Business Spotlight: A Place to Play

If someone told Elatia Webb that she would someday own a gaming store, she wouldn’t have believed it.

In fact, Webb didn’t start playing strategic card games until after high school, and her bachelor’s degree is in environmental science. But her path was paved after volunteering to teach kids how to play Pokemon at a card game store about 10 years ago.

Christopher Fernandez, Webb’s former business partner in Haven Games, had the idea of opening a game store. His idea sparked at the same time as the COVID-19 pandemic. Webb recalled he asked if she was interested in the idea, and Webb, who had lost her job due to the pandemic, was on board.

At the beginning of the venture, most gaming stores were shut down. Webb and Fernandez started by buying gaming cards in bulk and selling them solely online. That continued through July 2021, when they opened a brick-and-mortar shop off U.S. 160 in Nixa.

Besides selling cards, Webb and Fernandez sold strategic games and gaming themed products from various vendors. To give customers a place to play in Nixa – it’s now the only gaming store in town – there is a demo wall, where gamers of all ages try out a new game in store before buying, or just sit to play cards with friends. Each evening, there are also events varying from Pokemon and Magic tournaments to board game nights.

Webb says there are a lot of gamers that are part of the Nixa Excel Day Program through RestoringHope and Arc of the Ozarks that come inside to play, in a welcoming, inclusive environment.

Moving forward
Webb says after Fernandez went on a sabbatical last year, he realized he wanted a different career. She bought him out in June for an undisclosed amount.

The business has been growing fast, Webb says, although she declined to disclose revenue. In the first year as a brick-and-mortar business, sales grew 220%, and by 50% in the second year.

Webb knew the business was worth expanding, but honing in on the direction was key.

“I had actually bought a second store down in Arkansas at one point, but it got too much for me to manage both locations, because I couldn’t travel back and forth full time,” she says. “I ended up selling that and using all the inventory acquired to make the Nixa store bigger.”

Even with devoting all her resources, the demand exceeded the space. For some events, Haven Games would use Divinity Dance Academy’s space next door to fit attendees.

In July, Webb says she found the store’s current location, also in Nixa, which about tripled the gaming store’s space to 3,000 square feet. In the new location, there is one suite dedicated to tournaments and one dedicated to sales and regular board game play.

Online sales
The in-store gaming is only a portion of the business model, with the other devoted to buying and reselling cards, Webb says.

Her boyfriend and manager, Warren Dereau, is tasked with buying and reselling card collections online. He says the cards are sold mostly on TCGPlayer.com, one of the top sites for buying and selling playing cards.

“A lot of people will come to us to help sell their collection,” Dereau says. “They just don’t want to deal with it themselves.”

Webb says he mostly sells cards from Magic: The Gathering and Lorcana, a Disney strategy game that’s been out for a couple of years.

Magic: The Gathering, according to Hasbro’s investor relations data, was released 30 years ago and has over 50 million players today. The average player is 30 years old.

Each month, Haven Games makes between $3,000 to $6,000 by selling game cards online, he says, not including any in-store game or card sales.

Major resale companies are paying attention. TCGPlayer.com was acquired by eBay in 2022. It was reported the deal landed at a cost of $295 million.

Growing the store
Webb says the new space for Haven Games provides room for gaming tournaments, as well as vendors that sell gaming-related products. The shop has 10 vendors and Webb says she receives about 25% of profits to allow the vendors to showcase their merchandise.

One of the store’s longest vendors is Andrew VanZyll, owner of Grimbeard Leather, who hand crafts leather dice pouches and journals. He says Haven Games was the third store to sell his products – and now his products are sold in game stores all over the U.S.

“I have watched Haven Games from the beginning, and it’s been really cool to see them grow from the small plaza location to the massive shop, which is about the size of Meta Games in Springfield,” he says. “That’s an amazing feat to be able to do in four years.”

VanZyll says Webb orders from him about every six months. He ships his products directly to the store and notes he’ll buy back products that don’t sell.

In addition to the space increase, Webb plans to open a coffee shop in Haven Games this month.

“I just thought, since Nixa doesn’t have a sit-down coffee shop anymore, it seemed like a natural avenue,” she says. “You can just sit down, play games and have a cup of coffee.”

Webb says besides coffee there will also be sandwiches, soups and other small food items for sale.

She says she is excited to see what growth will continue to bring gamers in Nixa and the surrounding areas that play at Haven Games.

“It’s a very tight-knit community and welcoming,” she says. “It’s one of the reasons that I opened so everybody has a place to play. There are a lot of marginalized groups that don’t necessarily fit other places and that’s what we’re here for.”