Game Shops Are DISAPPEARING | Physical Game Hunting in the UK 

A sad and unfortunate update: Planet Games has gone into liquidation. The Trowbridge, Frome and presumably all other stores have closed. Likewise, the market stall in Castle Place has vanished without a trace. Two less options in an environment that's already slim pickings.

The U.K high street is absolutely on its deathbed too, I don't think people realise what a dire situation we're in! If an average American came to the U.K they would be mortified at the lack of everything we have. Its Shocking!

It hasn't been the same since we lost GameStation! That felt like a game store run by gamers for gamers! They'll be nothing like it again!

Just a FYI for GAME, although gutting of the last copy of a game is still a thing, they have started to use a check copies instead, meaning that the last copy of a game is sealed and has not been opened. This can normally be found by looking at where the bar-code would be on the box, and seeing if a check copy sticker has been placed over it. GAME staff are no longer allowed to take games home with them and this has been the case for quite awhile. When it was still a thing, it was only pre-owned games they were allowed to borrow and take home, NEVER a brand new game. Just wanted to clarify :)

I know CEX get a lot of flack and rightly so in some places but they do a lot for retro game preservation. The amount of games that would have been in landfills if not for them being there is wild. Say what you like but they do have a good amount of stock 😆

Charity shops often don't have a lot of games, however sometimes great things can be found. In a small charity shop in Melbourne, I found a complete in box, excellent condition, black label copy of Metal Gear Solid for $4. And it was simply nestled in amongst a stack of music CD's. I still display that copy in my house, as if it were a hunting trophy 😄

Yeah, it's so sad to see. In Ireland, GameStop recently closed here. You really feel the difference - there's nowhere to hang out and talk games anymore. All we have now are CeX and Smyths Toys.

When i first remember the larger Boots the Chemists were the best shop for computer games. Followed closely by wh smith and John Menzies. They all had literally hundreds of tape/disk games for many systems. In the 90s for PC games Virgin Megastore, hmv and Game. The last physical game i bought at a shop would be when Game sold new old stock Atari Jaguar games found in a warehouse in maybe 1998

Love this video. It’s so hard to find UK game hunting content on this platform that looks at the state of buying/stores, so I really appreciate this video! Thank you!

The paradox of CEX when you buy something A grade that is pretty much always broken. But anytime I sell something they find an excuse to downgrade it to B or even C. I sold a 1 year old phone to them once, with the box, all stuff that came with it, barely used and was never out of a case and screen protector. When they checked the guy said it would be grade A from looking at it, came back about 2 hours later after they did all their checks and the same guy downgraded it because the manager decided that A grade means new and sealed. They could have easily told me that before I had to wait around for 2 hours. I miss when you could price match trade-ins at game/gamestation. I used to price match CEX trade in, then pricematch what i wanted to buy. Because you got points for both trading in and buying I basically payed nothing for games as a teenager.

The only high street shops which are doing well at the moment are charity shops, fast fashion and restaurants. Everything else is dying out but can be found cheaper online so it makes sense.

There used to be 2 Game shops in my local mall. One was a GameStop and it had a decent selection of various new/old consoles but nowadays it’s like 75% Toys and Merch with the rest being Last Gen/Current Gen games. The other one was a Smaller Local Games Shop and it had Tons of Games and Consoles, they even sold T-Shirts. I got one of Sonic X and used it till you couldn’t even recognize Sonic lol. Unfortunately that Shop closed down at some point and I can only find games I want Online.

The UK high street in general in is on its knees, it's tragic to witness what online shopping has done to us, all for the worse. And with Game and Tesco both exiting the market this year alone, 2023 has been a dreadful year in particular. My local Game was the very same store I'd been buying from since the late 90s, from N64, Dreamcast, GameCube all the way up to the Switch. To see it close this year was heartbreaking.

Great video. The situation in Nottingham is probably worse, we have a branch of Game that recently opened inside Sports Direct, so I imagine the main store will be closing. Our local game shops have closed or changed to selling Pokemon cards. Walmart owned Asda from 1999-2021 but they sold it to the Issa Brothers in 2021 so it's back under British control now.

