Scott Hunstad of Good Games in Sydney, Australia read the recent Talk Backs regarding WotC's Premier Store status (see "David Luebke of Dave's Comics on WotC Premier Stores" and "Rich Biedrzycki of Dreamland Comics on WotC Suing Tourney Organizers") and had this to say:

First off, no offense meant to the previous people specifically.  The intent of the Premier Store status is to reward those stores that are putting in the extra effort to provide not only a place to purchase WotC product, but also a venue to foster a gaming community around their products.  This is something that WotC has always considered to be instrumental in the growth and development of their games.  They have always had some general policy about running events leading towards Premier Store status.  It's just that now they are finally enforcing it.  Think of it as getting 'free cable' for years before the cable company finally catches on and cancels it.  Sure you can be upset about it, but really it wasn't yours to begin with.

As a Magic player myself, when I visit a Premier Store, I have an expectation that this is somewhere that gaming will be taking place, where I can get a draft or an FNM, get product, get singles, and basically do things at the highest level of the game.  If I walk into a Premier Store only to find it be a sportscards-come-game store that only really sells boosters of the latest few sets of Magic and the core D&D books--well, I'd be disappointed.  Without any enforcement, the 'Premier Store' status ends up meaning nothing.

One of the cornerstones our stores are built on is player space.  More than half of our space is devoted to gaming areas.  As mentioned, this is certainly fraught with issues--theft, adolescents, noise, gamers being gamers.  All of which we need to deal with on a daily basis.  Maintaining this space is both difficult and expensive, but we agree with WotC's summation that having a place to play and running events are important parts of the gamer and the game culture.  They have chosen to differentiate these stores from 'other' stores that simply stock WotC products by issuing the Premier status.  This is supposed to mean something, and therefore I applaud WotC for enforcing the policies they have laid out.
 
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