GAMA seeks hobby shops setting the standard for design, innovation in 2027 Power Retail Awards

Tabletop gaming trade organisation GAMA has opened nominations for its 2027 Power Retail Awards, inviting gamers and industry professionals from around the world to spotlight stores and cafés they believe represent the industry’s best.

The annual awards, which have now been running for 17 years, aim to act as a showcase and celebration of business practices, community-building and operational innovations that other hobby retailers can learn from.

More than 750 retailers were submitted for inclusion in last year’s awards, with nominations coming from Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) customers before being voted on by a GAMA committee of retailers and emeritus ‘team retail’ members.

The awards cover four categories: Retailer of the Year, Innovation in Games (Retail), Outstanding Contribution to Games Industry (Retail) and Outstanding Store Design, with winners of each receiving a one year GAMA membership, recognition in its online database and in the Spring issue of its Around the Table magazine.

That prize was reduced by GAMA last year, with retailer of the year having also previously receiving $1,000 and the other category winners $500 each.

Any tabletop retail business can be nominated regardless of country or GAMA membership status, although US-based businesses have heavily dominated the awards since they were launched in 2010, picking up 50 out of the 63 wins to date.

That total does not include the 2021 Retailer of the Year award, which was presented to every GAMA retailer member at the time to recognise and celebrate them having survived the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Arizona-based Silver Dragon Games scooped Retailer of the Year in the 2026 awards, adding to the Innovation In Games (Retail) and Outstanding Store Design titles it won at the same awards in 2024.

They were joined this year by Illinois-based Fantasy Books and Games, which won the Innovation in Games (Retail) award, Minnesota’s The Gamers Den, which sealed Outstanding Contribution to the Games Industry (Retail), and Wisconsin-based Oddwillow’s Game Haven, which won Outstanding Store Design.

UK retailer Eclectic Games remains the only non-US winner in the past two award cycles, having scooped Outstanding Contribution to the Games Industry in 2025, while Mexico City-based La Piramide is the only store from outside of the US, Canada or the UK to win an award, which it claimed during the inaugural contest in 2010.

Nominations are open to stores that have been operating for at least one full year, while previous winners cannot win the same category twice.

Anyone interested in nominating an outstanding hobby retailer can do so here.