A superb video! There used to be four or five game stores in my north London town in the late 90s - one of them was even featured on Peep Show! Game, Gameststion, HMV and one great independent store gave me lots of choice right through most of the PS3/360 era. But now, CEX is the only game store left. And it’s depressing to be caught between that store and eBay when it comes to game hunting. Especially for rare stuff.

I have noticed that retro games shops are doing the card games trade now. I would add Cash converter type stores to add to your game hunting. I have gotten some good deals from them over a decade! PS1Twisted Metal 2 £3, N64 £15 boxed, Banjo Kazooie cart only £2.99 etc. Lots of £1 games lol.

Love the insight into the physical stores themselves. I would love to see more on the retro HQ shop you mention in the video. Overall great job, you've earned a subscriber!

Someone in CeX Trowbridge said a reseller went in the back of a charity shop and took all the games there for £20 (Mainly PS2) then took them to CeX and got £500 cash.

You missed out car boots and flea markets. They're still great places for cheap/ rare finds in great condition although sadly nowhere near as great as they used to be. Probably blame CEX and EBAY for some of that.

I think the days of physical games are numbered. Due to the greed of big business in the gaming industry I think that in the next console generation or two they'll make all games digital only. This kills the used game market and forces everyone to pay full price for all games, indefinitely. Maximum profit for the gaming industry at the cost of the consumer.

Maaan I love looking for shovelware on my game stores myself, all of this digitalising of everything depresses me At least in person I'm less likely to get damages copies Happy to see someone show some of their shopping trips in said places :)

A great video. I've always lived in Wiltshire or Gloucestershire so I relate to the areas that you cover. I'd love to see other towns in that area covered. I work in Gloucester and it used to be a 'mecca' of game shops. Now it's pretty much CEX or nothing if you want to buy physical copies.

I really miss getting my hands of a new physical copy and major midnight launches! My local GAME store which has long been shut, was ran by passionate gamers back in the mid-to-late 2000's. Toys R Us, HMV, Gamestation and even Zavvi (formally Virgin) were also big where I lived. It's really sad to see this and the high street decline in general.

Staff CANT take games home with them. I work for game & thats not been a staff perk for over 2 years and it was only PREOWNED games we could borrow, not new. So no new game has EVER had its code already used. ALSO since the take over Game dont gut there games anymore. They use CONTROL COPY stickers for there final copy. Your information is about 2 years out of date unfortunatly. Unfortunatly the company has had to branch into other things like toys, because there isnt much money to be made in selling games anymore. Branching out into more items aint a bad thing for the company because this years been the largest grossing year for a long while.

One thing about game nowadays from a former worker: We don’t gut games anymore since January and haven’t been allowed to take any games home since before I started in November ‘21. Very sad to see lots of games I used to visit being closed and shoved into Sports Direct/House of Fraser. Game shops like Lakeside and Stratford closing spell out doom for me. Great video however. Very informative.

This is a really great video dude! I love the documentary style of it. I can't even remember why I came across this video but I was hooked. Well done 👍 👏

Great video. Nice and detailed. My local indoor market was closed by Lancaster Council a few years ago so i lost a good independent game shop. Luckily the next town over (Morecambe) has two really good indie game shops so i can still feed my addiction for the time being. Don't forget local jumble sales (like centralised versions of US yard sales). They can be very, very hit and miss, often having no games at all. However, i've had a few successes over the last couple of years. For £2 each, i've grabbed FIFA19 on PS3, Metroid Prime Pinball on NDS (just last week), Pokepark 2 on Wii, plus loads of OG Xbox games and much much more. Happy hunting!

Sad to se a decline in stores in the UK. My story over the last 24 hours.... Watched a YT vid on an old 360 game Driver San Francisco.... Tried to buy a digital version....... Not available / discontinued....... Look on line for a physical copy..... Found one in CEX :)......... Local CEX full of uninterested staff but managed to buy a copy of the game.... Luckily I have a series X which is able to play the game..... the other "kids" series S no disc drive = stuffed. (couldnt be bothered to get an original 360 plugged in. The moral of my short story, the more we go digital, the less the second hand market / the more we are at the mercy of the.....

