Operation: Game Night
Travis Smith, Jared Erickson, and Clay Gable get together to discuss the latest and greatest in board games in this weekly podcast. What's hot, what's hitting the table, featured discussions about board games and the board gaming culture, and the primary mission objective- to play more board games!
Operation: Game Night
OGN Ep 37: Inside Scoop on Friendly Local Game Stores (ft. Cam from Petrie's Family Games)
Step behind the counter of a thriving local game store as we sit down with Cam, the heart and soul behind Petrie's Family Games in Colorado Springs. In this candid conversation, Cam reveals how a childhood obsession with Talisman evolved into a beloved community hub that's been bringing gamers together since 2009.
Far from the stereotypical dark, unwelcoming game stores of yesteryear, Cam shares how Petrie's deliberately focused on creating a bright, accessible space where relationships matter more than transactions. "We're not just selling games," he explains, "we're becoming part of people's weekly routines, their culture." This philosophy becomes evident as Cam recalls recognizing customers by name from their first visit—a seemingly small gesture that creates lasting loyalty.
The podcast offers rare insights into the genuine challenges of running a game store in today's market. With thousands of new games releasing monthly, Cam describes the impossible task of curating inventory when "if you stocked everything available, it would be a warehouse and even then you wouldn't be able to find anything." We learn how Petrie's balances the revenue-driving demands of trading card tournaments with their passion for family-centered events like their annual Couples' Dessert Night featuring cheesecake, themed decorations, and two-player games.
Perhaps most eye-opening is Cam's thoughtful explanation of why game stores aren't an easy path to profit. "Don't get into this to get rich," he advises potential store owners, challenging the fantasy that owning a game store means getting paid to play games. Instead, success comes from "loving spreadsheets, projections, marketing... and even mopping floors."
Whether you're a curious gamer, an aspiring entrepreneur, or simply fascinated by the intersection of passion and business, this episode offers a heartfelt look at what it truly takes to create a space where every player feels welcome. Subscribe now and join us at the gaming table!
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Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast, Episode 37. Welcome to the Operation Game Night podcast, episode 37. Today we are joined by a very special guest owner, proprietor, manager of our favorite friendly local game store, Cam from Petri's Family Games. Cam, how are you? I'm great, how are you so good? We are so excited to have you on this podcast. I don't know if you have ever listened to a single episode, but you could probably select at random one of our past 36 episodes and we probably mentioned Petri's at least twice, specifically clay, because he knows that half of his paycheck goes straight to Petri's game.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I watched two of your episodes getting ready for this, so sorry, not I didn't go through all 36.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't wish that on anyone?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I do remember Petri's being mentioned at least three times in the two that I watched. Oh perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah so. We brag about Petri's a lot.
Speaker 4:Yeah, cam, you're kind of like the great matchmaker of Operation Game Night, like if you think of Mulan, you know you create the of Operation Game Night. If you think of Mulan, you create the mojo to bring us together. I don't know, this is a surreal moment for me. I did not spend as much time in Petri's as my two esteemed co-hosts here, but I'm very excited to see what kind of things we get into today while we we deep dive petries, one of our beloved, uh mainstays of the podcast.
Speaker 1:So thanks for coming on, cam, no problem I'm I'm happy to do this excellent, and joining me, as always, are my co-hosts clayton, gable clay, how are you?
Speaker 3:I'm doing good. I said beforehand, this is after hours. Petri's, I am in here. There are no customers. This is exclusive VIP treatment. Cam says that other people get it, but we won't focus on that.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised you're not on the lease at this point, because you're probably paying half of their mortgage.
Speaker 4:Get the keys to the kingdom. I was gonna say the background. This is not. This is not the basement of Oak Valley Ranch OVR. This is behind you.
Speaker 3:We're in it, we're here in Petries.
Speaker 1:I yeah, a podcast about petries being recorded in petries?
Speaker 4:yeah, oh my gosh, it's very meta very exciting and listener.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you can tell, but uh, jared has his chain on and he smells like bad boy. So, jared, welcome to the podcast hey, thank you, I actually.
Speaker 4:I actually was unable to get a squirt of bad boy on me before the podcast. I probably smell like Conecuh sausage. I was just on my block. I was grilling up some breakfast. We might be getting some game time. Getting things to the table after the podcast. I got some buddies eating my buttermilk pancakes as we speak. That's why I'm trying to keep my volume low, or you know, I'm going on mute as much as I can, so if I start talking and you're like Jared, get off mute Cause they're having a ruckus time. There's a couple of kids in the in the other room next door building up to a good game morning A game morning Underrated the game morning.
Speaker 4:The game morning yes, I will say I'm a little sad to see Clay without a tie today. Last week's podcast I was unable to to attend, but clay was dressed to impress last week I'm still on a high after seeing him in a tie I do have a collar yeah, he does have a collar. I was just gonna say, you think?
Speaker 1:so I don't think I'm ever gonna change trade in the five milli, but we could start being like a formal you'd have like a formal day I show up like, like, uh, like stepbrothers, where we're all wearing tuxes to record the podcast one day we just show up tuxes, but you guys didn't even talk about it on the like on spotify.
Speaker 2:I didn't even hear about the tie.
Speaker 4:and then ad's like why is Clay in a tie? And I'm like what? And then I look on the Instagram and, sure enough, there he is Just completely gush.
Speaker 3:I didn't think it needed explanation, that's just my prerogative to dress up some days.
Speaker 1:We were all about business last week, but this week we're all about a specific business, which is Petri's Family Games. Boop, boop, all about a specific business, which is petri's family games. So I know he's a pro. Yeah, our esteemed guest, we want to hear a little bit about you. Uh, you know, tell us a little bit about petri's and tell us more specifically about what games you played this week oh, that was like three leading questions in a row. Start with yourself.
Speaker 2:You know my name, so born and bred in Colorado Springs, so that's probably the most easy fact about myself. Okay, travis, you got to give me a little bit more here. Do you want me where I grew up, how I did that, how we?
Speaker 1:came to this. Tell us a little bit like what are your game tastes?
Speaker 2:board game tastes, uh, okay, well, actually that'll lead into a little less about me and more about the store, but okay, I like that. So I grew up in the generation of hobby games being kind of maybe 20 to choose from. Um, that was back when games workshop actually had board games. Um, I know it's crazy to think about um and I think them gosh. I know there's gonna be people correcting me on this avalon hill, tsr, and there's a couple others, um, there's one that comes west end, west end games, the original publishers of what you guys would know like Arabian Nights. Okay, yeah, so not a lot of their titles remain, but anyway. So, yeah, there was, like you know, four or five guys to choose from, of which they only had four or five titles. And there's this one title that GW used to do called Talisman, which is, oh yeah, newly printed as of last Christmas. So Talisman second edition hit the scene and that was, that was candy for my junior high brain to, oh, my goodness, um, and that just grew.
Speaker 2:The nice thing about talisman if anybody out there doesn't know anything about it is it is like the epitome of sandbox. It has very, very little mechanic. It's roll the die move, but it's open move, like you don't have to go in a single direction, like you do in Monopoly or something like that. And then on top of that, you just collect things and you collect swords, and you collect followers, and you collect horses, and they all do something to your character that makes you better, so that you can eventually take on the bad guy at the end. And then expansions start coming out and the next thing you know it takes up an entire dining room table and, um, and possibly even some of the floor, and so a lot of my grade school, junior high, high school friends got back together again to start an annual talisman day and I love this this point'd started working with Talisman Island.
Speaker 2:To look him up. He's awesome Out of Britain. What's great about him is that he lived not too far from the source, so anytime Games Workshop would have something drop, he was there on hand. And so we all started the Talisman Island fan conglomerate of creating expansions and it became a big deal. Um, they asked. One of my friends actually printed out everything that was viable and played through as a solo and it took him close to a week to get through the game because there was so much material. So it just became like the thing, sandbox-wise, Fast forward, and that became kind of.
Speaker 2:My group of generals that pushed me into starting a store and they were the original like 15 of us that they were on my initial board of directors. You know, advisory. The whole thing and that's how Petri's came to be was through just an insistence on playing this one board game for 20, 30 years of our lives. So, yeah, I mean that's that also comes from being a local and never moving out of your hometown. So yeah, you still. You're still in contact with your grade school friends.
Speaker 4:What year was that? What year did you start Petri's?
Speaker 2:Petri's was started in 2009 in another location it's not the current location that it's in now and at the time there weren't a lot of stores. I mean, the game store had that sort of reputation. You know the comic book guy from the Simpsons, you know that kind of person standing behind the counter. Usually it was a darker place. You know they were all dungeon-y, they didn't really take marketing or atmosphere into account and you know. So that was our move, was that we wanted to try and become sort of the antithesis to that on the North side of Colorado Springs and again, anybody who's watching that doesn't know Colorado Springs.
Speaker 2:The Springs is kind of cut up into sections and the north, south and then, of course, the west downtown area is sort of never really has anything to do with each other. And there was a really amazing store downtown at the time and it would take us 30 minutes or more just to get down there and while that's not horrible, when you think about a high schooler's gas budget, that just wasn't feasible. So it was always kind of the intention to try and give kids an opportunity to go someplace similar up here and on the north side. The irony is that since that time, most game stores have turned around.
