{"id":50248,"date":"2019-07-05T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/lgbtq-friendly-video-game-store-closes\/"},"modified":"2019-07-05T12:30:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T20:30:00","slug":"lgbtq-friendly-video-game-store-closes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/lgbtq-friendly-video-game-store-closes\/","title":{"rendered":"LGBTQ-friendly video game store closes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t<p>It&rsquo;s game over for Game On.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>The Nugget Mall video game store and video game playing venue officially announced July 3 on social media that it has closed.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fgameonalaska%2Fposts%2F2364347263844569&#038;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"274\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" allow=\"encrypted-media\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Previously, a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/2054777072\/an-extra-life-for-diversity-in-videogames\/description\" target=\"_blank\"> Kickstarter campaign was launched to save the store<\/a>, which was owned by two gender nonbinary people &mdash; people who do not identify as strictly male or female &mdash; and often hosted LGBTQ+ friendly events. One hundred and forty-eight backers pledged $11,597 of a $20,000 goal for the project, according to the campaign page. If a Kickstarter project fails to reach its goal, no money is collected from backers, <a href=\"https:\/\/help.kickstarter.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/115005047893-Why-is-funding-all-or-nothing-\" target=\"_blank\">according to Kickstarter.<\/a><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><ins>[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/video-game-store-raising-money-to-stay-in-business\/\" target=\"_blank\">Video game store raising money to stay in business<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>&ldquo;So the money that was pledged was never collected, and it will remain that way,&rdquo; wrote Casey Harris, Game On co-owner, in a message to the Empire. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re grateful to everyone who tried to help us, and we wouldn&rsquo;t want to do any of them any injustice.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>The store moved to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/game-on-moving-to-nugget-mall\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nugget Mall in August 2018<\/a>. It had previously been located on Glacier Highway and opened in November 2016, Harris stated. It&rsquo;s last business day was June 30.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Harris wrote that while only about half of the fundraising goal was reached, the amount raised was close to what would have been needed to keep the store open. Harris&rsquo; outlook was rosier than the raw numbers would suggest.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-attachment in-story\"><a href='https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/17586865_web1_17070530_web1_copy_CaseyGameOn-1024x683.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"864\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/17586865_web1_17070530_web1_copy_CaseyGameOn-1024x683.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"Casey Harris talks gamers through a video game at Game On in February 2019. (Ben Hohenstatt | Juneau Empire File)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/17586865_web1_17070530_web1_copy_CaseyGameOn-1024x683.jpg 864w, https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/17586865_web1_17070530_web1_copy_CaseyGameOn-1024x683-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/17586865_web1_17070530_web1_copy_CaseyGameOn-1024x683-640x427.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1199px) 98vw, 864px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"p-exclude\">Casey Harris talks gamers through a video game at Game On in February 2019. (Ben Hohenstatt | Juneau Empire File)<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t<p>&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t get quite enough support to make our Kickstarter, but a common response to that, especially when you get close like we did, is to shift to another platform, which isn&rsquo;t all-or-nothing funding &mdash; you get whatever people give,&rdquo; Harris wrote. &ldquo;With transferring all of that over, I think we actually would have recovered just fine. The mall was being very patient with the problems we&rsquo;ve had.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><ins>[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/first-trans-gaming-night-exceeds-organizers-expectations\/\" target=\"_blank\">Trans gaming night attendance exceeds expectations<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>However, a family crisis meant pulling the plug on Game On and a move from Juneau, according to Harris.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>They said they were not sure if they would be coming back to the capital city.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>&ldquo;I hope so,&rdquo; Harris wrote. &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t born there, but I&rsquo;ve always been an Alaskan, and I&rsquo;ll carry Juneau with me until I can come home.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Harris said that while there were occasionally people who took offense to the store&rsquo;s outspoken inclusivity, people in Juneau were generally accepting and supportive.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>&ldquo;Juneau is and was good,&rdquo; Harris wrote. &ldquo;People should not be afraid to do something like what we did, and there are plenty who genuinely need it, so they absolutely should.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><hr \/><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><b>\u2022 Contact reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907)523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt.<\/b><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><hr \/><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite Kicksterter campaign, it&rsquo;s game over for Game On. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":50249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[208,75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-50248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-business","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50248"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=50248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}