I just recently found this video, and i can honestly say, that closing all the video game stores forever can be retrospectively brutal 😿. I still have a near retro game store in Vantaa, Finland 🇫🇮. The only place, where i sometimes usually buy the original Commodore 64 (tapes / disks / cartridges) and Amiga 500 games. Sometimes, i might find some games also from Helsinki, Finland 🇫🇮. That's right: i still have the original hardwares of the Commodore 64 and Amiga 500 😺👍🕹️. Greetings from Vantaa, Finland 🇫🇮.

When you purchase a game online you don't really "own" the game,you just have the right to play it.Its like paying for a key card to a door that can be cancelled by the creator if they want

In my area, a game station store shut down all the way back in 2008 and a decade later in present day it’s the only store that is still empty with the outline of the Gamestation logo engraved on the wall. It’s a reminder of how physical games are fading away into obscurity

The same here in Belgium. In my student hometown Leuven, 10 years ago we had at least 10 game shops from different branches. Now we only have 2 pfff love the times after school hanging around in those hops for bargains. Times change so fast.

Not just game shops, Shop in general .. & Banks and Post Offices.

I’m happy that someone made a video about this, all I have near me is a Game inside a sports direct and a cEx, and that’s it, so now I just order stuff off of Amazon

It's shocking that HMV doesn't even have a games section anymore. From the 1990s to mid 2000s, HMV was excellent. HMV are now purveyors of Funko Pop tat, Rick and Morty merch and Vinyl records in the few stores they have left. The UK is too far gone now.

I live in Greater London, just on the outskirts bordering with Kent and believe me game stores really have not been a thing for years, unless you are talking about the big chains like Game and CEX. We did used to have an independant one but that vanished about 10 years or so ago. There is a Cash Converters local, but they stopped carrying stuff like games and blu ray films etc some time ago. I know supermarkets are pretty much stopping selling games in store as well, but to be honest as someone who worked in one of the big ones a few years back, they barely sold any games anyway which is probably why supermarkets are no longer willing to devote space to them (not that they had a lot anyway). The small gaming shops have been vanishing pretty much ever since the rise of CEX, and while you can get some good bargains in CEX when games have been out a few years, their prices on newer used games are often the same price or more expensive than buying a new copy online. And of course the prices they give on trade ins is fucking horrible. I was getting rid of some PS4 games last year, looked at the trade in prices at CEX and then went straight to eBay to list them. I sold certain games on there for £20 to £30 that CEX were offering £5 for. I always list as auctions and usually start at about half what I think the game is actually worth and let the bidders decide the price. If I traded in with CEX I would be lucky to get 25% of what the game is worth. This is part of what is killing the used game market in high streets and local towns. The small shops cannot compete with CEX and trade in prices at CEX are pushing people online.

I hate that we really heading into a digital age and big games will only release on online stores and the fact that it’s what game developers want because it’s way cheaper for them and bringing back more money

Probably was only available in northern parts of England but I really miss Grainger Games. it was generally better and cheaper than GAME for customer service and prices.

i shopped at cex once while on a trip to see family and bought a really cheap in box copy of mario party and the sticker was absolutely glued to the box, always hate when shops do that

1:40 - Barely below RRP, the stock in the entertainment sections is also reducing & badly maintained - often out of stock but have boxes on shelf The reduced stuff also gets nabbed by the staff before it stays on the floor

This video makes me sad for an industry that was such a huge part of my life as a kid. When I can, I love going to retro game fairs (also stores if around) as they do provide that element of surprise and excitement you mentioned that is lacking in Argos, etc. Also, a newfound excitement that is unique to fairs since a lot of them would have imported games and boxed retro games, games we played growing up so there is that too, etc. RGFs are the last real chance to experience what the industry was like 10+ years ago. The stores at fairs are usually independent too.

Fake Red is really cool, It was originally cancelled in Japan due to bad sales, but with it's english release the Mangaka came out and said if it does well the Manga could make a return with more chapters

If your'e ever in the Bristol area with car/bus access, there are a trio of game shops that I frequent between Kingswood and Fishponds. One of them is a CEX where i found a couple games i've been after for a good long while; and the other two are a local pair called GameScene

In Street and Bridgwater, so not too far from you, we have a local chain called "Insane Games". It's worth a visit, they're very friendly, know their stuff and usually have a super good collection but good finds come and go. They've been running for a very long time.