Speaker 2:The Gaming Cafe came along that whole trend and um places like wizard of the coast or ravensburger insist on stores having a certain level of professionalism if they're even going to get support for events. And so now we're kind of old hat, like we're just doing things the way you're supposed to do it, where at the time I thought we were really novel and rich. So yeah, so I guess we won the war, I don't know. It's it's rare that you find that the dungeon-y sort of feel a game store anymore. If anything, it feels novel now and you do yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like the, the, the game stores that are going for that specific vibe, like they are largely focused on dnd and tabletop gaming more than the board game, right, yeah yep, yep or magic.
Speaker 4:You know your magic centric stores so, kim, did you go to rampart high school? I did. How did?
Speaker 2:you know that I.
Speaker 4:I mean you're looking at three boys that the year that you, the year that you join or that you started petries, we all entered the air force academy together oh true, and that's how we got together and that's why you know this budding relationship. That's how ogn really came to be and uh so, but, yeah, little did we know, you know, years later we would just be throwing cash at cam.
Speaker 2:So um, yeah, I mean back back then. You know, district 20 was just air academy, rampart and liberty, or uh, not, yeah, no, not liberty, liberty. Yeah, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get some feedback for that. Anyway, that's real, don't worry, we have like 30 people that listen and who knows, this could be the one that explodes, we're gonna send it will be our influencers yeah, in colorado springs um, which might be just clay's brother, um, we're gonna go big.
Speaker 4:in colorado springs this episode Nice.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. It's funny because we used to have this running gag about during prom the number of cadets that would show up as dates. We've had our eyes on you guys for some time. Oh geez. Springs are always watching Awesome.
Speaker 3:Cadets are kind of the worst, though Sometimes.
Speaker 1:If I was a Springs native, I wouldn't be a fan of them. Oh yeah, we are. Though we are, it's part of our culture, you know? Yeah, so before we get too deep into petri's lore, uh, why don't you debrief your week and tell me what games you played this week?
Speaker 2:oh okay, so I've got to have my cheat sheet for that. Um, I'm I'm finding that the older I get and the more games I play, oh, my goodness, you uh start having a catalog of like a thousand games and it's just like I I start losing it really easy. Um, so, going back to last weekend, phantom west was a big one. Um, oh, you're gonna just start with beyond the horizon. Let's just do that, let's talk about beyond the horizon, okay.
Speaker 2:So beyond the horizon was, um, kind of a rewrite of beyond the stars, and beyond the stars it was okay with it. Um, it's basically tech tree, the game is what a lot of people call it, uh. So beyond horizon came along and said, okay, hold my beer, I can do it better, and it's, it's the same thing, it's a tech tree. That's what a lot of people call it. So Beyond Rising came along and said, okay, hold my beer, I can do it better, and it's the same thing, it's a tech tree. That's what the main large board there is. But you see, the little hexes on the side is actually a civ builder. So they took it out of a science fiction, put it into a historical setting and now the focus is all on that hex area where you're actually building settlements and and fortifying them and there's a there's a lot of written theme not shown theme. Um, but yeah, as a whole, it's a stronger game. I hate to say it, but it's true. The other problem I had with beyond the stars was that it wasn't the most graphically intense game. Um, it was pretty much. You know, starfields with white writing on it where, looking at this, it's a lot more color. Essentially it's the same game and I could actually see people making arguments to why you would want one or the other, but I wouldn't see having both. The sad thing is, when Beyond the Stars came out, it hit to the Ge top 100, like instantly, overnight. It was amazing. The response was huge. Then suddenly this thing comes out and it's barely a blip on the map, even though I think personally, I think it's a better game, mainly because people see on the shelf and they're like well, I don't need another Beyond the title, but, yeah, just really solid. You like civ builders if you like tech trees. Um, now, one of the guys I was playing with yesterday so uh, shout out to nathan for for his observation on this. Um, I'm totally stealing it.
Speaker 2:The the mechanic of having a tech tree as a game is is just that it's mechanic. It's not the whole game. Yeah, and um, it's very similar to like comparing dominion to, uh, any bag builder or say, like clank, because deck building as a whole has become part of a game. It's not the game. Yet when dominion came out, that was a really truly original. Yeah, beyond the stars brought the idea or concept of a tech tree. Yes, as a game beyond the horizon says no, that's just the mechanic, here's the real game and uh, I really, really appreciate the refocusing on that yeah that's interesting yeah, is that?
Speaker 3:is this, would you say, harder than beyond the sun, or is it?
Speaker 2:so I struggled getting into it. Unfortunately, it was one of those where it's like I just started catching on to the game like two turns before it ended. Um, yeah, because and that happens a lot with euros but um, yeah it. It is definitely one of those where the rules are simple. You can lay things out and say okay, you have to do this, this or this. There's a nice, really great index card that you get that shows you what to do all your options.
Speaker 2:The problem is, I was befuddled beyond anything. It's like okay, I really need this, but I don't know how to get it. Well, you have to do this action, the next turn, you have to do another action, that the turn after that you might get it. Okay, and then, of course, you lose your focus and you're like but time turn three came around, you forgot that's why you were doing things. Um, so that's the complexity, is the knowing what to do. Is it's um, or another another thing that was dropped when we were playing it. Somebody said you know, zip point salad, and it's like no, it's more like a action salad. So and which is true for the other game I'm going to talk about too um, both of them just felt like there was just a plethora of options and you just choose one to see what happens do you?
Speaker 3:do you lean more towards heavier games, are you?
Speaker 2:personally, because of my roots, I like sandbox, I'm like adventure games okay but the problem with adventure games is, you know they they take 10 minutes to explain, but three hours to yeah, so they don't work well in the store, to be honest. So when you're playing in the store you have to take on some more Euro style.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, I was going to say I'm a big Euro guy, so that just fired off in my brain. I was just like oh my gosh, I want to get to the end of that track right now. Oh my gosh, I want to get to the end of that track right now and I want to know exactly what actions I need to take and what resources I need to give to do that.
Speaker 2:As soon as you figure that out, then the next game all of the tech changes.
Speaker 4:Oh, it's like the map changes every time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Can you go back to the picture of the board real quick? Yeah, I'm giving a set. I'm waylaying stupor here, I'm sure.
Speaker 4:Yes, travis has to run the behind the scenes now yeah, all the pressure, you can tell it's stress on his face. See, cam, this is the best part of being the guy that has no idea about anything. I just show up with my five millimeter chain and I just talk.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I love it.
Speaker 3:It's a lot of fun. He's got a good gig, yeah.
Speaker 2:He's got a good thing going. So if you look to the far right there, you'll see that there's only three spots.
Speaker 2:And those three spots, so that's your fourth. That's your tech level four. And those three spots, so that's your fourth. That's your tech level four. The farthest to the left is your ancient civilization, so that's things like inventing the wheel, where stuff to the right is like astrophysics and there's also leaders. So thematically it's really amazing because each time you go to a new column, if you're the first one there, you get to draw a leader. It gives you a one-time bonus.
Speaker 2:So there were some guys that I drew. I'm just like I have no idea who this guy is. So if you're a history nerd, it gives you, you know, it gives you an excuse to go googling. Um, but yeah, that's so. Basically, in order to get to column two, I have to have unlocked something on column one, and in order to get column three, you have to have locked sometimes up to two or three things on column two, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:Um, so as long as you're meeting the prerequisites of your civilization, you know kind of, you know evolving, then you're allowed to move on to the next, next level. And that was actually the problem I struggled with. I I kept looking out there and I'm seeing like three of my guys on the tech tree and they had like eight each and I'm just like I can't behind on this. But but you know my I was investing on the field. I had a lot more troops at the early on than they did, so awesome. But yeah, if you, if you like things like through the ages or either one of the fantasy flight civ games um, this has that same exact feel, um, but doing it through a worker placement euro that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Oh, do you want to talk to us about? Uh, super moody, super okay yeah, super.
Speaker 2:That is so far on my list of the best things I've played this year. Whoa, um. Now I got to play the kickstarter version, so what you see here on the geek is not the same exact. But yeah, give me a board shot here if you don't mind. Thematically I didn't get the full story, but basically you've got the king, which is the hex board on the far end, the upper part of the picture there, and then you've got the four, the four pseudo kingdoms, like your lords, who are either supporting or, um, not supporting the the king, and so he's actually building a castle. That comes through various types of um. You do things basically to give you the ability to affect that, and if I'm supporter, then I'm going to help add pieces to his castle. If I'm not a supporter, then I'm taking pieces away from his castle. And where that comes into play is there's actual Gosh? How do you explain that there are actual? Is there a Rondell? I'm trying to see this picture. Sorry, I know I'm out of frame.
Speaker 4:Ron, were you about to say Rondell? Cause the Rondell Rondell fans here.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the Rondell actually is. I was wrong, I believe. In that picture the Rondell is that hex thing on the far upper left. What's that? Yes, that's it. There you go.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, as you move your ship around, you're given options for picking up those people which are the same glass windows, the little um point at the top, oh, cool, the advisors. And if they've got a blue background, then they're just regular folks who don't really like the king, and if they've got a gold background, then they're like royals and lords that do support the king and, depending on who you take is to put terms your in-game goals. So, like, a supporter is going to want the king to have a minimum of six pieces built on his castle, where a non-supporter wants there to be less than six of his castle, and so it creates this weird tug of war between the players where it's like I need to add pieces and the next thing I know Clay's coming along and taking those pieces back off, and so it just creates some tension that I absolutely loved. Um, the interaction between the four of us was was great. Lots of trash talk, that kind of stuff, nice. Um, the cards you see the squares, those just add to your hand and essentially it's kind of deck builder ish, um, you're creating a deck of actions and those cards give you better actions and sometimes they allow you to burn you know, old cards and make your deck better. Most of the times they don't, they just glut your hands. You have to be careful of that.
