Are there really no board-game shops with active game-rooms in Switzerland? And if not: Please don’t tell me its because of Switzerland’s ridiculously restrictive work-hours. Background: I just moved here from New England (Northeast USA, basically.) Anyways, back there I lived in a small town that had a really nice boardgame shop. Sold everything from boardgames and puzzles, to magic TCG and Warhammer figurines. What made the shop so successful–and wonderful-- is that they had a pretty healthy event scene. Like most game shops, they had an area with tables that people could drop in and freely use for play. And to support this, they’d host events in the evenings and on the weekends. For example, one evening would be for miniatures painting. Another for Magic TCG tournaments. Saturdays would be drop-in and play pauper formats for magicTCG, (and technically pokemon, though people rarely came for that.) Sundays would be boardgames (something with 4+ hour boardgames!) and Dungeons and Dragons, or Shadowrun. And all these events were free to attend. When I first moved to that town, it was a godsend because it was a great place to meet people in town. Each event had it’s own different demographics of people that attended–often mixed. The board-game Sundays in particular had an extremely wide range of ages and backgrounds. And it was fun! In a world of vanishing third-places, I loved it! Now, I’ve seen one or two sorry looking game-stores in Switzerland, but they didn’t seem to have events or game spaces. And seemed to be…not doing too well. It’d be really depressing if things like that can’t legally exist in Switzerland–and a bit silly. Board-game meetups online really aren’t the same thing; they’re not a replacement for a well-run gameshop. Given how much third-places are already struggling, I’d think it bizarre to essentially make third-places that aren’t cafes or restaurants illegal. (To be clear, this system of theirs only worked because they could open in the evenings and weekends…surely there have to be common-sense exceptions to this?) Please tell me that there’s game shops with actually communities and events. (And that there are reasonable hours that people who work can attend.) EDIT: Apparently there are some places! But they seem to be near Zurich…which is like a 2+ hour trip away from me? Are there any places in the Fribourg / Bern area? submitted by /u/Narroo
Originally posted by u/Narroo on r/Switzerland