Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University.  This week, Thorne discusses some of the GAMA Expo 2025 seminars of interest.

Unfortunately, I must miss the GAMA Expo again this year, as the dates conflict with attending another convention as well as my teaching schedule (given that the university shut down for a couple of snow days last week, I doubt it would look kindly on me taking another week off to attend GAMA Expo).  However, there are a number of seminars I would like to see, and it looks as if GAMA will either stream them live or make them available after the show.  Here are a few I would really like to catch:

Monetizing Your Game Space (Jax Ward of Crazy Squirrel Games).  This is a continual topic among game retailers (see "Making Money Off Table Space").  Is charging a table fee for the use of the space okay, or will it drive off customers?  How about including use of table space as part of a store membership or limiting its use to customers that have just purchased something in the store?

Run Events and Programs Targeting Learning and Soft-Skills (Dustin Staats of Boardgaming with Education).  Most game stores, especially those with a heavy board and card game focus, are always looking for new market segments to enter.  A number of stores run successful game camps, especially during the summer and ideas on how to start or improve them are always welcome.

Deciding on Enough for Your Game Store (Brenden Hill of Crossroads Games).  Hoping that this seminar looks at both short- and long-term strategic plans for stores.  Many stores, just like many companies in today’s world, focus on day-to-day and month-to-month planning, but do not have a plan for six months out, or a year, or five years.

Used Video Games and How to Make Them Pay (Josh Fohrman of Game On).  In today’s culture, and probably for the last 20+ years, if you ask someone one what games they play, you are likely to get a list of video games.  When most people think about games, they think video games.  However, the center of the video game market has collapsed, with customers either seeking out freemium games or the big splashy releases.  Is there still a market for used video games and how can I tap into it?

Setting Up a Discord to Benefit Your Store (Ethan Metcalf of Common Ground Games).  Discord has been around awhile, but I doubt a lot of stores use it to maximum effect.  I know we still rely on the less interactive forms of social media, so a primer on Discord would certainly be helpful.

Growing Sales Through Food & Beverage (Kevin Kerkhof of Hitherto Coffee).  Another topic of interest among game stores, especially given the number of board game cafes that have opened in the past few years.  What are margins like in that aspect of the industry and how much remodeling and investment does it require to add in food and beverages to a store’s current product mix?

Other seminars worth catching?  Email them to castleperilousgames @gmail.com.

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.