Speaker 2:And if you look at the player board, that would be anything that is a color basically, other than, I think, yellow. So that actually is more of a community board that gives you special actions. Not a lot to see there, to be honest. There we go, so you can kind of see there to the left where the cards are placed, so they slide under the board there and you can choose to use the card for the action, which is a face up, all the color, or you can choose to play face down so you can slough a card you don't really want.
Speaker 2:And you'll notice that the halberds, they are pointing their spears at the two different points of your, your board and essentially that just symbolizes that those little points are symbols also of generic actions you can take. Oh, I like that and, um, those, you know, anything from building your own castle to, uh, influencing the king, to, um, yeah, yeah, there's, there's a lot going on there, but again it's very similar to the last one. We were talking about very simple rule set as far as there's these five things that you need to know how to do, but good luck figuring out what order you want to do them in.
Speaker 1:yeah, and you know, the more castle pieces you build, the more you think things you unlock on your board to to be able to do so, cam, when you, when you start this game, do you get to decide if you are for or against the king, or is it just like I mean, you can't but um, no, you, you actually, like the person across the table from me was playing a mix, so she had, I think, one or two supporters, but then a majority of hers were non-supporters.
Speaker 2:So you just have to be careful of contradiction. Because you have a guy that pays you points if you have, you know, x amount of castle pieces, and you got another guy that pays you points for not having x amount of castle pieces, then you're only gonna get bonus points from one of those. So you just used a spot. Um, now the good news is that if you use up a spot with a contradiction like that, any advisor you have in your, your kingdom still gives you one point. He's just not gonna give you the bonus points, so you're not a complete loss. So, yeah, I mean, but it just became sort of that way. Um, we just naturally divided, uh, based upon the people that we ended up with. Um, but at the beginning, yeah, I mean, you can go in kind of thinking that you're going to, but until you see who your in-game bonus points are, you're not going to really know for sure yeah, that sounds amazing, I am into this.
Speaker 1:Just the iconography interacting with the board, with the halberds pointing at the different symbols, and like the 3d castles, I I'm into this man, yeah it looks cool it is.
Speaker 2:It was really an amazing presentation too. Um, if you get the kickstarter box, it actually looks like two giant volumes of like an old library book and so you slide on your shelf it box. It actually looks like two giant volumes of like an old library book and so when you slide it on your shelf, it looks like you've got some classic medieval book sitting on the shelf. That sounds awesome. But, yeah, it reminded me a lot of and the title is going to be escaping but there was a game about three years ago that was a college centric one, where you were at like um, you know 1700, 1600s, um college and you had to collect books, and I'm very vague here, but I remember hearing about that one, but I don't remember the name collegiate or something like that.
Speaker 2:It was another latin title, um, and I loved it. I thought it was great. Never got it back on the table, but loved it. And as I'm playing this one, I'm like oh, this is unlocking. All the same things I loved about that one, only I think it's doing it better. Awesome. Yeah, of course you get to build a castle.
Speaker 1:There's nothing better than that so, oh yeah, I'm gonna do it. Uh, tell me real quick about Critter Kitchen.
Speaker 2:Critter Kitchen. So apparently Clay is really into this game.
Speaker 3:So, listen, I'm actually really proud of myself because it was getting hyped up big time on Instagram and YouTube. You're seeing everybody posting about Critter Kitchen, critter Kitchen, and in the past, when I walked into Petri's, I saw critter kitchen sitting there and I was like you know what? I am not going to be swayed by this, this wave of excitement around this game. I'm gonna let it sit a little bit and see how it all shakes out after the excitement wears off. Although the presentation looks awesome, I was. I was unsure if the gameplay was worth it, if if you like Flamecraft, you'll like Critter Kitchen.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if you like Critter Kitchen, you'll like Flamecraft. Okay, I think Flamecraft is a great introduction game. Yeah, and it was really unique for its point in time when it came out, mainly for the artwork, yeah, and the fact that you were doing a worker placement that you know six to eight-year-old could actually wrap their brain around. And so Creator Kitchen is like the next step up and I think it's a better game. However, it doesn't have the cute presentation of dragons serving you coffee, so there's just a little bit lost on that. You know, there's just a little bit lost on that. But the general idea so why I'm a little down on Flamecraft was that essentially it's the same five things you know. It's like once you get your little engine built, it's the same engine you built probably the game previous. So there's a lot of like. Okay, I played this three, four times. I'm kind of done this one has a lot more variability.
Speaker 2:Okay and yes kind of doing the same same concept. Um, the thing I love about this one and I'm sure there's other games out there with this, this mechanic, uh, it's, it can't be original, but it felt really nice was that you have the three characters on the cover, um, and they're like fantasized. So it's not just a mouse, it's a flying mouse. Um, it's not just a boar, it's a boar that has, I think, like, extra horns, I, I don't know um, so it's some sort of weird alternate. You know reality of animals, um, the boar is the largest one. He can carry as much as he wants, but he's slow. The mouse can only carry one thing, but he's fast. And then you've got, I think, a lizard, it's the middle character.
Speaker 2:So what that means is that everybody blindly chooses which location they're going to go to and, um, and which one of their characters is going to that one. So everybody who chooses the location, the mice get to go first, so they get first pick, but they're only going to choose one thing all the way up to the boars, and then any boars that are remaining get to basically take whatever's left, and so it's a. It's a really weird decision of like okay, I really need that one ingredient, then I'm going to send the mouse there. But if, like man, there's a lot of great stuff at this location, I'm going to take my chance of getting as much of it as I can. And you know, hey, if nobody else plays their characters on that location, then sure you've got whatever you want. And then they balance that too with the last two spaces One's, I think, like an underground black market, I think, and the other one is a pantry of all the stuff that was left over from the previous round, and so you still can potentially get most of what you want.
Speaker 2:And then, behind the scenes, you take those ingredients and it's like a reality kitchen show, and you're putting together these dishes for the judge, and so there's different criteria that the judge wants to see, and she wants you to use more peppers and less whatever. I'd warn, I don't, I don't remember. Um, so, and then, yeah, you get. You get points based upon those dishes each round, but every time you use up an ingredient, that's it. And you only have so much storage space from round to round in your refrigerator.
Speaker 2:So, um, it just really fits the theme well, um, yeah, and cute animals, I mean, the artwork is just amazing. So, um, overall, this is probably the best thing on the shelf for the family market. If you're, you're looking for something new and original. I say that though. Um, there is there's a lot going on here, so it might be overwhelming to the younger kids, but for um, you know your 10, 10 years up age set all the way up to adults yeah, it's, it's a really good overall worker placement that just feels new and fresh you recommend starting with this or starting with flimcraft?
Speaker 1:I would start with flimcraft if you've got kids that are six. Yeah, okay, also you just describing that mechanism. I like the, the speed versus amount that they can carry it. I like that mechanic. That's pretty awesome. It is. It really is. It has to be. I don't know who you played as when you played this character, this game, but it can't feel great being the boar and like just getting stuck with leftovers all the time. That happened a lot. Yeah, cannot feel good. You can't.
Speaker 2:It says so, yeah, there's a lot of like uh, you know, you got to pull out your inner poker player a little bit.
Speaker 2:You know, you're looking at everybody at the table and thinking, okay, they're gonna want to go there, they're gonna go there. I found that by the end of the game I was doing a lot of okay, that's, that's an amazing place, which means that nobody's gonna go there. So so I'm going to go. I mean, everybody's going to go there. So I'm going to go to the second most amazing place, um, and then, of course, you get a little bit of a zini going in there where you're just like I know that, you know that you're going to go there, but you know that, I know that you know that, so you're going to go somewhere else. You know, they, it gets really kind of intense on that whole trying to figure it out, um, and so, yeah, there was a lot of times it's like everybody was in all the characters like one location, and you're just like, yeah, okay, my board's not taking anything home, poor, poor poor, poor sounds like me always slow.
Speaker 1:Awesome that. That that sounds awesome. Thanks for sharing, because I've seen this a lot online and I am very curious about it and I love the artwork and the theme and everything. But yeah, yeah, I just didn't know much about it besides this quasi relationship to flamecraft.
Speaker 2:So that's, that's a good explanation sure, sure, and there's a kickstarter version out there. Um, I think the kickstarter just comes with more, just, more just comes with more it comes with more characters that you can use and that kind of stuff. But honestly, this is one of the few times where I'm saying, yeah, Kingstar was nice, but you can get away with just the basic game, no problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I like that, excellent. Well, it looks like I'm walking out of here with clear kitchen today. You still got some.
Speaker 2:I actually have a lot on the shelf for this one.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, out of here with your kitchen today, you still got some.
Speaker 1:Uh, I actually have a lot on the shelf for this one, so, okay, well, all right, all right. Clay from new games tell me about your excursion into leader games this week, yeah, so I'm going to keep this short because I I want to get into the petri's business.
