Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Without Villainous Lair, gamers adrift
Comic-store closure will leave some players with "nowhere to go"
Inside the Villainous Lair
“Deep crushedness is the general feel around here,” said Matt Bantelman. “I’ve gone out of the way to not mention it this evening because everyone’s trying to play [games] and have fun, and then inevitably I make eye contact with another player and ask, ‘Where you gonna play after this?’ and the other person kinda looks down.”
Over the weekend (January 14–15) hundreds of gamers like Bantelman congregated at the Villainous Lair Comics & Gaming store in Normal Heights, paying up to $30 to score the Ixalan cards from the newest Magic the Gathering game set.
On Friday (January 12th) at midnight, “over 70 gamers” lined up for first crack at the new set. But the exhilaration of obtaining the latest creatures, artifacts, sorceries, enchantments, instants, and mana (land) wore off as the gamers spoke about the fate of their local gaming hub.
“A message from the Evil Overlord of the Villainous Lair,” posted Alison Flynn on the store’s Facebook page on January 3rd. “The Villainous Lair will cease typical operations at the end of this month.”
Chris Mitchell
I visited the store during the tournament on Saturday (January 13th), and Flynn was not available for an interview; however, I did find Chris Mitchell, who was managing the tournament for the new set. “I’m sad because Allison and myself helped put this [shop] together — we were the founders of it [six and a half years ago],” he said. “We did everything we could to keep the doors open but finances are what they are and we can’t keep it open anymore.”
Mitchell blames their slow sales on collectors being able to buy the card games at Walmart, Target, and “then Barnes & Noble’s saying, ‘We are doing game night so you guys can do this over here [too]’; and Amazon is opening up stores that cater to this type of stuff, too….
“Freakin’ Walmart is selling [some stuff] at our cost,” Michell explained to me as he gave the tournament winner a bag of goodies. “It’s not just the internet [eBay and Amazon] hurting us, it’s also more competition and the big-box stores are getting in on this stuff.”
Bantelman is a 36-year-old roofer from City Heights. “When I saw the [closing of the store] news on social media,” he said, “I sat down and got emotional because there’s a lot of memories here at their ‘cavern of gaming.'”
Matt Bantelman
Many of the gamers played at the 4700-square-foot facility for hours and some went on weekend binges, continuing the duels at their homes. Caffeine and snack breaks at the nearby Starbucks or Lestat’s was common and a comic-book read in front of the venue “counterspelled” the monotony.
The other gamers I spoke to said that they have “nowhere to go” and feel displaced.
Bantelman says otherwise: “That’s the one upside to the closing of the store, is that we can go out there and explore [just like the game] — it’s like losing your home and having to stay at hotels for awhile, you know?”
“That’s why everyone’s so sad, because these are the people that did come out and play Magic,” Mitchell said. “These are the people that met, made friends, and they got to form bonds with others. That’s the thing you are gonna miss when these type of stores are gone.”
Here's something you might be interested in.
Without Villainous Lair, gamers adrift
Comic-store closure will leave some players with "nowhere to go"
Without Villainous Lair, gamers adrift
Comic-store closure will leave some players with "nowhere to go"
Inside the Villainous Lair
“Deep crushedness is the general feel around here,” said Matt Bantelman. “I’ve gone out of the way to not mention it this evening because everyone’s trying to play [games] and have fun, and then inevitably I make eye contact with another player and ask, ‘Where you gonna play after this?’ and the other person kinda looks down.”
Over the weekend (January 14–15) hundreds of gamers like Bantelman congregated at the Villainous Lair Comics & Gaming store in Normal Heights, paying up to $30 to score the Ixalan cards from the newest Magic the Gathering game set.
On Friday (January 12th) at midnight, “over 70 gamers” lined up for first crack at the new set. But the exhilaration of obtaining the latest creatures, artifacts, sorceries, enchantments, instants, and mana (land) wore off as the gamers spoke about the fate of their local gaming hub.
“A message from the Evil Overlord of the Villainous Lair,” posted Alison Flynn on the store’s Facebook page on January 3rd. “The Villainous Lair will cease typical operations at the end of this month.”
Chris Mitchell
I visited the store during the tournament on Saturday (January 13th), and Flynn was not available for an interview; however, I did find Chris Mitchell, who was managing the tournament for the new set. “I’m sad because Allison and myself helped put this [shop] together — we were the founders of it [six and a half years ago],” he said. “We did everything we could to keep the doors open but finances are what they are and we can’t keep it open anymore.”
Mitchell blames their slow sales on collectors being able to buy the card games at Walmart, Target, and “then Barnes & Noble’s saying, ‘We are doing game night so you guys can do this over here [too]’; and Amazon is opening up stores that cater to this type of stuff, too….
“Freakin’ Walmart is selling [some stuff] at our cost,” Michell explained to me as he gave the tournament winner a bag of goodies. “It’s not just the internet [eBay and Amazon] hurting us, it’s also more competition and the big-box stores are getting in on this stuff.”
Bantelman is a 36-year-old roofer from City Heights. “When I saw the [closing of the store] news on social media,” he said, “I sat down and got emotional because there’s a lot of memories here at their ‘cavern of gaming.'”
Matt Bantelman
Many of the gamers played at the 4700-square-foot facility for hours and some went on weekend binges, continuing the duels at their homes. Caffeine and snack breaks at the nearby Starbucks or Lestat’s was common and a comic-book read in front of the venue “counterspelled” the monotony.
The other gamers I spoke to said that they have “nowhere to go” and feel displaced.
Bantelman says otherwise: “That’s the one upside to the closing of the store, is that we can go out there and explore [just like the game] — it’s like losing your home and having to stay at hotels for awhile, you know?”
“That’s why everyone’s so sad, because these are the people that did come out and play Magic,” Mitchell said. “These are the people that met, made friends, and they got to form bonds with others. That’s the thing you are gonna miss when these type of stores are gone.”
Comments