Sushi Knight is a local game store located in Lower Hutt, just a twenty minute drive from the capital of New Zealand. Despite only just opening their doors last year, they've quickly established a reputation for their welcoming atmosphere and focus on building the community. Steve McRoy, the founder and owner of Sushi Knight, sat down with me to talk about their humble origins as a gaming club, and the beliefs which lie at the heart of their place in the community.
‘So back in the day I ran a gaming club for about four years called Game Over Games, and every Friday/Saturday, we’d just get together and play some games. It could be anything from TCG’s to board games to tabletop RPG’s. We reached out to some kids from local high schools so they came along as well. So the way that we got introduced to Flesh and Blood was through one of the guys [in the gaming club] who played it, and a few people who’d been a part of its initial release, so they brought it along. We didn’t really have any cards so we all piled into my car and drove up to Calico Keep to buy some of their stock, and started to play the game. Right on the cusp of opening Sushi Knight, we went “this is the first game that we must get, as our game to sign up for and to sell.”. We were hooked on the art, the game, and just the fact that this came from New Zealand.’
This may be one of the reasons why Sushi Knight has such a strong community presence; their roots as a gaming club echo forward into their community initiatives and the environment they create for players. Sushi Knight is, by all accounts, still a very young store, and their success is even more impressive when that’s taken into account.
‘We had our one year anniversary literally in September, we’re just one year old now, it’s insane.’
Another huge aspect of Sushi Knight is Steve’s passion for the store and for the community, one of the reasons that he founded the store to begin with. When I asked about his experiences with the community, particularly as the store was involved with FAB from the moment they opened their doors, Steve comes back to his vision for Sushi Knight.
‘Well it kind of comes back to what I wanted Sushi Knight to be. A lot of people don’t know, but I actually have a “real job” working in IT, and that has sort of allowed me to tick off a few of my bucket list things; one of them being that since I was the age of 15, I just wanted to open a store that can service the community. To give back, and create memories, like what I had when I was a kid.
There were a few stores in the Lower Hutt area and we used to just go between them, and even just sit on the floor - there was no playspace - and just play cards, interact, and make some friends for life, that I’m still in touch with now. Just that real sense of having fun with like-minded people, you know? And if you look at the ethos of Flesh and Blood, which is literally “coming together to play great games in the flesh and blood”, that is what my dream is, as well. I just want people in the community to come together, play some games, and create some memories.’
‘When we opened Sushi Knight, we had that in mind, we wanted to create this space where - they don’t have to just buy things and get out, it was more sort of a “come and hang!” If you want to wait while your mum has her hair done, or go shopping, or whatever. I think that retail space has changed a lot, and I wanted to create that kind of space again, where you can come and play some games in a safe environment. We really touched base with the community there, and of course having this new game that we’re stocking and selling was just amazing.
We ran out of the Ira [welcome] decks, we ran out of everything, and that sort of prompted us into doing our own Blitz decks, which is what we’re doing now to a really large scale.’
They also created their own playmats, seeking to create something unique for new players to learn the game on, that they could then take home to continue learning the game.
‘It was quite hard, because when we first started, we really only had the two-player mat. People wanted to take that home and keep learning to play, or play with their own community, and so we thought “why not create something where they can call it their own, it’s got that Sushi Knight feel, and has all the zones for that key learning. And it’s very cost effective. So that’s where we made our Sushi blue one; following on from that, they sort of turned into a commodity, a collectible item. We didn’t really know that that was going to be the case.’
One particular example of this was the charity drive for the Cancer Society, organised by Matt Rogers and Nick Butcher, which ended up raising over $55,000NZD. Sushi Knight participated by creating a special limited edition playmat for the event, and donating the proceeds to the Cancer Society.
“I personally have been touched by cancer; I had kidney cancer and had the right kidney removed, and I thought “well, we’ve got to get on board, what can we do?” There were a lot of people donating things [for auction], but I thought it would be really cool to sell something, and then donate 80, 90% of that. We got in contact with our artist in Indonesia, and he was so on board. Literally in about four or five days, he’d drawn up the design that I had in my head, and that turned into our charity mat.”
Two of the community incentives Sushi Knight founded was the Young Bloods initiative, hosting tournaments for new players to be introduced to the game, and talk with mentors about strategy, deckbuilding and hero choices, and their weekly Training Grounds tournament, creating an equal space for new players to learn how to play the game at their own pace, and for more experienced players to play in a low-stakes environment.
