24 Sept 2026
How To Run A Game Store 101 w/ Kylie Prymus | Games Unlimited | BGSS ep_035
Kylie Prymus took a dusty 1,000-square-foot shop doing $350,000 a year and turned it into a million-dollar store that sells no Magic, no Pokemon and no miniatures — on purpose. 🏪 GAMES UNLIMITED has been in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill since 1979, and the owner who bought it used to teach philosophy for a living.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE:🧪 The ALCHEMY talk behind the whole store: "a flower is just a weed with a marketing budget"🎁 Dead stock wrapped in butcher paper sold out in a week — the clearance table never did🟢 A counter above the demo bar with a big green button: the metric is games played, not dollars🛏️ Six weeks of opening a coffee shop at 5:30am, napping in a sleeping bag out back, then working the store till 7📠 "You're opening a business and you don't have a fax machine?" — "Because it's 2015."📈 $350,000 in 2019 to over a million last year, out of 3,600 square feet with no event space at all🎲 Why the heavyweight "greatest game ever" titles sell under a dozen copies a year while HOT STREAK sells 500🚫 Why free demo copies are a trap: "you need skin in the game"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS🏪 Games Unlimited — Pittsburgh▶ https://gamesunl.com/▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJDWlkcNGxW4CFnRkpnuAPA▶ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gamesunlimitedpgh/▶ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gamesunl▶ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GamesUnl🎙️ Unbox Some Funcast — Kylie's podcast▶ https://rss.com/podcasts/unbox-some-funcast❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard▶ https://crdbrd.app/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST!🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ CHAPTERS00:00 - Cold open00:48 - Who is Kylie Prymus?02:19 - The first game store owner on the show06:30 - Alchemy, and the flower that's just a weed with a marketing budget09:08 - Wrapping the dead stock in butcher paper20:49 - Creating new gamers instead of acquiring customers22:57 - No Magic, no Pokemon, no miniatures - on purpose32:38 - The green button above the demo bar35:55 - No free demo copies, because you need skin in the game38:10 - Philosophy professor, coffee shop, game store39:54 - Bob gets sick nine months into the apprenticeship40:27 - The sleeping bag in the back of the coffee shop46:08 - What you actually buy when you buy a game store48:11 - "You're opening a business and you don't have a fax machine?"51:34 - The pandemic move to Forbes Avenue58:29 - "Are you guys new?" after 35 years down the hill1:02:32 - $350,000 to over a million1:08:34 - Third space is not a room full of tables1:20:54 - Bare shelves, a fixed budget, and what to buy first1:27:18 - The prestige heavyweights sell a dozen; Hot Streak sells 5001:34:21 - Nobody needs anything we sell1:45:10 - The Q4 stock-up, and buying 200 copies of one game1:49:53 - Ordering 300 copies of a game you don't like2:05:24 - Salaries, structure, and the staff who said "duh"2:11:36 - Who else should I talk to?#cardboard #bgss