Speaker 3:All right, I want to know, but it's just a little bit of a novelty that on Friday night I played arcs and then on Saturday night I got to play Ahoy with the new horizons expansion and just just wanted to give my initial thoughts mainly on Ahoy because I hadn't played with the new horizons expansion yet. But man, it was tough. I compared the arcs like no leader game is going to be easy on the role set. But I played arcs. I mean, I probably played Ahoy and arcs the same amount of times. But when I went to set up and teach arcs, I haven't played it in months and months. I barely had to look at the rulebook. I kind of remembered how everything worked. I taught it pretty easily to the new players that were there. And then Ahoy I've played it the same amount of times and maybe it's just the asymmetric characters.
Speaker 3:And then trying to learn the four new ones, just the rules overhead, was crazy. I watched videos, I read the rule books for all the different characters and then still it was like I set the game up and I was like this is, this has a good chance of flopping because I I just don't know that I understand it well enough. You know, we got to a point with the base game of Ahoy where we understood pretty well the Mullusk Union and the Bluefin Squadron and the Smugglers were the same, so it was really only three things you had to know. But jumping up from three to seven different factions to learn and try and understand the rules for was a burden and I wanted to play the new stuff, but it was probably a mistake. I probably should have just, you know, maybe picked one of the new characters. We ended up playing with the new um yellow faction, which is the shellfire rebellion, and they kind of like shoot their comrades across the map onto different islands for control.
Speaker 3:Um, one guy played as the Leviathan, which I read the rule book, watched the video. I still don't even know what he was doing. He was kind of trying to like extend your body as long as you can and just eat people off islands, and it looked cool. He was having a fun time with it. And then I played. Who did you play with? I played Brady and Leah, two of my friends from work. Nice, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I play as the Coral Cap Pirates, which was actually really fun, but again, every single person I was playing this with was in the rule book like the whole time trying to, and that's just like how leader games is. That's just leader. I know Everything's very specific, like language really matters in their games, like the difference between moving and placing and a figure and a token and you know what initiates battle, like it's all very intricate and it's just something you have to really live with and play a lot. If you, if you want to play this game, I would not just get it off the shelf and be like, hey, teach it to a bunch of new people, right, and expect to have a good time. They kind of have to be invested and like, hey, we're probably going to play this game the next three weekends because it's really not worth it If you're, if you're not going to play it that much because there's just there's so much to it and that's why I haven't. Root is probably my favorite game.
Speaker 3:I haven game I haven't played in like two years because it's just so much of an overhead to get people spun up in these games that's what I was about to say.
Speaker 4:I was gonna say this is root and leader games again. But like you guys love it, it's your number one favorite. That's why I gave you guys root themed christmas gifts. It's like, yeah, once you're in it and you're vibing on it and everybody knows their crap, you show up to the table and you start battling and having a ton of fun. But it is tough, it's toughy. It's a commitment you got to commit.
Speaker 1:Also like Root. That would be like what you tried to do with Ahoy is the equivalent of like sitting down cracking open a new expansion for Root with all new factions and saying like, let's just play with these. Nobody's played this yet Nobody has understood what expansion for root with all new factions, and saying like, let's just play with these. Nobody's played this yet nobody has understood what these guys do like. Learning that stuff on the fly takes so much work and it was.
Speaker 4:It was hard for trying. Had your friends played the base version yet?
Speaker 3:no, so it was three people never played ahoy before and me, who's played, like you know, five or six times with the base factions and even those like I kind of had to relearn a little bit and then and then throwing in the new ones on top of it.
Speaker 3:It was ambitious, but till the end I really appreciated my coral cap pirates. I think that's a really fun faction to play. You're kind of like going to different suited islands and recruiting captains to like captain these little smaller ships, frigates, and then each of your frigates has a group of jobs you have to do. So you have to go to other islands to complete the jobs and I thought that was a lot of fun. Once I again I read the rule book before I read it for like the first half of the game and then in the last half of the game I was like, okay, I think I I understand how this faction works.
Speaker 3:But yeah, leader games I shouldn't like their games because every other game I like is like the opposite of this, like streamlined rules. I don't have to like anything If I'm in the rule book in a game. It really it really pisses me off. With leader games, I accept it because I just think they're so interesting and offbeat that it's worth it if you can keep playing it with the same group over and over again. Unfortunately, I haven't had that group so they have not gotten that. But ARX go back to ARX and the positive note. I have found that ARX is a lot easier to introduce to people because it's not introducing, you know, asymmetric player abilities like crazy I mean you can. But the base game of arcs you know everybody's basically doing the same thing. You only have to teach the same actions. You know copy, surpass or pivot and and so like. This is definitely the game the leader, the leader game that I will probably play the most, just because I have the easiest time teaching it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, here's, here's a little something. I think Cam is a great person to discuss this with, but in my head here's what I'm thinking Technology is going to keep progressing and uh, cam, I don't think you maybe we talked about it on the podcast that you listened to. I'm a big guy about ai and machine learning. Machine learning, you could upload the rule books and stuff and maybe even all the stuff from uh bgg and just have a computer next to you, even like a voice recognition thing. If you're playing a tough leader game, just be like, let's just do a quick like check the rule book and you just click a button hey, can uh coral captain do this? And then, whatever the freaking thing says it, you just listen to it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it's like an arbitrator and then you just keep playing because that's a good way to keep the action going and you just have a good game night like. I feel like sometimes when you like what clay is describing, you have to get your nose in the rule book, everyone kind of like their shoulders go down, they slouch a little bit. If you just have this like third party that just like arbitrates things, and you're like, even if it's wrong, you say f, f it, but we're just making a decision. I think that would be an awesome thing. I don't even even know, is that a thing already?
Speaker 2:Well, wow, yes and no. I mean, I have so many opinions on this I can't tell you. So you know there's. There's some. Some of the games you know have been translated to AI. I mean, even talismans got an AI version now, or I should say app version, and so I played Terraforming Mars through the ages.
Speaker 2:You know those kinds of things on apps because it's hard to get four people together and know the rules well enough to be able to give you the experience you want. However, they're kind of soulless. So, yeah, it's nice having this thing you know telling you, nope, you can't do that. And here are all your options. There's a little highlighted list on the side. You're like, ooh, I like that one, but I get done playing, and in half the time, no less, which is great.
Speaker 2:But I kind of feel like I didn't really play the game. I didn't have to struggle with the puzzle solving because it just handed it to me. I didn't have the human interaction that comes with waiting for somebody to make that mistake, you know, or somebody just surprise you yourself for making a mistake, or anything like that. I feel like there's an element of like you can, you can do that, but then you lose something. When you have it automated like that. I think the whole point of board gaming is to sit down and be able to really work with each other.
Speaker 2:The only time I found an exception to that was for a long time, and they might still be out there, but they were making the convention circuit was these interactive game tables? So very similar to Board Game Arena or something like that? But they had all that programmed into it and, in fact, we even supported a Kickstarter for a while. That was was trying to introduce that to to game stores. I did never. Nothing ever came of it, but that felt like a great hybrid where it was like, yes, you didn't have to explain all those rules, all the options were kind of there, but you still had to have four people pushing the button to say that's what we're going to do and moving the pieces, and you actually had to move the pieces around.
Speaker 2:So it felt like there was still a lot of like. You could make those mistakes. You could. You could allow for the human element in those games. Um, now, that being said, it's really great to be able to play through the ages in less than an hour before bed, and I've got no other gamers around, you know. So sure, why not? But um, definitely there's. There's a difference between playing in person and not. Yeah, you know, but that's why I never really got into board game arena was because of just that. Like, the fact that I have to figure out the rules and push things around makes it like, well, if I'm going to do something interactive online, I want it to be fully interactive yeah, um yeah clay very much he's said on the podcast multiple times.
Speaker 4:I just keep clicking things till it does it?
Speaker 2:like yeah, exactly uh so yeah, you don't really learn the game and it's just kind of frustrating.
Speaker 4:But then board game arena connects the three of us geographically separated. Love bugs together across. You know like serves purpose. Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah, we have a necessary evil.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it is a necessary evil I've got, you know, I've got a couple of friends who just can't make store hours and because of my weird schedules, you know, know, that's that's a great opportunity for us, because a lot of us are night owls. So, you know, you're not going to say, hey, let's go meet up at the store. It's, you know, 10 o'clock at night. So, yeah, it serves its purpose and I'm I really feel like the technology could get better. Let's not, you know, let's not steal the humanity out of it either. Um, you know, cause it's like, it's like video game poker. I don't, I don't get that, I don't understand that, cause, you know, it's like the whole entire point of poker is to be sitting with a bunch of people and watching body language and trying to bluff each other. And if it's just a push, a button, draw, like what is that, you know? So, um, it's. There is a point where you lose the entire purpose of of playing with people when you, when you have it too automated.
Speaker 1:So that's like that's a great take. We actually did an episode about digital adaptations for board games and that's something that we had not considered was like taking that decision space out of it and the ability of somebody to read the board landscape or the decisions that are available. Like looking at a board with pieces on it. It doesn't highlight which ones you can move to. It doesn't like you don't know what all is available if you overlook something that's on you. That's like part of the game itself. Right, we had, we didn't. You know if I'm playing chess and I click on a piece and it shows me where I can go and where I should not go like, right like it takes out the decision making.
