Jul 1st, 2018, 05:28 PM
I recently found out that one of the very last standing video-game stores around my area (and one of the hottest hanging out spots for my friends and I during the early 2000s) has finally closed down for good, inevitably forced to a corner by the ever-growing online market and its simple convenience. I know that's just the way it is and that I still have options for buying -or even trading- physical copies of games at second-hand shops and mall stores, but it just isn't the same (and whoever wants to pay thru the nose for a game that you can, indeed, find way cheaper after a bit of digging anyway?).
That store in particular (named after Gotham City) was kind of what I would expect every gaming store to look like: it was very small, but had a ton of personality to it. There were two shelves running across the walls and all the way the back -behind the counter- that were filled with NES, SNES, Genesis and N64 cartridges (and yes, these were good trade chips even as late as 2007). Then there was a comic book section, in which you could be served any random comic imaginable... man, did I get my hands on some weird ones indeed. And, finally, there was a section for trading cards and all that good junk.
They'd deal with anything as long as it was a card game of sorts... there were sections dedicated to Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and so on. They even hosted some tournaments in there, which I dared entering (with as much of a result as you can probably guess, meaning that I got my butt kicked across the board). Still, really fun times.
I should also mention that this was the store in which I bought my very first NES game and that started the way to retro-collecting for me... a beat up -but functional- copy of Rad Racer, bought by the mundane price of $5 (around twelve dollars at the time, if memory serves me well).
I don't know, man. I'm gonna miss stores like that one... they would take anything as a trade-in as long as it matched what the store was about. Seriously, in what other store could I buy a Gameboy Pocket using Yu-Gi-Oh! cards as part of the payment?
I would like to also mention a shop that still exists and it is still ran by the same people after all these years, but they have long abandoned the home-console market, choosing to go all Poundland instead. Can't say I blame them, it is really hard to make a living off gaming nowadays.
This one started as a video-store, then gradually moved into gaming; peaking at the 16-bit era. I must have rented thousands of Genesis games from there, and more than a couple of those movies that shaped my childhood... including the ever-traumatizing IT (seriously, who rents a horror film to a child? xD). I recently asked the owner why they would change course seemingly overnight and he just told me that, when the PsOne came about, it was really expensive to order games for it and it simply wasn't a very good business model, given that very few people owned the system at the time. I kind of wish they had at least kept selling VHS tapes, but there were a couple of Blockbusters like two miles down the lane, so... yeah.
I'm truly sad to see stores like those two go under, as they are wonderful wells of memories. And while alternatives do exist, I just can't feel right at home going about adding to my PS3 collection inside of a mall with twenty-five security cameras looking down on me at all times. There was a trust to be seen on the smaller shops mentioned above, but here you are just the costumer and God help you if they think you are up to something. It's unwelcoming and sterile. And really not much fun at all.
But anyway, I'm sure you guys have stories of your own about these places from times of yonder. And I'd really like to hear them if possible... who knows, maybe a good store like the ones I wrote about still exists somewhere in the US or UK. Feel free to share
PS: Did any of you happen to assist to one of the Blockbuster liquidation sales? I heard you could get awesome stuff on heavy discounts as they were shutting down all shops on the chain.
That store in particular (named after Gotham City) was kind of what I would expect every gaming store to look like: it was very small, but had a ton of personality to it. There were two shelves running across the walls and all the way the back -behind the counter- that were filled with NES, SNES, Genesis and N64 cartridges (and yes, these were good trade chips even as late as 2007). Then there was a comic book section, in which you could be served any random comic imaginable... man, did I get my hands on some weird ones indeed. And, finally, there was a section for trading cards and all that good junk.
They'd deal with anything as long as it was a card game of sorts... there were sections dedicated to Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and so on. They even hosted some tournaments in there, which I dared entering (with as much of a result as you can probably guess, meaning that I got my butt kicked across the board). Still, really fun times.
I should also mention that this was the store in which I bought my very first NES game and that started the way to retro-collecting for me... a beat up -but functional- copy of Rad Racer, bought by the mundane price of $5 (around twelve dollars at the time, if memory serves me well).
I don't know, man. I'm gonna miss stores like that one... they would take anything as a trade-in as long as it matched what the store was about. Seriously, in what other store could I buy a Gameboy Pocket using Yu-Gi-Oh! cards as part of the payment?
I would like to also mention a shop that still exists and it is still ran by the same people after all these years, but they have long abandoned the home-console market, choosing to go all Poundland instead. Can't say I blame them, it is really hard to make a living off gaming nowadays.
This one started as a video-store, then gradually moved into gaming; peaking at the 16-bit era. I must have rented thousands of Genesis games from there, and more than a couple of those movies that shaped my childhood... including the ever-traumatizing IT (seriously, who rents a horror film to a child? xD). I recently asked the owner why they would change course seemingly overnight and he just told me that, when the PsOne came about, it was really expensive to order games for it and it simply wasn't a very good business model, given that very few people owned the system at the time. I kind of wish they had at least kept selling VHS tapes, but there were a couple of Blockbusters like two miles down the lane, so... yeah.
I'm truly sad to see stores like those two go under, as they are wonderful wells of memories. And while alternatives do exist, I just can't feel right at home going about adding to my PS3 collection inside of a mall with twenty-five security cameras looking down on me at all times. There was a trust to be seen on the smaller shops mentioned above, but here you are just the costumer and God help you if they think you are up to something. It's unwelcoming and sterile. And really not much fun at all.
But anyway, I'm sure you guys have stories of your own about these places from times of yonder. And I'd really like to hear them if possible... who knows, maybe a good store like the ones I wrote about still exists somewhere in the US or UK. Feel free to share
PS: Did any of you happen to assist to one of the Blockbuster liquidation sales? I heard you could get awesome stuff on heavy discounts as they were shutting down all shops on the chain.