Get In The Game is a weekly column by Dan Yarrington, managing partner of Myriad Games in Manchester & Salem, New Hampshire, Treasurer of the Professional Game Store Association, and Editor-in-Chief of GameSalute.com.  This week, Yarrington looks at retailing as a deckbuilding game.

Welcome back to Get In The Game, a column that focuses on proactive ways we can improve the games industry.  This week, we delve into a brand new deckbuilding game called Your Store.

So there’s this little card game called Dominion.  You may have heard of it.  It's the breakout hit that put the deckbuilding category on the map.  Simple concept.  You start with a basic deck of resources and you use those basic cards to purchase new cards, add to your deck, customize during the game, and work your way toward victory.  Not so very different from what you do with your favorite game store.  And if you're a store owner reading this, I certainly hope your favorite game store is your own store.

In Dominion there are three essential phases: Action, Buy, Cleanup.  In Your Store: The Deckbuilding Game, your actions are Listening and Doing.  Your Buys are good ideas.  And during Discard you have an opportunity to get rid of aspects of the store that aren’t working.

Thinking about a complex operation like a store in these simple terms makes you consider the base elements and how they combine into the whole.  Does your new employee let you draw two cards or just one?  Do you invest in more buys for good ideas?  Do you follow through with your fanciful plans?  Do you have a cohesive strategy to take advantage of synergies and efficiencies in the various cards in your deck?

Your basic Actions are listening and doing.  One is no good without the other.  If you have a hand full of all listening without any doing, you're not going to get anywhere.  And likewise, you can do "things" and "stuff" and other unparticular actions all day, but without listening you’ll be wandering aimlessly just taking up time and you'll never get ahead.  You'll never run out of ways to spend your turns simply shuffling your deck and hoping against hope that next round you'll be able to finally buy a Gold or Platinum.  If you don’t sculpt your deck toward that end, it's not going to happen.

Every round you should be buying something that will reinforce your strategies as a store.  Whether it's upgrading your fixtures, investing some more time in community development, or refining your inventory selection.  Sometimes it's worth taking that turn to just refresh and get rid of dead weight.  Trash that extra inventory.  Train or fire that employee.  Overhaul that receiving process.  You have a ton of options, so choose a focus and go with it.  Don't just toss together a hodge podge of tactics and call it a strategy.  Think, then act.

And the next time you’re enjoying Dominion, or any fine deckbuilding game, think about the one you’re playing every day.

So what elements are missing your deck?  What are your best cards?  What cards are you looking forward to in the next expansion to Your Store: The Deckbuilding Game?  Talk Back today!  What are you waiting for?  Get In The Game!

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.