Games Stores in Bloomington, Indiana

Earlier this month I took a business trip to the center of the economy, Bloomington, Indiana.   While I kept many an hour in the basement of our vendor's headquarters, my co-manager was determined to find something exciting to do in the home of Indiana University.  Game stores quickly came up and both of the stores the directly cater to the college crowd were visited.  

The Game Preserve is part of a chain of game stores, with other locations in Greenwood and Indianapolis.  It recently moved this year from downtown Bloomington to the aptly named College Mall.  

It's a very well kept store, with a wide assortment of boardgames, kids and family games, RPGs, GW, and other minis.  The gaming backroom was surprisingly big for the footprint of the store, and the staff was very nice to my co-manager who talked his ear off. 

Gaming with the Gnomies rating:  Three and a half out of Five Gnomes.

I'll be honest, The Game Preserve gave me a very Pop's Culture Shoppe vibe, but in a mall setting.  But outside of Zap-A-Gap, there wasn't anything in particular that interested me.  If cookie cutter and core basic gamer wants are your needs, this place looks great.  

We ended up making three trips over the week to Common Room Games, just up the road in the Williamsburg Shopping Center.   Definitely smaller, with the CCG gaming area (and separate RPG room) taking up a big footprint of the square footage.  Definitely got the game store vibe from this place, right to the wallpaper of 20+ year old Magic commons.

The merchandise to gaming area distance at Common Room.

Game Preserve had more inventory, but Common Room seemed to be able to more with less, and strangely, a more diverse selection of products.  

They had a large selection of board and card games, a healthy CCG business, and even the largest inventory of expandable card games that I've seen in years (Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, "new" L5R).

The area that tipped me over was their RPG selection.  A great library of books beyond D&D, including Powered by the Apocalypse games, Cthulhu, Paranoia, Alien, and multiple copies of what I think are the first hardcopies of Dread that I've ever seen, plus a copy of Harlem Unbound that almost came home with me.  

My friend and co-manager initiated all three visits, buying more and more of the MtG: Forgotten Realms set and some dice each time.  

Common Room Games definitely won both of us over, so it makes sense that I'll give a nod in rating to four gnomes out of five. 

The best part is that I get to visit them again this week, as the second phase of our business trip returns to Bloomington.   I will have extra spending money on me, so that copy of Harlem Unbound might end up being the first purchase of my new Gaming Year.

Game Preserve is part of the College Mall, 2894 E 3rd St #108, Bloomington, IN 47401

Common Room Games is in the Williamsburg Court Shopping Center at 2894 E 3rd St #108, Bloomington, IN 47401