PixlBit

I wanted to write about this back in 2018 but as things work out it somehow slipped my mind. It’s for the best given what has transpired since 2018 on the subject so now seems as a good time as any to tell this gamer tale of love, loss and resurrection.

Growing up in a rural community in the Midwest it was very hard as a player to be able to find games to buy locally. My family had to drive many miles to any major city when it came to just buying groceries so shopping at stores for anything else was a chore. When I became a player in the 90’s I didn’t have much when it came for a shopping selection. Remember this was before the internet was mainstream (and where I lived we we’re lucky to even have dial-up) so the only way I could enjoy newer titles was to rent them from the gas stations in smaller towns or save up to buy one from the usual stores like Kmart and Sears that sold them at the time. It wasn’t till I went to school in one of these major cities did I know of places like KB Toys, Toys R Us and Electronic Boutique that had dedicated sections for video games. But even then they normally sold the latest and greatest than the old and retro. As I was growing up during this time I began to hear rumors and stories of a fabled game store in Omaha, NE. It wasn’t a major chain store but an independent store that dealt with all sorts of gaming goodness. Not just new releases but retro titles, consoles, handhelds, accessories, imports, basically if it involved videogames of the console variety they’d have it. But given the drive distance I wasn’t allowed to drive their on my own, originally because I didn’t have a driver’s license, and had to rely on planned family outings for our day trips to the city to even consider visiting this legendary place.

We didn’t go often since the drive to Omaha, NE was a very long, long, LONG drive for us as a family but when we did for the first time I knew I had found something special indeed. I didn’t get to visit this store as much as I’d like growing up. It wasn’t till I was in my 20’s that I had a reliable form of transport and the experience to drive in the city (as a country boi) that I tried to make a habit of shopping there. That store was called Gamers.

Depending on who you asked when it comes to Gamers you’ll either be told it was the next best thing to sliced bread or it was an overpriced used games store, Gamers was the first time I experienced an independently own and run store that focuses exclusively on videogames. This wasn’t your corporate GameStops at the time where you found new games next to used games for only $5 less but a dedicated store that had rows and rows of videogames on racks, shelves and behind glass cases. They dealt in all kinds of games during my time shopping there. From the Atari 2600 to the newest. It didn’t have any videogame tat like you see now in game stores (t-shirts or pop figures) but simply videogames. If you wanted a game from the 8 bit to the 128 bit gaming eras there was a good chance they had it in stock or knew someone that did. For me, and possibly others who frequented the store, Gamers was an institution of sorts when it came to videogames. It had been a constant for many during the gaming years that was the 90’s to the 2010’s. They had several locations in the city and had actually branched out to other cities in the tristate area over the years. And during all that time I visited the stores when I could.

I can still recall the days how my mom would take the hours long drive for us to visit if only for me to either window shop, or possibly buy a game if I had saved up enough money for a purchase at the time. Mind you this was before online catalogs so when I visited it was a gamble if I’d find something I wanted, or worse something I wanted and hoped I could afford. Most of the time I left empty handed but as I got older, and more money wise, I’d purchase titles when I could. It was the store that helped me get ahold of a copy of Lunar 2 for Sega CD. It was the store that sold me my first Sega Saturn and Atari Jaguar. It was the store that secure me a copy of Castlevania Bloodlines for the Sega Genesis when I couldn’t find one at GameStop. I even bought an Xbox 360 COD MW3 theme console from them when my Xbox 360 Elite suffered the RRoD. And who could forget their 4 for $5 game racks of game titles they had an overstock of due to trade ins (I frequented that rack A LOT to find physical copies of games I already owned digitally) I had literally grown up with Gamers as a player during the formative time of my videogame years. Even after I moved away from the state, started traveling the world and took up residents in other states, I had always made time to visit Gamers at least once whenever I went back to visit family and friends. While the store staff, store locations and game selection had changed, they’d remained a constant when it came to retro game purchases during all those years.

But as time passed I had noticed a slow decline to the stores when I last visited them. Prior visits in the 2015’s showed a lack of upkeep with the stores. Games had gotten spare on store shelves (I had later learned their more sought after titles were being sold online) and I could swear that some of the stores I stepped into smelt like someone had been smoking weed. They had changed their logo to look more like a generic YouTube thumbnail and most of the stores only had one sales clerk behind the counter. They had also begun to sell similar video game accessories you’d find at area GameStops like posters, t-shirts. When I was away I’d read up on social media how the stores had changed their operating hours where they were only open for the afternoon and closed completely from Sunday to Tuesday.