Speaker 1:That is chess and reading those board conditions. So that's like that's a great take.
Speaker 2:I like that well and I even said during beyond the horizon we were playing that I'm like man. This might actually be one of the few board games that would be a better video game, simply because there were so many choices. But I also disagree with myself on that. In that part of the game is trying to figure out what all those choices were, and the fact that I didn't see the way through the forest the way that they did was part of why I came in last, and not only last. I came in last by like oh, almost I think the second place guy doubled my score, so it was. But that's, you know, that's part of it is. It's just trying to figure out those patterns. And yeah, if I've got a computer saying oh, by the way, this is a better move for you.
Speaker 4:Okay, so we will scale back the, you know, making it efficient. I just want to make an AI that helps us make sure we're not breaking rules.
Speaker 2:Sure and it would be really great if we had some sort of like you know, floating rule book over here that just said you know, nope, that's not allowed.
Speaker 4:Augmented reality, exactly, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:Okay, I'm into it, all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I say, I'm kind of on the fence, I see benefits of all of it and I see some detractors too.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. Well, clay, thanks for briefing ARCs. I'm here to talk about ARCs Second edition. I'm not going to talk about this too much. I really have not interacted with it all that much. I just want to shout out the freaking artwork on this thing is phenomenal.
Speaker 1:I really enjoyed the artwork on the first Parks. This has the expanded edition of it. It's got all these different national parks with these like you could print these out into full-size posters and they would be worth hanging on your wall. They're freaking beautiful. There's like a hundred and some different parks included, uh, and all of them are great and I love just flipping through these things.
Speaker 1:My edition actually came with a rare holographic one that is some collectible and I wish I could shout out the actual park that it was, but it's a Hawaiian National Park edition is pretty cool because it has like it. Their description is kind of weird. It says that they took, like some of the best ideas from some of the expansions of the first edition, so they included like elements of the expansions into this new version. Supposed to be streamlined, supposed to be way easier decision making, uh, and I am really looking forward to getting this played more, but I'll save that for a for a later episode. Um, I just want to shout out this artwork because if you go to the first edition of parks it's like kind of, it's just like dull. You know it's beautiful I thought I'd be wrong.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought the first edition artwork was amazing, but I'm not. I'm saying this is I wouldn't have thought they could have done better.
Speaker 4:I guess, that's what.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to say yeah, and somehow they did. Did they lose the rights to that artwork is what I heard. That was like a specific company that they had used. It was like a separate thing with the first edition.
Speaker 2:It was like 59 something and they lost the rights to that.
Speaker 3:I had not heard that. I heard it somewhere, somewhere. But you can't believe everything you hear on the internet but clay's up on all the hot goss yeah I am I do have to say that you know it came quickly, like we.
Speaker 2:You know we still have original parks on the shelf, yeah, so it's it's a little weird. Usually there's, like you know, a year worth of gap where it's like the old version goes away. This was just like overnight boom, we've got a new edition coming and I don't think I've ever in the history of the store had the next edition and the previous edition on the shelf side by side. That's crazy. So it felt like it was kind of like there was a reason, like almost like an emergency reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they got this out super fast and, yeah, the artwork is beautiful. You open up the box and in the second edition you're greeted by this like big poster size artwork for Yosemite National Park Right in my backyard. Growing up in California, it's like an hour away from my hometown. I love the image of Half Dome. It's one of my favorite images in national park photography. And then they have these individual tray organizers that are shaped like logs and everything. Beautiful components, beautiful artwork. I'm going to talk about this more later on, but I want to get to our discussion with Cam. So I'm going to talk about this more later on, but I want to get to our discussion with cam, so I'm going to hold off on talking about that too much more. Uh, jared, you want to talk quickly about your game oh yeah, uh went down to tampa last week.
Speaker 4:Sorry, that's why I couldn't be in the podcast. Uh, I didn't think you could mix up battleship. Uh much, but I played against an eight-year-old who almost kicked my ass. Um, this is battleship outer space guys three levels of space warriors, and I mean clay. He's all about the space war. We're talking lasers, okay. Well, so no longer are you pinpointing your depth charges and blowing up stuff. You're launching orthogonal lasers that blast across a whole row or column.
Speaker 4:So you call the row or the column and what level, and so you still get hits. But and you still have five different ships that you're going after, and so same you know. You tell them what row or column and what level and you start blasting away. It is a lot of fun. And shout out to little Ezra Um, my best bud down there in Tampa, he? Um, not only is he good at Fortnite, he's pretty dang good at Battleship, he also beat me at. Sorry, we played, sorry, this was the card, sorry, we were pulling cards and he sent me back home many times he beat me at Sorry as well.
Speaker 4:It was a good one, little Hasbro. I don't know if Hasbro has ever made the podcast, but hasbro made the list, um so that was about our space guys is it electronic or is it oh? No, this one, no, it's all, it's. Uh, it's no batteries needed. Okay, it's an analog analog wow.
Speaker 1:Well, speaking of speaking of rows and columns, let's fall in on the mission objective. Fall in, yeah, all in all right. So mission objective is we want to talk to cam about petri's family games and friendly local game store ownership and management in general. Hello to the patrons of Petri's Family Games.
Speaker 3:Somebody's trying to drive by.
Speaker 2:We get this all the time. We're looking at the windows outside and you get these people.
Speaker 3:Are you open? Are you open?
Speaker 2:The fact that there's somebody in here and it's locked. It's like this jealousy thing.
Speaker 3:Why are we in there. Why can't?
Speaker 2:I be in there.
Speaker 1:Feels good to be in here we in the club okay, so cam you, you talked about opening petries in 2009 and how that kind of got started. You know you had some friends that encourage you to do it. You had that their kind of inputs into what how petries took shape. So tell me a little bit about what you prioritized when you first opened. Was it like stocking the right games? Was it the right atmosphere? Was it customer interrelation experience? What was the focus when you started putting it into concrete ideas?
Speaker 2:I mean, I'd like to say that I went in with this like vision. Um, I actually wrote up a vision plan and I found it just a year or two ago and I'm like, wow, I had no idea what I was doing. Um, so I my, my buddy, brad, had a uh, had a bookstore for a long time and he now does. He works for a book publisher and he had this business book that he had given me. That really helps tool that out. I couldn't tell you the title and I'm going to goof up on some of the categories, but essentially the idea was that any business can do one thing, amazing, two things well, and the others you just have to do and the example you get of, of course, the book is now like 20 years old, so the examples are not spot on anymore, um, but essentially it's. It's you know the idea that, like walmart and target are the same store but you don't feel like you're in target when you're in walmart and vice versa, and it's because they focus on different things and Walmart's all about price where Target's all about experience. So that influences your marketing, influences what you stock, it influences all of that. And again, when we went in we were combating that atmosphere concept, so we were all about experience and accessibility. Or we are now about experience and accessibility where, really, I was just like let's just have a clean place with windows and lights, and that was kind of my focus. That definitely helps. So, yeah, accessibility has really become our key focus. Where it's like we want to, you know, you know we only want to be advisors for you, want to be able to help you find what you need, we want to be able to say, hey, that that game is a great game. Well, you're sure it's in the top 100, but it's probably not for you, or something else where it's like, hey, this game is not in the top 100, but you really need to give it a look.
Speaker 2:Um, that kind of accessibility, but also the community center concept of bringing people together, um, you know, remembering somebody's name and knowing that, hey, your personality type might actually be good. With this personality type, let's just sit you down at a table and, you know, introduce you to a game. Um, that's that was quickly, within the first two to three years, how we started molding ourselves into being something unique. Um was really truly, yeah, you just get to know, know the people.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I, I equate myself to um, you know it's, it's, it's, uh, the bartender concept, or I like to think of um, you know happy days and and the the malt shop, it's, it's the um, the mentor that's not really involved in your life concepts, it's the people, if I, if I can quote Sesame street, you know so, you know, knowing the people in your neighborhood, um, you gotta, you gotta, come to this point of realizing that, even though somebody doesn't know me from Adam outside of the store, I am still part of their everyday life, just by simply being one of the pieces that makes up their culture, that makes up their given week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's like a great just advocacy, for board games are not about the actual game. Yeah, the mechanics are nice, that they're great to interact with, but, like, right, it's really about getting people together and enjoying people's company through a board game. Right, that's like the medium that you're experiencing, jared you got something.
Speaker 4:I was going to ask him a very tough question um, what was your first impression of clayton David Gable? And when, when, when did you first realize that he was a customer? And like, what was your, what is your impression? I'm putting you on the spot a little bit, but, like, when I think of clay, I think of Petri's Wow. Really though I mean yeah.
Speaker 1:Be honest, Cam. We want to hear your honest we want to hear your honest.
Speaker 4:We want to hear the, the hot goss.
Speaker 2:I already said it once today, but like yeah, I mean not to, like you know, make him uncomfortable and gush into this like potentially unwanted bromance, but oh, wow, I can only hope for that the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, seriously, the moment he walked in, the story was like that feeling of like, okay, this is a guy who gets it, um, so, yeah, no, I actually do remember the first time it came in the store, um, and it wasn't a hey, this is an easy target. It's, it was more of a uh, no, he fits the culture, you know he does, and uh, you can see that somebody's using uh games as a, as a tool to bring people together and, um, um, I respected the fact that he was a father, um, you know, and he, he, he kind of exudes the military thing. So I kind of assumed that right away. Um, of course that.
