A lot of things can work at small scale that don't work at Radio Shack public company scale.
Example. There's a board game store in Harvard Square that has been there forever. I assume it must make enough money for its owners to have stayed in business all these years. That doesn't mean that opening hundreds or thousands of such stores across the country would be a brilliant business plan. The same applies to the individual model stores, comic book stores, aquarium stores, etc. across the country. I suspect few make a lot of money--and it probably still gets harder rather than easier--but they can work on an individual basis.
You must be talking about The Games People Play[1].
Long ago I bought things there such as the D&D boxed set and the Chivalry & Sorcery[2] rules. Another purchase I made there was a Magic Cube, imported from Hungary before the worldwide release as Rubik's Cube. These first cubes were heavier than the widely-released ones[3].
Yes, even though it's an abused term that covers everything from a thriving small-scale full-time business with reasonable hours, to making enough bucks to hang out on the beach for 6 months a year, to barely making it in spite of 80 hour weeks, to labors of love that fit in there someplace.
Example. There's a board game store in Harvard Square that has been there forever. I assume it must make enough money for its owners to have stayed in business all these years. That doesn't mean that opening hundreds or thousands of such stores across the country would be a brilliant business plan. The same applies to the individual model stores, comic book stores, aquarium stores, etc. across the country. I suspect few make a lot of money--and it probably still gets harder rather than easier--but they can work on an individual basis.