Small-Biz Buzz: How to Feed the Gamer's Fix

This new weekly series -- Small-Biz Buzz -- explores the customer aspect of small businesses, both from the customer's and business owner's perspective. If you have a small business you'd like to share, please email me.

Today, a look at a pioneering hobby-based Web site that serves the broad needs of game lovers. It's both a vendor of innovative games and a forum for creators, and its clientele is definitely turned on.

Customer: Kevin Allen Jr., 25, a designer living in New Jersey.

Hooked On: Indie Press Revolution, an online network of creators of role-playing games that sells directly to the customer or retailer. The games are both electronic and nonelectronic (book-based).

TheStreet.com: How did it hook you?

Kevin Allen: The philosophy of "provide your customers with the products they want" seems like a no-brainer, but until IPR came along no one was really doing it. The game creators featured on IPR frequently don't get their material into stores ... so these games would be pretty much unavailable.

IPR gathers together tons of different creators in one place and sells everything from a single source.

Now you sell a game that you designed through Indie Press Revolution, but what keeps you hooked as a customer?

IPR is constantly seeking out new talent ... Even if I don't have it in my budget to pick up a batch of new books I still check into the site pretty frequently to see what new things are out there.

Additionally, IPR offers package deals from time to time that really show they have a keen understanding of their customers [and that] they know their products.

What kind of image is it trying to convey to customers, and did it work on you?

Community; camaraderie. There is no other distribution model currently in the market that offers the creator so much in the way of support, profit-sharing and market penetration. If you have a question about something, you can always just email Brennan, the founder.