Then I heard about the store closing controversy in Des Moines, IA where store management tried to say they had to close the store due to insufficient/belligerent staff toward customers but social media posts claimed they tricked the staff to shut down the store, including packing up shelving and furniture under the guise of “store renovations”.

If I recall correctly someone actually created a parody Gamers twitter handle that poked fun at all of these issues happening behind the scenes.

I had hoped all of this was just due to the company was trying to rebrand themselves given how the game store landscape had changed over the years. Despite the internet being around Gamers never really utilized as well as I could’ve been. I’d mostly see them sell bulk/mystery game boxes on eBay than actually have an online store for individual game purchases but they at least had a website and a Facebook page.

Still it came to me as a shock when I heard word from a family member that Gamers had quietly closed down in September of 2018. My sister even linked me a news article about the sudden closing of all their stores. There was no official statement or warning at the time. Employees were left stunned as well. All the stores had just simply locked up and apparently were in the hands of the banks. I recall finding a news article that mentioned the owner saying that Gamers had been suffering ever since the 2008 economic downturn and the rise of online sales to the point where it was very difficult to recoup those loses/changes. I’m sure they were suffering the same issues that plagued GameStop when the used game market began to get more competitive as well.

Still it was a blow to me to hear the stores I had shopped at for the better part of 20+ years had simply folded. It broke my heart and I’m sure saddened many a player upon hearing/seeing the news. Over time I moved on, began shopping other stores near to me and as a last resort shopped online when I couldn’t find what I wanted locally. Still there was a part of me that wished Gamers was still around. I had actually taken my “Little One” there to shop when she became a little gamer girl. Even my mom when she last visited a store with me as a grown up, before it quietly closed up, had noticed how things had evolved over the years. She remarked “That store is busy”. I replied “it sure is” but then she reiterated that it was busy but not just with the “usual crowd” you’d see shopping there. Remember she came with me when I was a kid and she had noticed that during that time the only people she saw in the stores, aside from a few parents like her with their kids, it mostly consisted of pre-teen to teen boys. But at that time she saw people of all ages. Still the teen boys but also girls, children, adults like me and even adults her age. And all of them were shopping for video games. It was at that point that she came to realize that gaming was no longer “just for kids” but was enjoyed by all. It was interesting that it took a simple game store for my mom to realize this. It was like their old catchphrase says: if you want to get into the game, get to Gamers.

Now it would be here that I would leave a small eulogy about Gamers, or how a small part of my childhood died when the store chain died etc., etc. but time has a means of getting away from you and little did I realize Gamers wasn’t “as dead” as I thought.

I had heard rumors that someone was trying to the company and rebrand it to something else to start up a new game store. I hadn’t looked much into it given I don’t live in the area anymore but apparently in early 2019 the store had been reopened and branded back to the Gamers logo from long before. Under a new owner Gamers has come back and is trying to be like the Gamers of old. I haven’t had a chance to fully investigate this new resurrection but from what I’ve been reading the results of Gamers return is a bit mixed, if not shrouded in drama.

Apparently the owner may not exactly be the most respectable individual out here if what they say is true about his old YouTube channel or how he runs the stores businesswise. Reviews seem to be low with complaints about customer service and sales prices. But he must be doing something right since they’ve opened new stores in different cities like the Gamers of old and are now offering repair services, something they had just begun to offer before their initial shutdown. Their website says they are trying to rebuild the brand so I’ll have to take any internet drama I hear about Gamers with a grain of salt. It’s rather cool to hear that the Gamers I grew up with has returned and perhaps can weather the current gamer environment of 2022. I hope to visit the store again one day when I visit home. Whether it’s a place that I want to resume business with remains to be seen. But still it’s an interesting time to be a player and given how fewer and fewer brick and mortar game stores still exist out in the world, I welcome them. Digital gaming may eventually become the future but I’ll shop physically as often as I can. I can’t say that the new Gamers can capture the nostalgia of the past but here’s hoping there’ll be a future for the chain just the same. To be continued.