A Gameshop here which was the last one in town went so suddenly, it honestly surprised me. Certainly makes sense how quickly they are going due to this being a factor.

I miss the Game near me that shut down a few years ago. I remember playing the Wii U for the first time when it was still one of those demo consoles that weren't out yet. Edit: Toys R Us was also really good, I remember entire aisles lined with DS, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii games, getting lost in those aisles for hours as a kid. I do use CEX now just because of how cheap it is there, such as the Batman Arkham, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty games for a couple of quid. However in my experience there is the odd game there with brown stains on them lmao

This is exactly what I miss about shopping in person! Random finds and satisfaction

I'm still surprised that my local Game store isn't shut down. For the past 5 years whenever I've been inside, it's almost completely empty, barely more than 3 people and myself in there. And yet the nice self-run game stores that had plentiful choice and several people in there daily have all been completely shut down.

There’s only 2 in my town now! Cex and an independent shop. There used to be more a few years ago but they are dying out unfortunately. Miss mooching around different shops looking for deals and hidden gems.

When Cex opened in our town about 8-9 years ago i must have been about 15-16, There was a dude who brought a box full of psx games into the store, At the time they refused to take any retro games. I spoke to the guy outside, made an offer for some of the items in the box and he said "£20 for the box" I was like "Are you sure about that? It's worth quite abit more than that" He just wanted the stuff gone. I was so stoked when i dug further into this mystery box full of games and found resident evil 1,2,3 and Silent Hill with the black label There was alot of great classic like tomb raider and Crash/Spyro/Gex FFVII I already had some of the games in the box so i sold some of the dupes to gamestation and G-Force for in-shop vouchers and came out with a small profit and a bunch of games that are rather pricey to obtain in current times. It was and still is the greatest deal iv ever had.

I remember being able to go to my local Tesco, and going to their game isle, which had games on one side and dvds on the other. They've now completely removed the game isle and replaced where it was with more clothing

This was neat. Canada had something like Argos, it’s where I got my Master System games, but they went out of business decades ago.

I did wonder when I went into planet games exchange (have always historically called it pink planet) why I didn’t recognise the counter staff. Thought they were new staff, so have the owners changed or something ? Had so much respect for the previous guys

I can relate to finding random games in the wild that I never heard of, and it ends up being one of my favorites. That’s how I found out about the zero escape series, I randomly bought it because I liked the box and loved it. With a digital store it’s less likely I’ll notice a random game. I live in the US and in my area there’s a few game stores but not many, a lot of them shut down. I have to go out of my way to find one.

As digitalised games are increasing, slowly, game shops are becoming more obsolete by the second. Do we all remember a time where we buy or rent the game from the game store, put in the cartridge or the disk, we switch on the game console and boom, it starts the game? Nowadays, with digitalised gaming, it's buy or rent the game, switch on the console and wait a day for it to download and also with the updates as well, more downloading, downloading and downloading and taking forever to download. GigaBytes of data just downloading, depending on your internet connection, might take a few hours or a day or a week..... There were simpler times in gaming until it leapt into the 'digital' age. And let me tell you, the future of gaming is looking rather bleak with long download times, constant updates and mediocre hard drive storage in consoles.

7:40 my local GAME store was halved and a dividing wall put up for a phone shop years ago. It went from a spaced out store you can browse to a cramped almost 1-way system

The policy of GAME gutting games is outdated. They changed that policy around June-July 2022. They no longer gut new games, instead they take delivery of game inserts.

In my home town, we literally only have CEX left, and that's it. The retro section (my go-to for gaming) in CEX is tiny, and over half the store is taken up with DVDs, Blu-ray's, CDs and phones. The staff there used to be great when they first started stocking and buying retro games and consoles back in 2015/16 (I think). Nowadays they don't seem to have a clue about anything other than modern machines, and the lack of banter frustrates me. It used to be that we had GAME, Blockbuster (a bit crap for Sega Saturn games back in the day though), Gamestation, and an independent store. Compared to cities like Coventry and Birmingham that were closest to us, it was limited, but far better than it is now. I miss being able to stroll around a decent variety of stores, as when you couldn't find something, you had a chance of picking it up elsewhere. Now everything is flipping online. Great for ease of obtaining something, but a pain often for returning something if it's faulty or has discs missing. I'm glad you pointed out the pricing tactic of these retro stores Webster, as I've noticed that myself for a while. CEX aren't great when it comes to trade in values and prices in my opinion. I loved shopping around for bargains. eBay is about the only way forward, and that's risky on occasion. Unfortunately scalpers have wrecked the retro gaming market, which is why I had to get an ODE for my Saturn. I simply cannot afford to pay in excess of £500 for Panzer Dragoon Saga. Forget the CEX price, because they never have it in stock. Others like Street Fighter Collection and Shining Force 3 are priced at £200 or something.

