You’re probably wondering why you found James Mathe’s writing on this “Vercant” guy’s website. Well, here’s the details.
From roughly 2009-2017, James Mathe and I worked together in a variety of ways. I was first his store manager, early playtester on Minion Games and occasional copy editor, then his business partner, and ultimately his friend. James was a man of strong bluntness and generosity in equal parts, and I credit him with helping me get my start in both the game industry, and life.
This post is just a note to say that none of his writing found on this site are mine, but are 100% his. I moved them here to preserve his legacy of advice and kindness after his passing. These articles are offered “as is” with their original dates of publication transferred over from JamesMathe.com to my blog, and his name appended as the author. Some of them, the ‘So you want to be a Game Store Owner?’ series, I co-authored. The information is also a bit dated, and was at the time intended to be a sort of “crash course” on small shop bootstrapping – they are nevertheless presented as they were at the time of writing. That series also never had a Part 4 written by James, unfortunately, and as it was always my intention to finish it with him – and now on my own – I hosted the first 3 pieces here. As for where Part 4 is, well, by the time of James’ passing I had written over 100 pages of operations manuals for my own store. Prior to that time, I was still trying to figure out how to “stay alive” as a store owner myself. After he passed, I felt like summarizing his suggested topics for Part 4 would be … challenging. And then COVID-19 hit, and my concerns about business survival took a turn and, well, I’ll get to it, James. Someday.
If you found James’ advice useful, please pass it on, free of charge – exactly as James would have.