Speaker 2:You know, we have a nice little cheat cheat thing there where it's just like, if you kind of feel like they might be military, you just ask them hey, are you military for the military discount, and then you get your answer there. So there's a lot of ways and tools that we get to find out about somebody just simply by using sales tactics. But no, seriously, like same thing could be said for Travis. You know, it's like the moment you walk in, you say, okay, these guys are easy to smile, they're quick to carry on a conversation. You can tell that they're. They're an asset to the community as well as to the hobby.
Speaker 3:Well, just from my perspective, I remember that I had never been to a store anywhere in my life and somebody said, hey, clay, and this was the first place I ever came into, where I walked in and you said my name, like you remembered me Right, and I was like, wow, okay, that's nice.
Speaker 2:It does help.
Speaker 1:It's like cheers, right Like you, walk in and everybody's like hey, clay, norm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have to say that there's a little bit of a cheat there. My father's two best friends have really unique names, and one of them is Clay, and so it's just like boom, got that remembered. That's why, for a long time, travis was just Smith to me, because I couldn't ever remember his first name.
Speaker 4:Hey, you guys, that big guy, where's the big?
Speaker 2:guy Yep, exactly. So yeah, I mean you use tricks, although people tell me all the time that I have this superpower when it comes to remembering names, and I don't know. It's just me. It's the way I've always been. I know names, I collect people in my head.
Speaker 3:Is that something you impart on your staff here? I try, you try and push them in that welcoming environment type behavior.
Speaker 2:You know, having a team is somewhat new. I mean really, because you know Bo was a volunteer before. She worked for us and everybody after that has been someone that I've somehow vetted and then just kind of offered the job to, and that's only been with the last three, four years. Um, so there was an element of on an alec before. For both alec was the same way. I don't know if you guys ever met him. He was our original magic guy, no longer with the team, but he's still around as a volunteer. Um, yeah, there's.
Speaker 2:There's an element of taking a team and saying, hey, I want you to be exactly like me and become this clone and this is the Petri's way, and then having them fail miserably. Or you take what's their ability, find out what their superpower is and go from there To sing his praises. Matt is currently one that works most evenings, and so you'll see him in the night, and he's an analytics guy. He loves to look at what are potential problems and find solutions, and I'm not, so for me. That's a hard thing for me to think about, but it's also a necessity as far as a business owner goes, so I just let him own that space. He also happens to be really friendly.
Speaker 2:So, whether he remembers your name or not, I don't know that I care because you know that's not his focus and, honestly, he's a storyteller, he's a role playing guy. So he's going to take you aside and he's going to start, you know, sharing um, what your actual, what you, what your day looked like, more so than who you are as a person. So you know, everybody has all these various nuances that I I try to, I try to bring that up as part of a overall pictures of what petries would look like. But yeah, I mean, it'd be nice if I could say you know, hey, you know that name thing, do that. But I can't explain how that works because I'm finding out more and more that that's that's unique to me.
Speaker 4:It's kind of a uncommon thing we're getting a leadership lesson and, uh, you know, friendly local game store, yeah, I mean, I love it.
Speaker 1:Cam, you obviously care about how, like, your staff interacts with the community and vice versa, and, like, a big part of what I find unique about petri's is just the sheer amount of community events that you guys put on. You guys are always having stuff going on in the back room. You're having, like you know, tables set up where you're just teaching people games. You're having magic tournaments. You're having, you know, board games swap meets, like you. You put on a lot of these events, far more than I've probably seen for most friendly local game stores. So, like, how do you decide what events to do? Like, how do you find that balance between what is too much, what you can manage, what events to put on Gotcha Um?
Speaker 2:that. So this might be one of those areas. I told Clary I'm like earlier that he may have to hold me back if I start going on a negative rant. Um, so, yeah, hold me back. Yeah, um, there's I'm going to kind of roundabout answer your question Um, um, and there's a current trend right now where TCG's train car games have taken over and they haven't just taken over because that's what everybody wants to do, so to speak, as so much as they've taken over because they're just kind of like the bully who's like elbowed himself up front on the stage and is now just upstaging everybody.
Speaker 2:It feels wrong. At the same time, people are loving it and they make the store money. So from a business point of view it's good, but it also means that we don't do a lot of what I really want to do. Um, every game now suddenly has this requirement to do a pre-release, to do a release, to do a store championship, to do a regional qualifier, to do a special holiday theme. And then you take that and you look at the fact that we've got magic and pokemon and disney and star wars and hero clicks and, and, and, and, and and. All of those want that. Um, you know we've got a flesh and blood pre-release coming up on the same weekend that I think, that we have a lorcona store championship coming up, and there's only so much room in this, this space.
Speaker 2:You know people tease me all the time about like, well, let me just knock over, like out of wall. Well, yeah, okay, well, you pay for the extra rent. Um, I just, it's just an element of like. You can only do so much, you can only do what you do. And, um, it feels like I'm canceling our regular events on the reg because one of these games comes along and says oh no, you have to do this one tournament if you want to continue to receive prize support. Um, and you have to do it on this one weekend. Well, okay, but I had like a chess tournament scheduled for that weekend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's like I'm constantly having to go out to people saying, hey, would you mind moving your regular thing to another week, because here comes magic. Um, wow, and I don't expect that. All these big companies are going to talk to each other. But there is an element of like. You know you don't release a star wars movie on the same weekend as a star Trek movie, like that'd just be dumb. Um is, if you're a good marketer, you you know how to navigate your competition.
Speaker 2:And yet back in February I think it was we had three releases one national championship and something else. It was a big deal and they all had to be done within two weeks. Wow, how, how do you do that? I'm not going to have kids coming here at midnight. There's just not enough room in the schedule and there's there's not enough room in the room I comfortably sit about 52. I can go more. I just don't like to, because it gets loud and it gets sweaty and there's no space to get to the bathroom and like out. And it gets sweaty and there's no space to get to the bathroom and like. It's just like why, why?
Speaker 1:would I want to endure that. So, um well, let's talk about, like, the events that you actually do want.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I was gonna say when we started I wanted to have a lot more family-centric type stuff. Okay, we used to have kids days. We used to have learn to plays. We used to have um. Like, one of the first things we've done and and it's a big tradition and I will not let it die is the couple's dessert. So every February we have just we highlight two player games. We redo the room completely so that it has a little bit more of an elegant set black tablecloth, you know that whole thing. And at first we used to wear tuxedos or you know really thing. And uh, at first we used to, we used to wear, uh, tuxedos or you know really, really fancy dress.
Speaker 2:Over the years, the volunteers and myself have gotten to where we. It's pretty much just a white shirt and tie, um, but yeah, I mean that's, that's one of our big, big, big events. Um, my wife serves uh cheesecake. We've had um. We've even had had a wine demonstration before. We've done chocolate fountains, the whole works. String quartet We've talked about it. We actually had a violinist lined up one year and then they had to fail.
Speaker 2:The downside is that we always choose a weekend that for some reason turns out to be the biggest blizzard of the year. It's kind of traditional. So, yeah, usually the special guest that we get in is always the person that has to cancel. But, yeah, we've been working with the local meadery to see if maybe they can come in and do a little demonstration. Whatever we can do, that's couple-centric, and so the downside is that it is a non-kid event. We just can't have kids at all during that one. But, um, that just kind of gives you an idea of how we're trying to find unique approaches to, you know, gaming as a couple or once a month we have the um. We have the singles meetup, um, which is not the group itself, was not organized by us, um, but we, you know, we host that mainly because it fits our vision really well, and so, yeah, we have people who are single coming in to meet other people out over board games, and goodness, we, we can get up to 50 people for that event easily. Um, wow so.
Speaker 2:And then our kids days. We used to do kids days that were themed, so it'd be like the star Wars day, um, and we'd get, you know, the the 501 in and, um, they would patrol outside the store and then we just we teach the role playing game and some of the miniature games, and one of our guys volunteers has a actual um training um class that he'll do, where he has foam lightsabers and walks people through you know basic sword moves and that kind of stuff, and so it was just. You know that that kind of event has gone away a little bit since covid because things it's harder to find groups that are willing to just come in and do things like the 501st um it's. It's harder to find people who are willing to go in mass and bring your kids um. It's. It's starting to change, it's coming back.
Speaker 2:But um, after, yeah, 2020. We had to kind of rebuild that. But then you throw into the fact that we've got to have like three magic tournaments on the, you know, in a weekend, yeah it, it. It's hard to clear out the room to have a bunch of kids running around with lightsabers, foam, foam sticks. You know.
Speaker 1:So that's so interesting. You bring up that like push and pull between magic and trading card games, because you walk into some game stores and you can tell the ones that are losing that battle, not that like not that you know magic isn't important and that it makes a lot of money for stores, but like the ones that are losing that battle and you can see like how that their cases or their displays or their racks are now just filled to the brink with magic and lorcona and star wars, and like those ones that you could tell that they used to have games there, but now it's like encroaching more and more and more as the years go on yep, because those margins are so slim.
