For 5 Questions this week, the Herald visits with Robert Hageman, who co-owns Grand Cities Games with his brother, Jason. The shop is located at 120 N. Washington St., in Grand Forks.
Q: Why did you open a game store?
A: I've been open since Dec. 1, 2006. I've been at this location since 2011. At the time, it was because there were no other stores in town besides Barry’s Collectors Corner. He retired, I don't know it's been about three years now. My brother was really into comics and stuff and I was into Magic The Gathering, the card game. I was also just into board games and stuff like that. I just thought the town needed it.
Q: On Jan. 17, the Herald did a story on the difficulties of Broken Sentry, another game store. Do you have the same kind of problems here?
A: Yeah, Amazon, definitely. That's probably our main competition, but we find ways around it and we have good customers that support us. It is harder than what it used to be since I started. Amazon is bigger now. When I started, Amazon didn't bother me too much back then, it was more like the Targets and Walmarts and stuff like that. Amazon's really grown in the last four years.
ADVERTISEMENT
Q: What have you noticed about game stores across the country?
A: It seems like a lot of smaller ones closed down, but they still seem pretty solid. A lot of game stores survive off of people playing there. Some of the bigger cities obviously have more competition because they have five, six or seven stores. We only have really us and Broken Sentry. My store is quite a bit different than Broken Sentry. I have the same stuff as them, but I do comics and card games. I think you need basically all that stuff to survive. Customer service is really important, too, like treating your customers well.
Q: What products do you sell and what keeps people coming back?
A: So we do comics, board games, miniature games, card games and role-playing games. That's basically the main five. When I say card games, there are different ones like YuGiOh, Magic, Pokemon. With the movies nowadays, like all the Marvel movies, people like to read it, and people still like to physically read a book. We have what we call a pull-list, where we save comics for people every week and they come in and get their comics whenever they want.
Q: What do you hope for your business in the future?
A: I just hope to be open and be able to survive against Amazon and all the other ones. People have to come and shop with us and shop locally more often. I don't think a lot of people think game stores, when they think small business. Even though I've been here for 10 plus years, some people still don't know I exist. I just hope I'm still here, and I’m successful.
