The sad tale of Groovy Geckos, my local game store

by Tony Guo

This is the story of a tiny game store in Williamsburg, Virginia and its importance to me. 

I went to NYU for undergraduate and lived all over Manhattan: soho, wall street, union square, and greenwich village.  When I moved to Virginia, it was a culture shock.  Many of my friends moved to hipster NY Williamsburg while I moved to Colonial VA Williamsburg.  The gaming scene focused around one tiny, crowded, and smelly store located next to a motorcycle "club" which was probably a gang. 

Fast forward two years, I became best friends with the owner, Graham.  During my 3L year my fiancee forced me to "grow up" and sell all my magic cards.  Knowing that I would take a substantial lost, there was only one person I wanted to sell them to.  I ended up selling a collection with force of wills, wastelands, show and tells, fetchlands, and two foil Elspeth knight errands for 400 cash and 200 store credit (to draft with of course). 

A week later, my fiancee broke our engagement (we had been engaged for two and half years; since the start of law school).  While she never told me the reason, I deduced she had cheated on me and was too embarrassed to tell me.  

My break up occurred a month before exams. This was unfortunate since I could not focus at all.  On the other side of the apartment complex (Graham and I lived in the same complex), Graham lost his store which then resulted in his live in girlfriend dumping him. 

The new owners of Groovy Geckos ran a chain of car wash facilities and really did not know much about gaming stores.  While old Groovy Geckos was opened late Fridays and Saturdays, the new Groovy Geckos closed very early. New Groovy Geckos also kicked out all the Dragon and Dungeon players because they were "dirty and didn't buy anything."  And to make matters worst they destroyed any chance of building a relationship with the college gaming crowd.

But I continued to go.  Even though they never had that week's promo and the prize support was non-existent.  I went because of Devon, Mark, Luke, Wookie, Steve, Tom, and others.  They supported me through my rough patch.  That playgroup was my family.  We were so different.  Devon was a manager of WaWa, Mark worked doing something with history, Luke was in middle school, Wookie worked at a restaurant, Steve was in the military, Tom was a teacher, and I was going through the most difficult period of my life. 

We supported each other through the bad hands life cruelly dealt us.  We watched movies together, ate together, and went to the M13 pre-release in the middle of no-where (I'm still not sure where that game store was).  Having that support group was critical for one of my most difficult tasks: studying for the New York Bar Exam. 

Because of the breakup I had done very poorly on my law school finals.  I was mopy and couldn't concretrate for stretches of time.  While I had friends in law schools, they were lawyers.... super type A who all wondered why I couldn't pick myself up.  My law school friends are awesome but for this it wasn't what I needed.  I needed someone to listen, and my playgroup did.  They did not offer advice or opinions, they only listened. 

When I moved to Texas, I left almost everything I owned to Luke: my DVD collection, yamaha keyboard, and a large box of magic cards.  

I was sad, although not surprised, to learn my store had gone under after I left.  However the playgroup exchanged numbers and is still together.  I can only imagine the faces people make when they see my playgroup. 

What I am left with are great memories.  Magic is such an amazing game.  It can bring people from all walks of life together.  My playgroup was so diverse; we had senior citizens, elementary and middle school children, blue collar, white collar, college and high school students, college and high school teachers, and it was wonderful. 

I miss Groovy Geckos, not for the store...  The store sort of sucked.  It was dirty, disorganized, and treated the players poorly.  

I miss it for the people.  The late night drafts.  The crazy EDH games.  That was family.  That was my family.