There’s an internet turf war being fought by two local game stores, and it’s starting to get national attention. Here’s the gist, provided by ENWorld.com.
Hillside Games of Asheville, NC – the worst game store in America? Unethical practices, domain-name stealing, anti-competitive tactics, and frivolous lawsuit threats against those who criticize are just the start!
… Recently, one of the two gaming stores in town [Asheville, NC] closed its doors. They focused on boardgames and had a huge selection. Their prices were competitive with Amazon, and they sponsored a weekly game night at a local cafe. All-in-all, they were pretty awesome.
A buddy of mine (a guy from our gaming group) stepped in and bought out their stock when they closed. It wasn’t easy, but it’s something he’s wanted to do for a long time. He’s got a space on the west side of town lined up, and plans to open The Wyvern’s Tale in a couple months.
Unfortunately, the other remaining gaming store [Hillside Games] appears to be run by jerks. See, they found out that he was going to reopen the boardgame shop. They decided to go on the offensive, despite being on the other side of town and the fact they cater to card-gamers. They registered every domain name they could think of: thewyvernstale.com, .net, .info, .mobi, etc. Besides being illegal, it’s incredibly petty. Unfortunately, it costs over $1000 to file a complaint against them.
A couple of updates: Hillside Games turned off public comments on their Facebook page after this story started spreading throughout the geek-rage-enabled internet. And according to the The Wyvern’s Tale’s Facebook page, Hillside is threatening to sue them for libel.
We have been contacted by the management of Hillside Games. They are threatening now to sue us for libel, unless we remove all related posts and make a public apology for our actions.
We have thought about it, and debated about whether we should comply. We have been emotional, we admit. Perhaps even inflammatory, at times. We have decided to remove some of our more inflammatory remarks, and we do… apologize for that behavior.
Libel is a serious charge, but at its core, it requires that we told a lie, an untruth. Our claims were not only true, they have evidence. The WHOIS information of a domain name is public information, and right there in black and white, you can see that the domains corresponding to our business name have been registered by Hillside Games. The day after we announced our plan to do business.
So then, the question remains: Do we apologize unconditionally? Do we give in to fear, and offer a feeble apology, for sharing the truth? We have decided…absolutely not. The truth is the truth, and that can never change. Two plus two equals four, and there will always be four lights (Bonus points to those of you who get that).
In the spirit of being cautious, however, we have elected that we will leave their Facebook page alone. We have also decided that when we speak or write on this matter, henceforth, we will only provide facts. The facts are thus:
-On 07 February 2012, The Wyvern’s Tale LLC was formed in the State of North Carolina.
-On 17 February 2012, The Wyvern’s Tale LLC, through the medium of Facebook, announced its intentions to do business as The Wyvern’s Tale in Asheville.
-On 18 February 2012, Hillside Games, Inc. registered www.thewyvenrstale.com, .net, .org, .us, .mobi, .info.
-On 27 February 2012, The Wyvern’s Tale LLC, through the medium of Facebook, announced that Hillside Games, Inc registered the aforementioned domain names on the aforementioned date. Let the record show that these announcements did contain some emotional language.
-On 28 February 2012, the Chief Financial Officer of Hillside Games, Inc. contacted the proprietors of The Wyvern’s Tale LLC and demanded that all related posts be removed from Facebook and that The Wyvern’s Tale LLC issue a public, written apology, lest they bring suit for libel.
We’ll have more on the story as it develops.
TNG reference ftw!
It’s a ST:TNG reference, but that was itself a reference to the book, _1984_. Looks like the prediction of an overtly fascist regime was set a bit early in the novel, though. Looking at the idiocracy currently in power here in the US of 2018, I wonder just how much longer it might be before we get re-education camps churning out good little Trumpsters.
On a lighter note, I don’t live in Asheville anymore, but I’ve dropped by The Wyvern’s Tale and bought a couple things the couple times I’ve been back to visit. It’s still a F_GS (Friendly Gaming Store), even if it’s not _L__ (Local)for me anymore!
Good job on Mountain X for covering this! We local gamers won’t stand for such sleazy business practices. I’ve shopped at Hillside before, but never again will they get my money!
They certainly try to take advantage of people. Today they offered me only $1.50 for about 1000 Magic cards, then offered me only about 15% of the value (of the same exact game currently on their shelves) for two LIKE NEW board games I also brought in to see about getting store credit to buy something else. I’ll never go there again!
You’ve got the URL wrong for ENWorld, and your spam filter won’t let me enter the correct one.
If you play in a tournament at Hillside, you are supporting them.
just did a search and found this. thought I would leave a post/review in 2015.
nothing has changed. still the same shady shop it always was. ex employee’s are put under gag order to not reveal shady business practices. it’s out job as customers to leave reviews all over the internet because the owners have proven time and time again that they will always run and hide behind even shadier lawyers. we have to destroy them in the court of public opinion. there are other shops in WNC that your money can go further at and ultimately better serve you and the local gaming community.
Was sent this by a friend and wanted to chime in with my experiences.
Hillside owners will actively try to rip you off. They will try to trade you promotional cards they get for free from WOC for your valuable cards. Super shady.
Parents, don’t let your kids go here. They are being bullied and taken advantage of.
Those free cards are worth money and I don’t understand how that’s shady that’s business life not far and it cost money to run a shop it’s called perks of ownership
Those cards are not a “perk”, they are promotional and to be used for promotion. It is against the WotC rules to use those cards for profit. Trading them for cards that they can sell is profit. When attempting to trade me these cards, they were very hushed and quiet about the whole thing. Shady.
Thanks for the update. It’s important to expose the owner for the run-of-the-mill, fraudulent conman he is. I hope more people will come out of the woodwork and share their stories.
Nothing has changed! A very secretive cabal of bitter nerdy swindlers. The conversations that takes place there are somewhere between abysmal and dismal. Kidiots and Snowflakes that lack an understanding of what “context” is and people speaking in internet lingo and memes as if it is actual conversation. Throw in a healthy dose of self-loathing, hedonism and narcissism and you paint the picture of what this place truly is.
Parents, if you are reading this do not let your children play here! It is an unsafe environment. Exploitation is the name of the game.
There are many better, safer and actually fun gaming environments in the Asheville area.