Crazy how you went to Trowbridge since I actually live there and frequently go to the shires! Oh and by the way, there is a new sports direct store outside of the shires.

Great informative video!

The only options you have are sweaty CEX shops which one can only survive in a hazmat suit, such is the stink of the place.

Yes! I would love these kind of videos!

I’m pleasantly surprised to see how many independent game stores there are in your area. There’s hardly anything here in Lincolnshire.

There's no videogame shops left in Ireland anymore. GameStop was the last one the chains and they closed a couple of months back so now it's just CEX and Smyths Toy Shop. Game and Electronic's Boutique are long gone and I don't know of any independent shops outside of a couple of retro shops.

I visited the UK in early June, i had a lot of fun in the Cheltenham CeX, but i only picked up Bully for the Wii. The one near Soho - London had some anime DVDs for me, as well as The Last Guardian on the PS4

Growing up, I saw the end of many local independent video game stores. Sheffield in particular used to have lots of small shops, some would spring up even as I started college during the HD generation! I think the problem is that there is no margin to be made on new releases, and we are reaching a point where publishers are wanting to get shut of retail altogether. Retro pre-owned has outpriced itself from anything but collectors markets. You might actually have more joy taking a punt on an eBay auction than trying CEX for a rare game now

Enjoyed the video, it’s a shame there are a lot of retro stores being closed and the CeX monopoly that’s happened. I’ve been lucky enough (maybe) to work at GAME, CeX and Blockbuster/Gamestation. And I’ve never been able to take games home at Game, but you were allowed to take home a preowned copy at BB as long as you have more then one in stock, but it’s always nice to see a nice retro shop; been to a few decent ones in Derby, London, York and Birmingham but they are getting harder to find a bargain thanks to CeX pricing.

Grantham used to have a Game but that closed a long time ago. That store also made a long established Grantham Computer Centre to sell off all their console games on the cheap to sell solely PC and printer supplies. The town did have a Retro Gaming Shop on Westgate, which appear for a couple of years recently, selling all things retro gaming but was a very small shop. It moved to near the bus station area I think but soon disappeared. CEX, Morrisons, Argos/Sainsbury's, Asda and a few charity shops dotted around the area sells games but it's looking bleak.

Surprised no one as mentioned Virgin megastore. Now that had a huge selection of games I remember my mum buying Kingpin for me on the PC because i wasn't 18 haha

Where i live, we have no Game, a Sports Direct but no Game kiosk and a CEX which is more DVDs than gaming stuff. If you're on a budget (as we all are ATM) you're screwed.

At Game some things changed a while back. No games have been gutted for over a year, some games that are gutted is just old stock now and will be there till it sells. Also staff was only allowed to take home pre owned games years ago. It hasn't been a thing for a long time anymore, atleast since I started working 2yrs ago they didn't have it anymore. Sadly trade ins changed to be in store credit only. So past console trade in deals it really puts allot of people off trading in as many games as many prefer cash and will go to cex.

Took me by surprise when you said Trowbridge. Used to live in Westbury and hated having to shop there 😆

When you're next local to me, the places here will be worth discussing. You won't believe the new layout of Cash Converters.

There's a lot of shops here in Idaho mostly walmart gamestop then there is pawn shops and thrift. Stores there's also smaller chains like vip games etc

In Australia, a lot of pawn shops actually don't price their games to the same value as the CEX sell price, they actually set their prices to a value between the CEX trade-in value and the CEX sell price

Looking at all the colourful box art and reading the back of the box to sell your self on that extra piece of fleeting fulfillment. I like when I find a title I intend to purchase, that beats it's eBay or Amazon in price because of shipping costs. It means I can justify buying it there and then . I'm done with physical copies now though 😢. After a PS4pro I'm done with consoles, and my PC has no disc drive. I do understand game hunting and I miss it. I might see if there are any 60fps PS3 games that interest me, perhaps a cheap f1 racing game with ffb for my old Logitech.

