GeekStop Games: London's online game store

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: CANDIS BROSS
Jason Arnold is the man behind-the-scenes at GeekStop Games,, London's online game store. While he's incredibly busy juggling his many responsibilities, he says he wouldn't change it.

Jason Arnold is a man of many titles: full-time medical laboratory technologist, father of two young girls, husband, new homeowner, deliveryman and local online game storeowner, all of which he’s accomplished by the age of 36.

Arnold’s passion for modern board games started 15 years ago, when a friend introduced him to the classic resource management game Settlers of Catan. From there he delved deeper into more complex strategy games like Puerto Rico, an economy game where players assume of role of colonial governors.

The Windsor native moved here for an internship at Victoria Hospital, where he now works. Although he’s constantly busy because of his multiple titles, he says that he wouldn’t change anything.

He purchased many of his first games at stores in town, but when he realized London lacked an online game resource, he started joking with friends about starting his own business.

Arnold decided to take some business courses and later officially registered his business in October of 2011. He survived on word-ofmouth until June 2012, when his business went online.

“GeekStop started out as a complete side-project, and now it’s rivalling my full-time job,” he said.

Being an online store, GeekStop Games’ catalogue is massive. Every day, new board games come out, and Arnold finds staying on top of it can be daunting.

He compared running GeekStop Games to a heavy strategy game, where he needs to be constantly thinking about the next step.

After buying a new home, Arnold needed to decrease his stock for the move.

“We sold a ton of stuff, and we still had 16 giant boxes of games to move,” he said. “We sold more than half our inventory … it took me like two weeks to ship everything out.”

Arnold is lucky enough to still have face time with his customers because he offers free local door-to-door delivery, one of the things that he believes sets his company apart from competitors.

Although he can work odd hours at the hospital, he still manages to double-book his time, sometimes dropping off games while bringing his oldest daughter to dance class or on his work commute. Because of the nature of his delivery system, he’s sometimes delivers soon after an order is put in, leaving customers saying, “I just ordered this!”

Arnold compares his passion for sharing board games to sharing your favourite TV show or movie with your friends and family and seeing them experience the joy you had when you first discovered it. His oldest daughter has her own game collection, which makes him incredibly proud. He enjoys playing board games with her because they are much more social and interactive than other activities, sometimes telling her she’s “doing homework” by doing math in games like Can’t Stop, a press-your-luck dice rolling game.

Arnold is part of London Family Game Days (LFGD), whose goal is to introduce and teach board and cards games to families in London. LFGD has been at elementary schools across the city bringing games for students like King of Tokyo, Dungeon Roll, Blueprints, and Belfort (a locally developed game by Sen-Foong Lim & Jay Cormier).

LFGD will be at Project Play on November 23 at the Western Fair District.

You can find Arnold’s online store at geekstopgames.com