Saw our local game shop's weekly meetup go from 30 people to 5 in under a year because of one guy.

This guy, let's call him Mark, started showing up about 18 months ago. He's the 'rules lawyer' type, but on steroids. He'd argue for 20 minutes over edge cases in casual games of Catan or Ticket to Ride. He'd get visibly angry if someone made a suboptimal play that 'ruined' his strategy. He'd also bring super heavy games like Twilight Imperium to a casual meetup and pressure people into playing, then get upset when they tapped out after 4 hours. The vibe just got so tense and competitive. People stopped coming back. The regulars who built that group up over years just vanished. Now it's basically just Mark and a couple of his friends. The owner is at a loss. Has anyone else had to deal with a single toxic player killing a whole local scene? How did you handle it without causing a huge blow-up?

3 comments

3 Comments

noahhernandez2mo ago

Was it really just him or did other stuff change too?

chen.olivia2mo ago

My old gym got bought out last year and they changed EVERYTHING, even the soap in the showers. The new owners painted over the cool mural and swapped out all the free weights for these weird machine things. It felt like a totally different place by the time they were done.

olivia57317d ago

Oh man, the soap change really hits home. I swear (and this is so embarrassing) the first time I went to a gym that changed soap, I literally brought my own for three months because I felt so betrayed by the new smell. But the mural thing is worse - like, who thinks gray walls are more inspiring than a giant painting of a dude lifting a car? I get so attached to little things like that, it's almost pathetic. I mean, I once stopped going to a deli because they changed the font on their menu board, so I'm clearly not a flexible person when it comes to this stuff. You're totally right that it becomes a completely different place, like they just erased all the memories with some cheap paint and weird machines.