TIME TO MOVE ON

Games Workshop was soon selling 'Dungeons & Dragons' via mail-order in large numbers and people started appearing in the street looking for a shop called 'Games Workshop'.

It was reasonable to assume that Games Workshop was a shop! However, the reality was that Workshop was still located in the 3rd floor apartment in Shepherd's Bush. Nobody was meant to come round, it was a mail-order business!

But come round they did. Ian and Steve would regularly look out of their windows to see people wandering about in a state of confusion, looking at their building, glancing up the road, positive that this was the right place, but bemused at the lack of the shop they were sure should be there.

Ian or Steve would open the window and call down, ' Hey! Up here. You looking for 'Games Workshop?'

To which the reply would inevitably be, 'Yeah! You know it?'

Another customer! 'Up here mate', they would call, whereupon the baffled customer would be shown up the stairs to a back room where all the stock was kept.

Now, this didn't exactly go down well with their landlords, a married couple who lived in the ground floor apartment who didn't appreciate that the young guys up on the third floor had a flourishing business to run. People knocking on the door was bad enough, constant deliveries, but the phone calls...

There was only one pay phone, in the hallway outside the landlord's door and, of course, being a mail-order company, it rang constantly.

Ian and Steve would hear the phone ring and literally 'dive' down the stairs in a race to reach the phone before the landlord got to it. On many occasions, they would come to a screaming halt on the 1st floor landing. It was too late. They cringed as they heard the handset lifted from its cradle, and all they could do was listen with a sinking feeling:

'Hello? You want Games Workshop do you? Well you can go to Hell!'

WHEREVER I LAY MY HAT...

By May of '76, Games Workshop had overstayed its welcome in the Shepherd's Bush apartment and was now out on the street.

Undaunted, Steve and Ian decided to go for broke and went to America. Leaving the stock and the business in the hands of Ian's girlfriend, they scraped the air fare together and headed to GenCon in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. GenCon was a games convention organised by TSR to support the growing popularity of 'Dungeons & Dragons'.

The next move the pair made is typical of young entrepreneurs in the face of adversity. Following the success of D&D, other role-playing companies were sprouting up, and all were eager to show their wares at GenCon. Companies such as Fantasy Games Unlimted, Chaosium, Ral Partha, Judges Guild and others were looking to expand in Europe. And as the official distributors of D&D were looking to sign up new suppliers, Ian and Steve struck deals with many of these new companies, even though back home they had neither offices nor even a home!

Returning to England, they decided they needed an office more than they needed a home. They found an office 'the size of a bread bin' recalls Ian with a smile. It was a spare room at the back of an Estate Agent's office. Fortunately, the office was next door to a squash club. As regards to the 'where are we going to live?' question, that was quickly settled. Steve had a transit van called Morrison, and it was to become their home for the next three months, parked outside the squash club, which they joined to enable them to use the amenities and get quite good at squash at the same time! The winter of 1976 was spent every day with the same schedule. 8.00am: squash, shower, etc. 9.00am: 20 yard walk to Games Workshop. Midnight: 20 yard walk to the van with its unpleasant odour and sleeping to the sound of the rain hitting the roof. But these were exciting times for Ian and Steve whose hobby really was becoming a real business. Games Workshop continued to grow but the banks were not interested in lending its owners money to expand the business. So all the money that was being made had to be ploughed back into the business.

Soon the owners of the Estate Agents started complaining about the growing business. Games Workshop had again outgrown its small office. However, this time the landlords could be of help. 'Well, if you want us out, find us a shop. And a flat whilst you are at it because we can at last afford to pay rent.'