host incentives | Pulled toward what needs selling | Only toward what the table will love |
| Local game stores | Competitors | Allies who send us people |
| Member perception | “They want to sell me something” | “They want me to have a good night” |
The last two rows are the whole argument. We think a lounge that is visibly not trying to sell you anything earns a kind of trust that a shelf costs, and that trust is what keeps a member for two years instead of two months.
If you want to follow the build, the newsletter is where we post each step first.
Why do we want the game stores as allies?
Because Indianapolis has good ones, and we need them more than they need us.
A city with a strong store and a strong lounge is better off than a city with one of each trying to do both jobs. The store sells you Wingspan. The lounge is where you play it every Thursday with people who also own it. Neither competes with the other if both stay in their lane.
Practically, that means a wall in our space listing the local stores by neighborhood, with what each one is good at. It means our hosts saying, “You can get that at the shop ten minutes from here,” and meaning it. It means asking stores to send their customers to our public game nights when they do not have table space, and sending our members to their release events.
Our article on Indianapolis board game stores by neighborhood is the online version of that wall. Stores that see us sending people their way are stores that mention us. That is worth more than a shelf.
How do we make any money from recommending games, then?
Online, through affiliate links, and transparently.
When we recommend a game in an article, there is often a link that pays us a small commission if you buy through it. We mark those. It costs you nothing extra, it never changes what we recommend, and it is the only form of game revenue we plan to take. It also lives entirely outside the building, so it cannot vote on the room.
Beyond that, our revenue is membership, corporate events, and food and drink, in roughly that order. We walked through the stack in our membership math article. Games are the medium, not the product. The product is the table and the people at it.
What will members do when they fall in love with a game?
Ask the host where to buy it, get a real answer, and go buy it. Then bring it back and play it with us, or leave it in their locker if they are at a tier that includes one.
We think this is better for the member too. A copy of a game you bought at a shop because the lounge host said you would love it is a copy you will actually play. A copy you bought on impulse on the way out the door at eleven at night is a copy that goes on a shelf at home. We have all got those.
Will we ever change our minds?
Possibly, and if we do we will say so in an article like this one. The honest version of the risk is this: if the membership math is tighter than we expect and a shelf would be the difference between surviving and not, we will reconsider. We are not martyrs about it.
But we are starting from no, and the bar to move off it is high. Every decision about the room has to pass the togethering test: does this help people come together and stay at the table? A shelf does not. A host who is only ever on your side does.
FAQ
Do board game cafes sell games?
Many do, usually a small curated selection. It is a modest revenue line that also costs floor space, staff time, and some independence in what the staff recommend.
Why doesn’t The Ludarium sell games?
Because a retail shelf changes the room’s priorities, competes with local stores we want as allies, and pulls hosts toward selling rather than recommending. Our revenue is membership, events, and food and drink.
Where should I buy a game I played at a game lounge?
At a local game store. The Ludarium’s hosts will tell you which Indianapolis shop carries it, and our articles include affiliate links for people who prefer to order online.
Is a game lounge a competitor to a local game store?
It should not be. The store sells games, the lounge is where people play them weekly. A city with both is better for players than a city with either alone.
Follow the build
Every decision like this one is a bet, and we will report on how it pays off or does not. The game is the reason. The people are the point. The shelf is somebody else’s job.
Follow the build by subscribing to the newsletter. One email a week, the Indianapolis store wall when we publish it, and the first word when the lounge opens.
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