Before 2013, if you lived in Dallas and wanted to purchase a unique board game — something other than Monopoly that you couldn’t get at any Walmart — you’d have to drive 22 miles north to the nearest big board game store in Plano. That was your only option.

But in 2013, Jamison Sacks and his husband, DR Hanson, opened Common Ground Games near downtown Dallas. Now in its 12th year, the store has experienced continual growth — expanding from 1,500 square feet and $250,000 in annual sales to its current 10,000 square foot space with over $4 million in sales last year.

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Along with the store’s financial success, the co-owners told LGBTQ Nation that they have tried to gear every aspect of their store towards creating queer community and including everyone who walks in.

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“We create common ground for anyone, regardless of where they are in their gaming journey,” Hanson said.

Having grown up working in game and comics stores, Sacks always felt unsure whether store employees would stand up for him if he faced homophobia.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, men tended to dominate game and comics shops. Male employees often had an elitist attitude, Hanson said, ignoring female customers and offering little service to those who didn’t know much about the products.

“So many people flocked to gaming, board games, and video games in high school because they didn’t find their tribe or their niche,” Hanson said. “And so because of that, they would protect it at all costs, to the point where anyone who came in that didn’t look like them or remind them of their personal small tribe was a threat to their safe space.”

But Sacks and Hanson wanted to create a different store culture. Their bathrooms are all-gender and carry mints, deodorant, and sanitary pads so that everyone can feel and smell their best while gaming closely with others at the store’s gaming tables, many of which have about 60 or 70 people crowding them every night. The store sells numerous Pride products like rainbow-colored dice and pronoun pins. All employees have their pronouns on their nametags.

The store has also held numerous fundraisers — including raffles, silent auctions, and bake sales —and has raised over $100,000 for LGBTQ+ charities like the local LGBTQ+ Resource Center, Prism Health’s Life Walk for HIV, the ACLU Drag Defense Fund, and the House of Rebirth (a charity for Black trans women) as well as non-queer organizations like the NAACP, the Dallas Children’s Medical Center, the local Bishop Arts Theatre Center, and the Hunter Burton Memorial.

Over time, the store has gained a reputation as a safe space for queers. Their first employee, a queer woman from California, actually applied because she had learned of the store’s reputation online — something neither owner had realized.

Now, the store has numerous queer employees, hosts a monthly LGBTQ+ Gayming Night as well “a safe, brave space” for queer people and their allies the second Saturday of every month. The store’s queer customers largely feel free to wear whatever dress, makeup, or accessories they like.

“I never had anything like that growing up in,” Sacks said. “Honestly, in my early 20s … outside of clubs, I didn’t really know any way to meet gay men and … at the game stores, most of the time I was just meeting straight guys…. [Now, people who are 18 or 20] can come in and hang out, and there’s other people their age… and it’s not this loud music-driven, alcohol-driven environment.”

There’s a large overlap between the queer and neurodivergent communities, Hanson says, adding that the relatively quiet atmosphere of the store and the structured expectations of board games can provide a safe, welcoming space for those kinds of gamers too.

That doesn’t mean that everything is perfect in their store, of course.

Early into the store’s opening, some customers would call boring and dumb things “gay” — Sacks would gently ask what they meant to get them to see the comment’s personally insulting nature. Some customers deliberately misgender trans and nonbinary employees or respond more positively to male-presenting sales clerks.

Once, a male customer called the store’s manager “some really nasty names,” Sacks said, and then badmouthed the company on social media — other commenters told him he had no idea what he was talking about. The man later came into the store and apologized, asking if he could be allowed to re-enter. Sacks said he’d welcome him back if his apology was sincere and he didn’t repeat the behavior.

“Half the times when somebody is being corrected about misgendering one of our employees, it’s a customer doing it, not us, because we have trained them so well that this space is inclusive for all people, especially for people who identify on the queer spectrum,” Hanson said.

In general, the store believes in showing grace to customers who make mistakes. Some customers visiting from Dallas’ surrounding rural areas have said the store is the first place they’ve ever engaged with outwardly queer people.

Each year, during the store’s anniversary celebration in May, women will “pour their hearts out” to Sacks about how they’ve never felt welcome in other gaming stores, Sacks said, telling him that they come back to Common Ground Games without any emotional armor and always have a good experience, every time.

The future of gaming stores seems uncertain. The unstable international tariffs imposed by the current president threaten to raise production and shipping costs of games manufactured in China and elsewhere. Sacks said that a $40 board game could soon cost $90, and many gaming stores are already ordering their end-of-year stock to avoid high tariff costs. He estimates that thousands of industry employees could soon find themselves unemployed.

“It’s pretty ridiculous and disastrous what they’re doing, because it speaks to a fundamental lack of understanding of business economics,” Sacks said.

Hanson added, “It feels like everyone right now is just in Vegas playing a really high-stakes game of 21, and we don’t know if we should stay or hit … and that’s not a way to live or run a business.”

Despite this, the store hopes to keep caring for the community it has helped foster and to continue providing an accessible space where anyone can play one of the store’s 150 free-to-play games.

“My hope that the store has become a safe haven and a beacon of hope for anybody queer, especially who does not feel represented, that feels attacked, that doesn’t feel safe,” Hanson said. “They can come to our place and just rest and have some respite and catch a breath and find community at the same time.”

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