Tom Powers says his personal board game collection includes about 3,000 different games.

The self-described hobbyist gamer has turned his enthusiasm for noncomputerized styles of games into a full-time career. He owns an online board-game store, and this April, he and business partners Bret Clifton and Ben Garrod opened Board Game Nation, a Spokane Valley store devoted to everything board- or card-game related.

Located at 7312 E. Sprague, the 4,500-square-foot store is divided into two sections. One side is devoted to the sale of about 500 diverse games—none of which are video or computer games—and the other half of the space is set up with about 10 gaming tables, used for the store's weekly themed gaming nights and for customers to drop in and play.

"That is one of the big draws here," Powers says. "We have an event called Friday Night Magic, and that is when people come in and have a tournament."

Board Game Nation is open daily, and gamers can drop in any time during the store's regular hours to play a game with the owners or other customers, says Clifton. Customers also can bring in their own games for play, or can learn a new game from the store's collection of games, he says.

In addition to Friday Night Magic, which is focused on tournaments with a popular collectible card-trading game called Magic: The Gathering, the business has a themed gaming night focused on Yu-gi-oh, a card-trading game that originated in Japan. Also, the owners say they plan this week to start featuring a night focused on the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons.

Board Game Nation's three owners say their goal is to highlight a different gaming style each night of the week, but they add that anyone is welcome to drop in even if they aren't an enthusiast of a particular night.

"When there's something going on we have a few tables open so anyone can come down and game," Powers says. "Our goal is to mix it up. The name Board Game Nation is a way to try and get people to think they are a part of something ... it's a virtual community that all gamers are part of."

The three owners, who also are the business's sole employees, say that in the last six to eight years, the board game industry has exploded in the number of new game titles being released and in consumer interest. One factor in the growing number of titles is the ability for game creators to make small print runs, Clifton says.

Says Powers, "There is something for everyone; people who like to act out, people who like to think, and there is a huge range of simple to hard, and short, medium, or long games."

Board Game Nation sells several styles of games, including card games, role-playing games, collectible card games, traditional American-style games, war-related games, and what are referred to amongst hobbyists as Euro games, the three owners say.

Clifton says Euro games are strategy-focused board games that have simple rule sets and players have very little direct contact with each other during play. A player's goal in such games is to accumulate the most points to become the winner. Euro-style games are one of the more popular gaming categories among hobbyist gamers, he adds, and make up a large percentage of Board Game Nation's inventory.

While Board Game Nation's focus is to offer a wide variety of lesser-known games as well as products to appeal to all age levels and interests, Clifton says the business also stocks popular games such as Apples to Apples, Clue, and other American favorites.

The main difference between the American-style games and Euro games is the focus on player strategy in the latter, he says. "(American) are the games with little plastic figures and a lot of randomness and dice rolling where you try to eliminate your opponents," he says.

Another large category of games Board Game Nation sells are historical and war-related games, Clifton says.

"Those games simulate historical combat and they take a long time and have complex rule sets and books of rules you have to reference back to," he says.

Other games in stock there include what are referred to as table-top games, and one of the most popular of those is called Warhammer 40000. Clifton says that game involves setting up miniature terrain on a table and players use plastic figurines that they've hand painted to simulate battles. He says one aspect of that game is the ability for gamers to paint their own figurines and create elaborate armies.

Board Game Nation retails its games at about 10 percent below the manufacturer's suggested retail price, Clifton says. He says it also offers other discounts—such as an additional 10 percent off of purchases if a customer signs up for a store membership, or 5 percent off of a game that's currently not in stock and has to be ordered.

The games and related products sold at Board Game Nation range in price between about $5 and $90. The prices mostly depend on the size of the game and the complexity of pieces, as well as if it's a game that didn't have many print runs and might be harder to find, Clifton says.

He and Powers say one of the challenges in running a brick-and-mortar game store is the competition with online sellers that are able to price their products much lower due to the reduced operating costs associated with running an online store.

The idea for Board Game Nation was born when Powers and Clifton met last winter at a board game night some Spokane-area gamers had started.

Clifton, a Spokane native then living in Palo Alto, Calif., and working there as a teacher, had been in town visiting family over the Christmas holiday. Not long after, he says he moved back here to open the store with Powers. Clifton says he chose to return to Spokane because growth in the teaching field in California there was stagnant.

He adds that while he was working as a teacher, his interest in board games merged into his job, and he often used educational games in the classroom as a teaching tool.

Garrod had been an employee of Powers' other business, an online board game store, and Powers says he asked him if he'd be interested in joining the new venture.

Powers declines to disclose the name of that online business because it's no longer his main focus and he fears it would create competition for the brick-and-mortar storefront here.

Powers says he and his wife own the 10,000-square-foot building on East Sprague where the store is located, and that he uses roughly half of it for inventory storage.

Since Board Game Nation opened almost five months ago, the owners say traffic has steadily increased.

For now, they say their focus is to continue spreading the word about the store and establishing a following for its weekly game nights.

"We want to turn it into a community center, where people can come and enjoy time with friends and family," Clifton says.

Adds Powers, "Our goal also is to educate people about board games because they can be more than what you grew up with. There is a huge variety—most people can only name about five games—I can name at least 2,000."

The store's inventory is always changing, and the owners say they get new games in every week.

The owners' familiarity with all of the products they sell also helps them reach out to any customer demographic, Clifton asserts.

"If you come in and say you like a certain game, we can show you similar games," he says. "Or if you don't like a certain type of game, we can show you others that you might enjoy."