{"id":76760,"date":"2021-07-11T04:57:29","date_gmt":"2021-07-10T18:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/?p=76760"},"modified":"2022-02-27T11:01:03","modified_gmt":"2022-02-27T00:01:03","slug":"building-games-and-friendships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/news\/building-games-and-friendships\/","title":{"rendered":"Building games and friendships"},"content":{"rendered":"

AT 10.45am last Saturday, Dalton Copeland walked through the doors of Guf Bendigo to build the palm-sized, intricate models from his new Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Dominion<\/em> box set.<\/p>\n

He wouldn\u2019t leave until the shop closed at 9pm.<\/p>\n

Mr Copeland was one of about 30 people who visited the shop that day, and he was eager to get his hands on the newly released tabletop wargame product.<\/p>\n

The 10 hours Mr Copeland spent building and battling with the miniature figurines isn\u2019t an indication of a lack of knowledge however, it\u2019s rather a reflection of the skill, patience and dedication a growing number of people have for gaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou sink a lot of time and a lot of effort into this hobby,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s like with most hobbies. If you\u2019re not either doing your hobby, you\u2019re doing something adjacent or preparing for your hobby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Copeland, who used to work at a nearby kebab shop, started visiting Guf Bendigo as a social outlet after finishing his shifts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a shift I didn\u2019t immediately want to go home so I used to come in here and have a chat with the boys,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the guys working at that time was a friend of mine from years and years ago and he wasn\u2019t in every night, so I met Ian and met Ben and just kept coming in, playing board games after work and went from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Warhammer figurines are only centimeters tall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shop manager Ian Pearce and owner Ben McKay pride themselves on fostering a gaming environment where like-minded strangers can form bonds over day-long gaming marathons since Guf Bendigo\u2019s opening in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a hangout place first and foremost,\u201d Mr Pearce said. \u201cI want people to come to Guf, be comfortable, do gaming and hobby, maybe meet new people, see us as the hobby place instead of online retailers who can do them a better deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding communities is what we do,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know the names of every single person who walks through the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we have nurtured a community to the point where people want to hang out with each other instead of with me then that\u2019s our end goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Mr Copeland, the friendships made at Guf Bendigo extend beyond shop walls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people I was playing board games with, I\u2019d never met them before. We made friends, they\u2019re good friends of mine now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go to parties, you go to their house and that was all just from here.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know them from a bar of soap until I got beaten up in board games by them one too many times.\u201d<\/p>\n

These communities fill the shop\u2019s two levels daily. Before COVID-19 restrictions were enforced, PC gamers could be found getting comfortable at a gaming station downstairs.<\/p>\n

Above them, trading card game players spread out on tables for popular games like Magic: The Gathering <\/em>or Pok\u00e9mon<\/em>, with tournaments for a variety of games held at the shop from Wednesday to Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was one special event Pok\u00e9mon tournament where we had 80 people who travelled from South Australia and New South Wales just for our little tournament,\u201d Mr Pearce said.<\/p>\n

He said a game \u201cbecomes a person\u2019s whole identity\u201d, and the male-dominated community is seeing increasing participation from equally passionate women gamers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing more and more women lately as it becomes more accepted in the eyes of the generic populous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Pearce considered making Guf Bendigo a welcoming space for all gamers part of his role as manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one of the more important aspects of a community leader to stay on top of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Between the shop\u2019s small team of three staff members, Mr Pearce also said, \u201cWe know everything there is to know about the products we\u2019ve got on the shelves to intimate detail such that when people want to come in and chat or get advice, we can do that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AT 10.45am last Saturday, Dalton Copeland walked through the doors of Guf Bendigo to build the palm-sized, intricate models from his new Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Dominion box set. He wouldn\u2019t leave until the shop closed at 9pm. Mr Copeland was one of about 30 people who visited the shop that day, and he was […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":184,"featured_media":76761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-76760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBuilding games and friendships - Bendigo Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/news\/building-games-and-friendships\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Building games and friendships - Bendigo Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AT 10.45am last Saturday, Dalton Copeland walked through the doors of Guf Bendigo to build the palm-sized, intricate models from his new Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Dominion box set. He wouldn\u2019t leave until the shop closed at 9pm. 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