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This past weekend our store was fortunate to be one of the stops on the Tenacious Games Summer Tour 2007. I want to let other retailers know how great of an experience it was. These tournaments are coordinated by Tenacious Games and attended by their own team, The Spoilers.

The Spoilers and the crew are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. They showed up with smiles on their faces, introduced themselves, and then proceeded to get the event set up. They set up the Spoils banners, got the tables ready for play, and then ran demos for people who wanted to learn more about the game. The Spoilers are extremely knowledgeable about all facets of gaming and are wicked-good players. It was a great experience having them visit as they seemed like the kind of people you'd hang out with as friends. It was not a "button-down-corporate feeling" event, and yet it was still very professional.

As for the bus... it's awesome! The huge Spoils logo emblazoned across the sides made more than a few heads turn on the highway in front of our store. The local paper did a write-up about the bus coming and many people drove by to check it out. This is exactly the type of thing our industry needs to show the validity of gaming.

Something else that is impressive is the fact that Tenacious has even gone so far as to bring in sponsors for the tour. One of the most noticeable is BAWLS Guarana drinks. The drink is known to people in electronic gaming, paintball, and extreme sports but is not a name that many "non-electronic" gamers have heard. It's forward thinking and innovative ideas like this that have the potential to make non-electronic gaming more recognizable by the general public and with it bring more customers and players into our stores.

Tenacious Games understands the importance the hobby industry and the game stores hold in making their product succeed. At the same time, they know in order for them to succeed we must succeed. They are very easy to work with in getting set up to host tournaments and their prize support program is very generous... if not one of the best.

If your store does not currently carry The Spoils you owe it to yourself (and Tenacious) to give the game a try. At the very least try one box each of the original booster, the second booster, and the pre-con trade decks.

This game is not being sold to the mass-market stores. This fact alone should convince you to give the game a try. Game and hobby stores need to support the companies that take a risk with us by not going "mass." Practically every card game manufacturer sells into the big chains, and while this is making some quick "short-term" profits for them, the long term results are that it is killing their games and taking the game stores with them.

The Spoils is one of the few card games that is being sold only to the game market and we need to support them. It's in our own best interest.