Looking back at retro gaming stores!

ThePainBarrier said:
He opened a shop in Bury too. Spent many an hour in there chatting about games and general computery stuff when I was supposed to be doing a tea and coffee supply run for work. Those where the days!
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Yer they where cool people I remember having £10 and looking for a good game for my C64, and they used to talk to you saying what type of game you like etc... :)

They where the days! :cool:
 
WHSmith did some good games as well!

There is one store that nobody has mentioned before that did mags as well as Amstrad,C64, Spectrum tapes

Martins ;)
 
Tandy used to sell games aswell, but not sure if it was all computers?? Might have just been TRS-80 stuff, OOooo my memory hurts :D
 
LizardKing said:
John Menzies for the northerners :p
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Not just the North, they also sold Amstrad tapes down south :D:D:D

In dunfermline we had a few a john menzies downstairs dept (where i got my + machine), boots & woolworths (who seemed to sell colecovisions when they first came out). I also remember co-op sold the atari vcs systems.

A few of the shops including john menzies used to put the full tapes on the shelves and there was no doubt some went 'missing' during lunchtimes. They had a huge range of machines & titles on display.

There was one shop the beat them all. Clarks in chalmers street. It seemed to be somewhere between an ironmongers & general items shop. They started off with diy case shelves in the middle of the shop and were mostly spectrum with c64 and other titles. They would become the shop to pre-order as they would get the games on release date. Not bad for a very small independent. There were the 1st shop to store the tapes and instructions in a rubber band away from display under lock and key until bought for or demo'd. They had a few demo machines to the side. I always remember if you had a dodgy tape they must have had the best tape deck as i saw many times people come in and say a game wasn't working and it was tested ok (i think people were just copying them and taking them back) so they had a strict returns policy to stamp this out.
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Hempstead Valley had a big store! It was probably that store I was confusing with Martins :)

They sold Amstrad -> Amiga Mags
 
Maidstone had Kent Micros (where my A500 came from) and Software Warehouse a little later on. There was also a John Menzies and later WH Smiths which stocked games, as well as Boots and a couple of little short-lived enthusiast stores too.

Happy days :)
 
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