Love CeX, it's one of my favourite shops! Great for cheap Blu Rays and video games

I find most gaming stores in the UK to be unrewarding. Even the gaming markets are just filler. I only buy 60hz compatible games prior to PS3 era in the UK so I'm limiting my chances of finding something I want in a shop. The UK is filled with people who use online pricing as a guide its not like the USA where some ignorant person is selling a relic in pristine condition for $5 off their lawn. I buy on condition and shops just don't carry stuff in great condition for the most part. So I go for ebay... Strangely and nobody else has picked up on it, ebay has the best pictures for retro gaming. Most gaming websites fall very short of ebay standards and are slow, cumbersome and hard to navigate with menus that are tiny on a phone. You would think that 20 years after ebay got off the ground that a gaming website that sells used product would be able to convey a similar shopping experience.

10:46 i have an old argos catalog from 2009 and the games section is filled to the brim on almost every platfrom. seeing this just hurts

Since owning my Switch, I've been looking round many of the stores for cheap bargains, though I feel Smyths is my main place to go at times as they usually do surprising price drops on some games you normally won't see that cheap. Here are some games I got from Smyths for £20: Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series, Metroid Dread, Bayonetta 3 and Bayonetta Origins. Have picked up cheaper but was still amazed to have picked up Metroid Dread for £20. So no harm I checking them out when you can.

Yeah, we have three CEX stores in Leeds alone, but in Castleford, where there is another one, jus over and a little ways down the road the bus station, we found an independent store that was jus chock full of games from all kinds of different consoles! They had so many, I had to go downstairs jus to keep browsing! And that turned up another treat! They had several old issues of the Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine, WITH the demo disc, all wrapped up! I even bought a couple, still haven't opened them, either! We found it after we went to the Haribo factory in Pontefract (a town which is, quite frankly and even by the locals' acknowledgement, dead) as we were coming back! I wanted to go the CEX in Cas as they had the Dark Souls Trilogy on Xbox One there and we jus popped in! As I said, it was a treasure trove, though, unfortunately, the last time we went, it was shut...

Same here in Ireland. Gamestop and Argos closed here this year so the only place to buy physical games now is Smyths Toys.

While it is true prices have standardized in light of CEX... condition is king/queen and it can be a thrill in of itself to find an awesome condition copy of a game ya really wanted. I keep a bookmark that auto loads in my search query and sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised by the stuff listed as in stock. I am not fond of eBay because sellers can and do try to hide condition issues. Yes charity aka thrift stores here are usually filled with worthless over priced sports games and games over priced in general to the sum of 3x the going rate or higher.

To be frank, many a physical game release these days has contained a piece of paper with a code on it, or a disc that just runs a bit of code to download it I can save so much time by just buying online, I can literally download Starfield in an 8th of the time it would take me to take a bus to Middlesbrough buy the game and then travel home. Oh side note, ASDA used to be owned by Walmart, they sold it to EG Garages owners, who then made ASDA buy EG Garages and load them up with £2 billion of debt that they then pocketed

We had a GAME here in Chelmsford which I loved visiting every time me and my family (parents and brothers) went to town. Sadly it's gone now and apparently it's now being taken over by the local Gregg's (I'm still mad they stopped doing Iced-Ring Donuts) to expand it, that was at least a year or two ago and the place where the GAME store was is still completely barren without any work done on it. We got a Cex and Smyths thankfully. It's not just game shops but other kinds of shops as well, just recently our Wilkos has gone into administration and is shutting down, though lately the past year or so they been having really bad supply issues. Knowing Chelmsford, they'll probably replace those stores with another bloody food shop/cafe which gets closed in less than a year, we got too many of the bloody things.