Speaker 1:Like how, and clearly you have a pretty big selection of board games. You have like your corner for dnd type stuff and magic and then like all that's kind of segmented off versus the side of the store, that's all board games. Like, how do you keep that balance?
Speaker 2:carefully also. Uh, seriously, so you know, our, our, our showroom, is divided or into quarters and um, so, yeah, like you said, you know that's like the lower corner is is primarily role-playing, um, and we didn't used to do miniatures as much Like. Our idea of miniatures is more X-Wing Fighter and Hero Clicks they pre-painted, open it up and go kind of games. But over time we found that we needed to have paint and in order to get paint you had to get the contract with GW. In order to get the contract with GW, you had to carry their games, and so there was an element of like, okay, okay, we've slowly let that section of role-playing kind of become both role-playing and miniatures, um, because what else we're going to do? Um, and then, of course, the lower right hand and the back wall is your trading card game.
Speaker 2:Uh, the front of the store is divided between really kind of puzzles and toys and games, but those, those can mix and it's not that big of a deal. Um, in fact, we found that it's better because we used to have the toy so completely removed that it was. It was hard for mom and dad to shop because junior was over there, and so it's, you know, if we can put the kids aisle next to the main board game aisle. Well, now they can watch junior while they're shopping, and it's it's not that big of a deal, that's really smart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lessons learned over time, um, but yeah, and the stock, the stock is insane. Um, somewhere before covid there was a article I read that said something around 3 000 some odd games were released every month, not counting expansions. Wow, and it's just the balloon. The volume is so insane.
Speaker 2:We used to watch like the best of the year videos, you know, various podcasters and board game geek puts out theirs and, of course, dice Tower and that kind of stuff, and you could pretty much see the same games. It was like, okay, this guy had these 20 games, this guy had 18 of those 20 and two others, and it's just, it was very much a fluid thing and as the years went by, you started seeing statements like, well, these are the top 20 of what I could get to. And you know, eventually you started seeing the lists were completely different because that just happened to be the games they saw and were able to purchase. Um, so it wasn't. I mean, they basically have gotten so watered out that, um, you know it's like the mid-range games aren't getting played, um, or they're getting, they're getting overlooked and they don't even got to see them. And so I know I'm totally rabbit trailing on you here, but there's an element of like what do do you put in that room to put focus on?
Speaker 2:Things is so hard to know. Honestly, it sometimes comes down to squeaky wheel. So the big, the big bad companies that come along and say, hey, you have to get this title in, it's just easy to say, sure, why not? But every so often I try and find time to go out and find those independents and the small ones that haven't really said much. You know, one of our biggest sellers is Obsession and Kayente is not exactly I think that's how you pronounce them. They don't really market themselves. You have to go out and find them and they don't sell to distributors, they sell direct and I really love the guys that work at that company. They are easy to work with, they have fair prices. I love getting Obsession in, mainly because of the theme, but also because it just sells so well and it is the epitome of a mom-and-pop success story and I love supporting that. So, yeah, I mean it is hard.
Speaker 1:It is really hard to know what to stock, because if you stocked everything available, it would be a warehouse and even then you wouldn't be able to find anything yeah, and to your credit, I think that you do a phenomenal job of keeping up with most of those trends where you know a game is launching on kickstarter or whatever or is hitting backers from kickstarter and it's right there in petri's like I don't know if clay over the last you know 37 episodes, 36 episodes that we've done.
Speaker 1:This has like and he's been keeping up on most of the hotness. Like he doesn't play them all obviously there's too many games, but like he's playing current games. It's not like he's picking up games from three, four years ago. All the time he's like able to keep up with trends and and what's hot and like you know you walk into petri's and you know the games that it might not be like hitting shelves, like that week or whatever, but they're like in the hotness they're being talked about like you have those on the shelves as well as old classics and I I particularly like that. You have the hotness. You know the, the new stuff, the, the stuff that's coming out this year, and then right on the other side you have the use section that people can like trade in games, and so I I find that most local game stores don't do that exchange, that use game type section, like what was the driving decision to do the used game section.
Speaker 2:Used is really just to have something unique. Again, when we started, there was only three primarily board game stores in town. Now there's something like 15, I think Seriously. I'm not making that number up. Colorado Springs has always had more game stores than any other of the major cities in colorado, and I don't know why that is, but it is, it's true and uh jared called it the mecca the other week.
Speaker 1:So I yeah, he might be right.
Speaker 4:He might be right all the nerds at the air force academy sure let's go with that um yeah, is.
Speaker 2:Is gaming becoming more centric to military? I don't know, and that might be part of it. Um, it also could be a lot of the tech companies too. But yeah, as a whole, we wanted something unique. But I also realized that there were some games on my own personal, but it's a truth is that games get outdated, like we were talking about earlier with Dominion and Clank. I know people will argue with me on this, but I see Clank as a far superior deck-building game.
Speaker 2:The idea of sitting down and just doing a standard deck-builder anymore just feels old to me. And yet there was a day when I was like, hey, if it's a deck builder, I'll buy it. You know, like I want, I want to see all of them. Now I I kind of like the new star wars deck builder. Um, I'm still a big star realms fan, but essentially they're the same game and, um, there's not a lot of variation there. So do you really need all of those on your shelf? Yes, so I, you know I came to a point where it's like, okay, I play dc deck builder, I play star realms, I play star wars, I don't need dominion anymore. Yeah, um, so that, why don't I bring that in and get something else.
Speaker 2:And that that was the idea was that there's a lot of games not getting played, and I was watching our goodwill and arc because we live next to both of those and you'd start seeing designer games showing up there and it's like it's a 60 game and they're selling it for five bucks. You know good good on you for finding that. At the same time, that would have been a lot better for the original owner. Just bring in and find something else that's also a designer game, and getting a lot of bang for the buck on top of it. So it allows you to discover something as well as clean house a little bit too. But I mean, that's what's behind us is the library, so it serves the same purpose, but without spending any money, is to come in and try games as a preview. Is this something I actually do want to spend money on?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as somebody who has taken part in both the library and the used game trade-in, credit, that type of stuff I appreciate all of that, because most game stores don't do that and I think it is definitely something that sets you apart and makes you unique. So, clay, you want to say something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean honestly, when I was going to different game stores in town, those two things are what kept me coming back to petri's initially was the used game section. Like hey, I can get this cool game I've heard about for a little bit of a discount. Someone used it, that's great. And then the library where I could try out a game. And you know, when I initially was getting into the hobby I wasn't sure really what I liked, so I wanted to try everything right and so, having that option to you know, come in here and you know, I mean you keep it up to date with even newer games. Like you I see studies on this on the shelf like you can play a lot of different games from this library.
Speaker 2:And that was like a big draw for me when I was initially starting out and I I try, I try to stay as current as I can, but of course, again, you know, we don't have I don't think that. I think the number has definitely fallen from 3 000, but still there's so many new games every, every month that I would go out of business trying to keep the library stocked with the latest, greatest um. But, yeah, what's the new? Um? Great western trail, was it? Rio grande, el paso? Yeah, yeah, um, we've got that one. I just haven't processed it yet. So that's coming out. Uh, seti is, yeah, recently added um, so it's not every game, but it's the big ones that people are talking about as much as possible.
Speaker 2:Um, most likely we'll end up getting a demo version of Critter Kitchen as well. So there's a lot of things that just also you kind of take what comes to you, because sometimes people just send you promotionals or there's a company that will be like you know, stock X amount, you'll get the library copy for free. So it's not unheard of, because even the distributors understand that people are doing that. They offer demo copies pretty regularly. Not unheard of, because even the distributors understand that people are doing that. They offer, you know, they offer demo copies pretty regularly. So other stores are doing something like that, maybe not in colorado springs, but at least nationally. It's become kind of a standard that you have some form of a demo library. We just like to have it more interactive so that people can come in and actually play, not just stand at a demo table in the store. Awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I imagine. I mean, I know for a fact I don't know what the margins are for reselling used games, but to me it seems like that would potentially be something that is a big burden, because you guys have to count all the pieces and everything and and do all that and take in games and give credit like.
Speaker 2:is that something you've ever considered getting rid of or there's definitely there's a lot to it yeah, the the margin argument is is valid and it gets brought up several times a year, every year. Um, mainly because of the piece counts. Yeah, now, if we could say, buyer beware, just slap a sticker on there say you know, go play it? Um, sure, but you know, you get in a war game, for example, and it's like you know 700 little tiny chits with, you know, evelyn hill artwork on it. Sometimes you just kind of throw up your hands and say, hey, we counted 800 shits. I don't know which one's missing. Um, you're supposed to have 800, 805,.
Speaker 2:Uh, go for it. Um, but you know something like lost cities. There's your 80 cards were done. Got a board? Yep, okay, um, so, yeah, do I really want to pay somebody 15, $20 an hour to come in and count pieces? No, that, that would take away your margins so fast. Um, but at the same time, that's why we have volunteers. Um, there's also certain games that you just kind of get in the habit of. Yeah, I can count a pandemic like nobody's. Yeah, I think that's that's. That's an easy one. I've just gotten used to certain ones I counted so much. Now, this is, you know, inside knowledge here that you and all 30 people watching are going to know the secret.
