Fionn Reid-Kelly introduces Dublin’s brand new local game store.
At the beginning of October the town of Skerries welcomed Dublin’s 4th local games store. Otter Space is located above C&T’s in Holmpatrick Skerries, and provides many people in the surrounding area with a local game store within walking distance of the bus stop, and for many people walking distance to their houses. Otter Space truly is a local game store.
For gamers that live in North Fingal, this store is a major win. I was very excited when Otter Space announced that its location would be much closer to home for me personally. Instead of having to travel for over an hour to Gamers World, or even longer to the Warchest or Underworld Gaming, I can now relax and enjoy the much shorter journey.
Otter Space also has a café, which is perfect for keeping the gamers caffeinated through their long gaming sessions. The café also fills a gap in the local area, as there are no other cafés in the surrounding area. The store having a café inside it is something lacking in most of the other local game stores in Dublin.
The store has made a noticeable and admirable effort to accommodate the neurodivergent community. There have been several events organised by the store for people with neurodivergency so far. On top of that, Otter Space has put aside one of the rooms in the store as a sensory room. The store also sells sensory toys.
While the other local game stores in Dublin have a tendency to focus on the more hardcore tabletop gaming enthusiasts, Otter Space seems to be taking a different approach. The store has made a point of creating events catering to all different kinds of gamers young and old, casual and hardcore. In its first month Otter Space has held events introducing new and lesser known games to people, as well as a mixer event for gamers in the local area to get to know each other.
These sorts of events where people get to meet up and play games together are great as they will hopefully create a new gaming community in the local area, from gamers that were previously over an hour away from the nearest games store. As someone that likes to play Magic the Gathering, I have taken several breaks from the hobby due to the stress involved with travelling in and out of the city centre late on a Friday night just to play the game that I had put so much time and effort into.
Commuting out of the city centre late at night to go home was never ideal. Getting back to Skerries meant lining up the bus or the train which only left once per hour, so if you missed it because an event or a game went overtime it was a bit of a nightmare.
Otter Space has become Dublin’s fourth local games store, following on from Underworld Gaming in Tallaght which opened its doors in 2021. This doubling of the number of local game stores is a trend that I hope continues throughout the city. The demand for social spaces in Dublin seems to be increasing as many young people acutely feel the effects of a city that does not make space for them.