Nice video mate

yeah I really miss having Game in the town centre of my hometown I have to go out to the small outlet place outwith of the town centre to even go to game now. ive gotten into the habit of checking con stalls when I go them and found decent stuff at decent prices like the original PS1 version of grandia for 20 pounds and fantasy zone complete for the master system for 15 pounds. and while I do check CEX I almost never come away with something its rare if I do get a game now last purchase from them was a original game gear with no working speaker (common issue) and the original capacitors that after a few weeks started to leak for around 95 pounds. thankfully its sorted now for a decent price as well hoping the original screen will be good for another few years but it does show how hit and miss they can be.

Ireland has already gone where you're worried the UK is going. We only have CEX and Smyths Toys selling physical games now and just a handful of independent second hand stores dotted around the country.

If you buy games from CEX that have a shitty case, ask the person who served you if you can swap the case for it because more often than not theres a shit ton of spare cases in the back

Nottingham used to be a great place for retro and new gaming. Game, Game Station, Electronic Boutique, Another World were the main go to 20 years ago. There were others dotted around that were small shops selling games but can't remember their names. Even Poundland sold some Sega and Sony stuff. Now Broadmarsh Shopping Centre gone, it used to be home to Play (think that's its name) opposite Wilko at the time. There was also a small game shop on the corner near the escalators, only lasted probably a year at the most and gone, no clue as to the name unfortunately. With Broadmarsh gone the lower section of Nottingham is completely dead. It isn't until you get into the centre that the shops start appearing again as open. CEX has a small shop round here down a small congested street, Exchange Walk. Then there's loads of charity shops dotted about that could possibly have a few games in. There is a small retro gaming shop near the theatre and cinema area, not sure on the name but definitely had a good selection of retro gaming goodness. Victoria Shopping Centre is still thriving and is home to HMV (not sure if they're selling games as not been in their place for years), Game almost opposite CEX on the upper floor close to the bus station area. Before CEX came along there, there used to be another gaming retro shop opposite Game, but that place closed down years ago.

There you go, thumbs up and subscribed. From Devon, so add a bit more to that UK members percentage.

I would love to see more videos like this

My local town lost its independent game store over 12 years ago now. Now i have to travel at least 30 mins to another town near me if i wish to buy physical games. The only game store in said town is CeX. There use to be a GAME there but that closed 3 years ago now. There is still ASDA in said town which still sells games of course but it just isnt the same experience.

I remember the Gamestation days, my old favourite.. PS Asda is back in British hands after being wholly owned by Walmart since 1999 👍

Shortly after the releases of PS5 and XBox Series consoles, a local CEX managed to obtain two PS5's and one XBox. There's no doubt that they paid full retail price or above, either obtaining them through direct purchase themselves or paying a seller above new value. Because they proudly put them in the window, unboxing them in the process, and priced them at shear scalper rates of £750 each for the PS5's and a similar markup for the XBox, to cash in on the lack of availability of the systems. However, this was during Covid and lockdowns ended up closing the stores during critical trading periods for months on end. By the time they reopened, they'd missed the golden window of opportunity and nobody wanted them. All three consoles ended up being sold at substantial losses, with the last remaining PS5 (Physical media version) recently selling for under £350. CEX does have some cool gaming stuff in their stores, especially retro, but I'd never pay the inflated rates they try to get for them.

I remember when CeX only had 3 stores. Rathbone Place, Tottenham Court Rd, and Croydon. CeX was the only place to import games from America and Japan. At the time, they were the only business to mod your PlayStation so you could play NTSC games on your PAL system. It allowed me to play games like RE2, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy 8, Tales of Destiny, Chrono Cross, Silent Hill etc. all before anyone else. Never thought it would get so big.

Honestly I'd love to read your comic series it sounds like a great story lol. Also I wish I had a dad as awesome as you man, that sounds awesome

planet games was once called pink planet and had a store in pretty much every area in every major city in the uk, last i heard the franchise went into administration and a handful of stores and stock was bought out to be re branded just kept all the pink planet feel and pricing labels lol, its a shame really pink planet was that store was a haven for the guys that had tight ass parents lol

staff are not allowed to take games home with them.. they are checked out before leaving, if caught they will get in serious trouble :) it is saddening to see the high street stores go..

Smyths is another Shop you should consider. Sometimes they do have some amazing deals and online now and again don't stock it.