For the team at Atom Games it's all about the magic of community

It’s a cold Friday night in a quiet cul de sac in one of Wagga’s industrial estates, but the lights are on inside Atom Games and there’s ‘Magic’ going on inside.

Magic: The Gathering (MTG) is the original fantasy trading card game played by tens of millions across the world and on this night, a group of around 20 has gathered in Wagga for the ‘Battle for Baldur’s Gate’.

The game sees players constructing a deck of trading cards and taking on the role of duelling wizards to do battle by casting spells and summoning creatures according to their chosen cards.

Matt McLean is coordinating the event and is busy sorting through foil-wrapped packs of cards and assigning people to their places at long tables inside the cavernous industrial space.

“I’ve been playing Magic since I was like eight and I’m 34 now,” he says.

“I just randomly came into the store one day with a friend and Shane just asked if I’d like to do some Friday night Magic, and I was like – yeah sure.”

Shane Taylor and wife Bec Cameron run the store and have created a haven for lovers of fantasy card games, miniature games (like Warhammer) as well as traditional board games.

“So we have no electronic games like video games,” Shane says emphatically.

“We get asked that a lot, but we do like the old school 80s dungeon dragons RPG (role playing games) and our demographics are very different from video gamers.”

The Friday night magic gatherings began as a casual meet-up between a few friends and evolved into regular events and an ongoing gig for Matt at Atom Games.

He agrees with Shane that the store attracts a broad community.

“We get a lot of army personnel through here and they play and paint a lot of Warhammer miniatures,” he says.

“I think the army guys enjoy it as a bit of relief from doing their six to eight weeks of training.”

For Shane, creating a safe and welcoming space for everyone to share their hobbies is important.

“We don’t really care about what you do, where you’re from or your political ideologies,” he explains.

“As soon as I open the door and you come into the store, we forget about all that and if you enjoy your games and you’re friendly to everyone else, you’re basically just part of the community,”

Shane says they have had parents encouraging their kids into miniatures and card games as a way of getting them off screens.

“It’s more personal than video games because we get more face-to-face human interaction and it can help them build social skills,” he says, adding that there are a lot of other skills you can learn from gaming.

“A lot of the performing arts students at university or high school play RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons which can help them with their acting and their writing.”

The pair agree that the stigma that once surrounded role-playing games and the ‘satanic panic’ of the 80s and 90s around Dungeons and Dragons has decreased as the fantasy genre has become more mainstream.

“We like to laugh at ourselves and call each other basement dwellers and big old nerds and stuff,” laughs Matt.

“But I think the whole idea of nerd culture or like just playing games, in general, is just it’s not that big of a deal anymore.”

Meanwhile, the Battle for Baldur’s Gate is about to get underway and things are getting serious at the tables as players begin laying out their cards.

“It’s all about having fun and enjoying the games and being part of a really nice community,” smiles Shane.