I just did our October analysis for the store. It told me I've been embracing the mood of despair while in reality the store is doing very well. The down side of the "community center" game store model is you get the good and bad vibes from the community. Customers tend to project their mood onto you, especially when they don't understand your business model.
October is not a good retail month for us normally, it's a transition month between Summer and the holiday season. There's a lot of quiet time to embrace those bad feelings, if you allow yourself to indulge. In the end we were profitable and did significantly better than last year, but it felt hard earned. It wasn't really, it just felt that way.