‘We had a very large range of people who wanted to play, from nine-year-old Celeste to our 45-year-old TCG pro, and they were all trying to learn how to play the game at a different sort of level. So originally, we had a whole group of players from those who are semi-professional, and those who are just starting out, and of course we felt it a bit unfair. Listening to them, they didn’t really want to go up at an Armory event with the pro’s practicing for the Calling, and so we thought “let’s break it down, let’s take it piece by piece, and let’s try and grow the players so that the end goal is that they’re playing at a national level, or they’re playing at the Calling”, and along the way, we can create an environment where…
‘For instance, we had Young Bloods, which was just for the kids. Now a lot of the kids were playing the game, just playing against each other and their friends, and for some of them, this is the first time that they’ve played in a competitive environment. So we’re teaching them how pairings are working, how GEM pairs off players, how many rounds there are, where to look. We did that with the Young Bloods because we’re all about grassroots, and we obviously want this game to grow. Obviously over time, some people decide to play less or that they just want to collect, and we want to see all these younger players coming in to fill those spaces behind them. We did Young Bloods over the weekend, along with a sort of coaching or mentoring stage as well, where we had a couple of our experienced players sit down with some of the younger ones, and go through their decks, do Deck Tech’s. “This is what you can play, this is what you could do; hey, have you thought about upgrading to this card…”’
‘We did that for quite a while, and we were quite successful with that. It wasn’t just kids either, we would say to anyone who was really new “come along on the weekend, we can sit down, and we can just have that one-on-one mentorship”. And then of course Training Grounds - it was kind of like a Wednesday, hump day, and we could have a lot more people who could fit it into their schedule. We just really wanted an on-demand event, it wasn’t big in regards to Armory, it didn’t have all the baller prizes on the line; it was basically just a fun tournament where you could come in, it’s a bit more than just the learn-to-play stuff. We had a bit of banter, rivalries were made, people were smack talking and throwing down the gauntlet, and just having fun. And of course, it took away from that competitiveness in regards to playing for prizes, it was cheap to enter, you got a booster pack - which was basically the prize, there was just a couple of boosters at the end - but mainly, it was just for fun.
‘We had some of the more professional players who were in Armory events every week dropping in with a really “weird” deck, just to throw some fun in there, and it really just gave people the opportunity to try new things, as well. That’s really what we wanted it to be, and we get anywhere from 12 to 30 people a week coming and playing and just having fun, and it’s been amazing.’
One of the incentives that has been making the biggest impact in the community is Sushi Knight’s Blitz deck project, which feeds back into the grassroots ideology and desire to build a diverse local community.
‘We’re actually going into a lot of schools. Early on, we ran out of Ira decks, and obviously we really wanted to serve the people. We had all these people knocking on the door asking to learn to play, so we actually made our own Blitz decks. They’re all commons, you can really easily learn to play with just the commons, and we have all the heroes. Some of them wanted to be the warrior princess, or the strongman, you know? The Blitz decks work really well for that, and of course it means we get rid of a lot of our chaff from all of the big fiends that would buy cases and then donate all of their commons, so we can use them all in these Blitz decks which we can then send out to the schools.
‘With Sushi being a destination store, we don’t have the walk-by traffic or anything like that, we’re actually in a space where people come to us. We don’t really want to be like an online shop either, we’re wanting to service the community ourselves, and with that, we’ve actually got to get out there in the community and be proactive.
‘Some of the kids who come here really struggle with social interaction, so they can come here into this environment and just sit down, and just get involved and engaging and socialising, thinking a bit of strategy; they were opening up a bit more, and it was actually so rewarding to see that. We really thought “hey, this is something amazing, let’s be more proactive and go out to the schools and really promote this.” It’s been really well-received by the public, by principals and teachers, and of course some of the teachers actually play here as well. So they’re taking Flesh and Blood back into their colleges and teaching students how to play, and it’s had this really awesome knock-on effect.’
‘I think to date, we’ve made over 5,500 [Blitz] decks, which have gone out just to our community. And some of the kids really enjoy the art, and it’s inspired them to draw, and do their own fantasy art and things like that. Those sorts of stories are just really, really cool.’
‘One of the experiences we’ve had is a brother who came in and wanted to play, and his sister wanted to play as well, and she’s only nine. She became one of our youngest players, and she’s actually really, really good at the game, and she beat him all the time, and that was quite a highlight, too. Just to know that Training Grounds, or even Young Bloods, you come in and you have our little warrior princess beating you, real cold-faced, putting everyone to the sword of Dorinthea, it’s been really, really cool to see.’
What kinds of things are Steve and the Sushi Knight team wanting to do in the future?
‘We’ve actually just released a new playmat which is for Te Wiki o te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week), with all the zones in Te Reo Māori. We’ve got our character in front of the marae, and of course everything is in Te Reo.’
As someone who founded a local game store just over a year ago, and has long been involved in the local community, Steve has some advice for others who want to foster their local community.
‘The things that have worked for us; first off we’ve created this space where anyone can come and they feel warm, welcomed. Know who your community audience is, and just listen to them, really. Work with them, and what they want, and really just make them a part of things. What we’ve found is that if you can provide the fun environment, tournaments and games, especially with the cool prizes, you’ll find that they just keep coming back for more.’
