Hello Unplugged!

Hello Unplugged!!

Hi, I’m Mike, I own and operate Unplugged. I wanted to have a space to directly communicate my ideas, visions and opinions directly to the patrons of Unplugged, so this will be the first of many blogs incoming to our new webpage.

In 2015 I formed my LLC, in 2017 I opened our store as Edmond Unplugged, now it’s already 2024 and throughout that time things have changed. We were plugging along as a successful “board game café” style retail shop and BAM Covid hit. Covid changed the world and really affected the gaming industry in a few ways. People got used to shopping online for games even more than they had been, they got used to staying home to play board games more and Kickstarter accelerated the direct to consumer sales model. With all of these things happening at once, we decided to change and pivot a bit away from the board games and lean more into miniature games, card games and role-playing games. This would allow us to schedule specific times for events, build strong communities around each game and to host different organized play opportunities.

Along with the pivot I began to think our “look” didn’t match my vision for the future, things felt antiquated, I wanted a fresh look, so with the help of my first customer, now good friend, and talented designer Chase Layman, we set out to refresh Edmond Unplugged’s digital appearance.

The first thing we agreed on was to update the name, everyone always referred to us as “Unplugged” anyhow and we’re in Edmond, so it felt redundant to be anything other than just Unplugged now. The second thing I wanted was to lose the meeple, I felt it was too rooted in board games to have the feel I wanted, so after many concepts, conversations, and outside opinions we landed on the lil pluggy thing, we have yet to name it, so I am open to ideas. The new logo is several things, a U, a plug, a 6-sided die and a happy face. All of these things incorporated into one simple logo felt great, so we will lean into it as we move forward in our journey. The last thing I felt we needed was a more interactive website that really was THE information spot for the shop and that brought us to here. Our new site will feature several new things for us, a more interactive centrally located calendar with the option to purchase tickets for some events, a blog spot for me to ramble, an opt-in newsletter that will feature news, information and sales and then just serve as a great first look at our game offerings and set the tone for the things we do at Unplugged. We’re excited for this!!

This is our new starting point, I have a renewed and updated vision and these are our just our first changes, but important ones to begin to establish our new roots. We hope you like what we’ve done so far and continue to support us along the way. If you want to comment, opine, encourage, or engage me directly, feel free to email me at: [email protected]