Speaker 2:If it's a party game, we tend to not count it. Do you know if you're missing a card from trivially pursuit? I doubt it. Yeah, know if you're missing a card from Trivially Pursuit, I doubt it. There's just a certain element of like. Sometimes you judge the game by saying this is not worth it. It's still the same play experience regardless of if it's missing a piece or not.
Speaker 2:You look for the movers and say, okay, are all six movers there? Yes, okay, great, there you go. So it does kind of depend on what it is, um. But yeah, I mean, yeah, if you take into account the time it takes to count a game, uh, shrink wrap it, the cost of the shrink wrap, the cost of the labels to put on it because you know we have a little legal disclaimer on each one just saying we do our best, we're human too, yeah, um. Or on each one just saying we do our best, we're human too, yeah, um. By the end of it all, it probably doesn't have any different margin than a new game off the shelf. So but yeah, I mean, that's something we have to constantly judge. But same time, I also say you can't put money on marketing. It's it's hard to say where somebody heard about a store and what brought them in. And if you buying a used game was a positive experience and that causes you to come back, that into itself is a priceless marketing.
Speaker 4:Taking care of your customers. Right, yeah, exactly, clay, you got any before you before you pop, smoke and get out of, get out of town yeah, I think I have like his days, are dollars left in colorado springs?
Speaker 3:I know he had the audacity asked me when I brought in a ton of games. He's like well, you probably don't want credit. You know you're trying to get rid of all these games you probably you probably just want cash. I was like, oh no, I want, I want the credit, I want store credit, and I've burnt through it.
Speaker 4:He has burnt through it and he's got christmas money.
Speaker 1:You know that's right birthday money, christmas money, petri's credit, that's amazing keeps the world going.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm imagining you know it's like you gotta move, you gotta pack all this stuff up. You don't want to pack it all up, do you? And then you know, apparently he does so he is.
Speaker 1:He is shipping his boys and dogs separate, just so he can pack more games into the mini yeah, so give that man every cent of credit he can. That's awesome, yeah, awesome, uh. Well, this has been an awesome discussion about petries I. I don't want to run on too long. We could sit here and talk to you all day long, yeah, but but you got four years till your 20th anniversary. Where do you see Petri's going in the next four years?
Speaker 2:Ooh, well, that kind of depends on the current state of the economy. But I mean, ultimately, if I had my druthers, you know, and the perfect space, the perfect space opened up, um, you know it would, it would be nice to see us grow, uh, space-wise. Um, if the TCG market continues the way it is, we've got to find a solution to be able to get back to having some of the family events and having the casual events. Um, there's a there's a growing trend towards speed puzzle tournaments and jigsaw puzzle. People are kind of raising their hand and saying, you know, hey, it's our turn, and I want to give, you know, that kind of group their due diligence. I think they're good for our culture and it's just another subculture of the hobby that, you know, deserves a space at the table just like anybody else. So, yeah, I would love to be able to have more play space. I would love to be able to get our aisles to a point where two people can walk down the aisle without having to say, excuse me.
Speaker 4:Um, there's isn't there a supermarket in that same parking lot?
Speaker 2:That's been there is, but it just went right over there. We actually talked about it. In fact, we even talked about doing conglomerate with the comic book store when he was still here.
Speaker 2:He was just like why, why couldn't we just make a total geekdom? Um, that would be cool. It would also be an astounding amount of maintenance and I would have to have at least six people on the floor at all times. And you're talking about, like, tripling your output. Uh, it also means that you're quadrupling your, your costs. Um, yeah, so yeah, no, I need to take baby steps, like we need to go from a 3 000 to a 5 000 or something like that. Um, now, that being said, the yeah that the space just got bought out by a vasa, so we're gonna have you know, we're gonna have people here at all times of the day working out suddenly, so hopefully that brings the traffic we need.
Speaker 2:I don't know if people working out are really going to take time to go shopping before or after I would, you've got a bunch of healthy nerds here.
Speaker 4:When Clay designs his board game weekends, he actually layers in workouts.
Speaker 3:He's not kidding.
Speaker 4:The Google sheet that he sends out, it's uh, it's got workouts, so nice, I love it.
Speaker 2:It's amazing, um, but yeah, I mean, that's the biggest part. I think, um, the downside of running a business is that you, you have to love running a business and that I say that kind of jokingly like I can't come out here and play games all the time. And I actually do enjoy running a business, but that means I have to be in an office, not getting interrupted, doing crunching numbers, trying to write, you know, press releases and whatnot, and staying on top of all of these events. I half the time, don't even get them up on the store calendar before they're gone. And keeping up with that also means I'm not on the floor anymore, I'm not meeting people anymore, I'm not doing the other part of Petri's.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I would love to get to a point where we also maybe double our staff, just for the sake of giving me the ability to come out and rub elbows a little bit more, work the floor a little bit more, um, remember what it's like to actually sell board games, not just, you know, have numbers on paper, um, so there's, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of growth there, um, and but it all comes down to, it's got to be the perfect space, it's got to be the perfect time, it's got to be the perfect economic risk. It has to be in place too. So, yeah, I can't think of anything else, because the industry itself is growing so rapidly that, honestly, I think that's what game stores are going to have to do, is just to grow more and more and more. The last little thing is I would love to be able to throw some sort of a cafe or a food industry of some sort on, but again, in this space, that doesn't really work.
Speaker 1:Partner with Noodles and Donuts across the market.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean our best, so partner with uh, do noodles and donuts across the.
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say yeah, I mean, our best neighbors are doing donuts and noodles in the coffee shop. Um and I say the coffee shop because I can't remember what their new name is, it's like the fourth name since I've been here um, between the two of them. If there was a way to put them into some sort of like end cap, you know on either side of us, that would be perfect. Um, with like an interior door that leads to both of them.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, but yeah, we'll see where that goes, awesome big things to come. You heard it here first petries is gonna buy the chapel hills mall I was, oh, my gosh jc pennies, that's right.
Speaker 3:And just to clarify sorry we're wrapping up, but I this isn't your full-time job.
Speaker 2:Well, it is a full-time job but you have another job.
Speaker 3:I do have another job.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just found this out when we were coordinating to do this podcast and you're talking about another
Speaker 4:job. I was like I got work coordinating to do this podcast and you're talking about another job.
Speaker 3:I was like I got work, what?
Speaker 2:else does he do? No pet is the job? Yep, um, so I have a day job that actually pays the bills and, um, you know, this is the. The hardcore fact is running a business is it's sacrifice. You have to love running a business and, um, yeah, I take care of my employees first and I take care of the bills second, and if there's anything left in the pot, that kind of goes to us. But yeah, that's not very often. It's not something you make a living off of, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:So don't get into this to get rich, huh.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3:Every time someone comes around like.
Speaker 2:I've always wanted to have a game store. Game store. I'm like do you want to write a game store or do you want to play games at a store? Because you have to love running a business, you have to love spreadsheets, you have to love projections, you have to love marketing, you have to love all those other things, you have to love mopping a floor, and I can actually say that do. And if you don't love those things, you're not running a business. Therefore, it's not going to succeed.
Speaker 4:Well, Cam, do you want a third full-time job of being the Operation Game Night podcast director? There you go. We could use some guidance. I don't mind being. We need help here. We need help.
Speaker 2:You guys are doing great. I loved what I've seen so far. So no, I wouldn't mind being your occasional inside business specialist.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah so.
Speaker 1:You are always welcome on I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that.
Speaker 4:We are currently running a deficit, so we'll add you to the books.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:We didn't do this to get rich either and in fact we are not awesome cam.
Speaker 1:This has been an awesome discussion. Where can people go to find out more about petri's?
Speaker 2:petri's gamescom, although I say that trepidatiously because it's been down for almost a month now I was just on it today, so okayiously, because it's been down for almost a month now.
Speaker 1:I was just on it today, okay Well, hey, it's been up Great.
Speaker 2:Awesome, that's a relief. So, yes, petriesgamescom. Or if you have any questions, the best way, honestly, is to email us at PetriesFG. That's F as in family, g as in games at gmailcom.
Speaker 4:Excellent. One more shout out. That is on the. That is on the website. It's at the bottom of the website. His, uh, his email is at the bottom of the site, it is live, we'll put it in the show notes. We'll put it in the show notes. That's right, it's got all the upcoming events. It's got. It's good to go.
Speaker 2:Oh, and it correctly. I didn't have to correct you on anything.
Speaker 3:We are not a Petri dish.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for coming, go ahead.
Speaker 4:Travis, I need to interrupt you a couple more times and touch my mic. What is Petri's?
Speaker 1:It's a game store. If you go to the About section on Petri'scom it'll tell you, we are named after Robert Petri'scom.
Speaker 2:It'll tell you so. We are named after Robert Petri, the Dick Van Dyke show character.
Speaker 4:Oh.
Speaker 2:We should have started from there.
Speaker 4:Did you say that?
Speaker 2:Well, no, because you asked about me, and so.
Speaker 3:I didn't know where to go with the family history.
Speaker 2:And then we went into, what games we played, sorry.
Speaker 4:I'm the dummy on the show we started and ended sorry, travis, I turn it back to you, okay, well, hey, all valid questions cam, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing your knowledge. We cannot wait to have you back on the show if you ever agree to put up with our nonsense again. Of course, absolutely, for operation Night. I have been Travis, he has been Clay, he has been Jared and he has been the one and only Pam of Petri's Family Games. And we are out.
