1 A Complete Unboxing A Store in Ephrata Offers the Public a Way Celebrate Collecting Video Games By Grant T. Pearsall THE STRIP MALL is an unassuming work of stone and mortar situated next to a busy street somewhere in the borough of Ephrata, Penn. Cars and trucks carom by at high speeds, the road feeding arterially into a junction that spreads out across the county as the automotive pulmonary system of southeastern Lancaster County. A large neon sign blazes in the darkness of this cold fall evening: “Complete in Box. Video Games From Every Era” Figures seen through the brightly lit windows move back and forth across the large expanse of the store front, giving the impression of vitality and commerce. An American flag stirs atop the pole that juts from a thin median of grass in front of the building. Across the busy highway, a Big Lots store sits, boxy and impassive, its parking lot mostly empty. 2 The soft glow of commerce-- Complete in Box located along Reading Road of Ephrata The Clash at Trout Run Complete in Box is a thing that should not be-- a privately owned small business that traffics almost exclusively in ‘retro’ video games. In this case, the term ‘retro’ refers to video games at least five to ten years old belonging to gaming consoles which are no longer in production. During the late 1990’s, Lancaster County was rife with boutique stores which sold retro games and accessories. Even big box stores of the day, like the now defunct FuncoLand, had a thriving economic model that included the buying, trading and selling of retro games. But in the early 2000’s, the small stores folded, their business cannibalized by internet sales and by sites like Ebay and Craigslist. Even the chain stores like FuncoLand vanished overnight, having been subsumed by the corporate conglomerate Gamestop, which has positioned itself as the gatekeeper of modern video game sales. As the independently owned stores closed, options for purchasing games locally dwindled. Now super-chains like the Targets and Wal-marts have moved in, offering only the 3 very newest video games and their accompanying systems. Despite this new economic landscape, Spenser Brossman quietly financed and opened a small video game store in the Trout Run Business Center. His endeavor is modeled after the video gaming boutiques of yore. It should not be, yet there it stands. Resident Retro Out of the cold, past the glass doors and into the warm glow of retail, the store reveals itself to be a delightful hodge-podge of geek-etcetera from floor to ceiling. It has a distinct feeling of hominess-- the inescapable sensation that this space is the logical extension of a teenager’s bedroom. That teen is of course wild for the video games of the not-so-distant past. The store is divided into two distinct sections-- one dedicated almost entirely to retail sales and the other serving as an ad-hoc gaming museum and arcade. It is this latter half that makes the store a strange and unique creature among its peers, ostensibly a shrine to geek culture. Acquired in February of this year, the retro gaming side of Complete-in-Box was made possible by the fortuitous vacating of the previous business, a Verizon cell phone store. The acquisition came at just the right time, as Brossman was considering whether or not the amount of stock they were taking in necessitated opening a second store. “I think stores, for the most part, not always, lose a little bit of quality when they have more stores,” says Brosman. When he heard the location next door was about to be vacated, he spoke to the landlord immediately and proclaimed his intentions; “Dibs, dibs, please we want it!...” 4 The stores’ free to play arcade machines offer a unique cross-section of gaming history. The expansion opened up the store’s total footprint to roughly five thousand square feet by Brossman’s estimation. Close to the rear and adjacent to the storefront, a long row of arcade machines line the walls. Titles of the machines include: “Deluxe Space Invaders,” “The House of the Dead” and “Smash Tv.” Their monitors flicker dimly with attract screens scrolling, waiting to be activated by would-be patrons. The machines have all been switched to a free to play mode-- a courtesy gesture from Brossman to his patrons. Two young boys in thick jackets and wool caps jump up and down excitedly in front of the arcade cabinets. “Dad, can you help me play this?” one of the boys loudly demands. His father is preoccupied in thought, staring up at a massive poster of Mega Man 5 squaring off against one of his myriad of robotic foes. He mumbles something conciliatory to his son. Soon, the two boys are deeply engrossed in playing the “Smash Tv” machine, hooting and hollering together as they succeed. Slowly, the father gravitates towards them until eventually he is watching their progress over their shoulders. Just like mom’s basement, circa 1987! Towards the front of the retro area, beneath the plate glass windows, a space has been set up that emulates the home gaming experience. A plush tan and brown sectional couch has a small flat-screen television positioned in front of it. Connected to the television is a kind of a modern hybrid gaming console that allows for classic NES and Super NES games to be played on the same machine. A man in his mid-twenties with close cropped hair rapidly jams on a controller, propelling Mario through a vibrant, sixteen-bit world. A young woman in a baggy hoodie perches 6 on the back of the couch watching as he plays. She twirls her hair through her fingers and leans down to speak quietly into his ear. He chuckles and places the controller on the cushion of the couch. The pair exits out the front door and disappears into the night. A small, cluttered counter is located centrally in this half of the store, strategically placed to oversee the goings-ons of the area. Brad Canull, an employee, works at the counter refurbishing old video game consoles that have been traded in by customers. Canull has a mop of dark, shaggy hair, a thick beard, and he wears a bright red Arsenal Football Club jersey. Toothbrush in hand he scrubs away at the plastic housing of a Nintendo Entertainment system that has yellowed with age. A box of doppelganger NES consoles rest on the floor, while another large stack of dirty Super Nintendos sits on the counter nearby. Restoring and reselling these systems is a large part of the Complete in Box business model. “We go through a fair number,” Canull says,“it’s nice [when] they look somewhat new.” 7 Brad Canull, an employee for 2+ years works to clean a dirty NES console. Refurbishing these systems to a retail state is not without its hazards though. Recently, another employee had an allergic reaction when cleaning an old console without wearing protective gloves. Canull smiles sheepishly “he felt pretty nauseous for a while.” Canull reminisces playing video games at his grandparents’ house as a child, eating peanut butter sandwiches without regard for how messy it got. He speculates that all types of food and dirt winds up on these systems and their controllers. The years of grime on an old console reveals the story of their past owners for better or worse. Along the very back wall of the retro gaming area is a row of small glass display cases similar to those found in a jewelry store. A printed sign placed inside reads “The Best Games of Each Generation AND All Time.” Several video games from classic systems are carefully 8 arranged within the glass box, including titles such as “Kaboom” for the Atari and “Super Mario 64” for the Nintendo 64. Each item is accompanied by a sheet of wry text justifying their esteemed status. The cases serve as a kind of tastemaker barometer for classic gaming, letting the patrons know Brossman’s enterprise encompasses more than just commerce-- there is a reverence for the history of the gaming culture located here. Brossman’s Creed The impresario of this entire venture is Spenser Brossman, who sits in a rolling chair in his crowded stockroom. Shaggy haired and perpetually smiling, Brossman exudes a kind of zen- like confidence and tranquility that instantly puts those around him at ease. Yet contradictorily, his physical mannerisms are anxious and full of a restless energy-- he is endlessly drumming on tables, playing with his fingers and raking hair away from his face. His attire seems to reflect all of these qualities at once-- a tie-dyed tee shirt with a picture of an eagle wearing aviator sunglasses, flannel patterned board shorts and a pair of slightly battered neon and slate running sneakers. He also bears a striking resemblance to Greg Sestero, an actor from the cult film “The Room,” which could go either way in terms of flattery depending on your love of esoteric cinema. 9 Spenser Brossman-- Owner of Complete in Box Brossman, a native of Lancaster county, is a graduate of Drexel University where he double majored in psychology and math. His story for the inception of Complete-in-Box is ambiguous in the details, but clear in intent. Returning to Lancaster, he decided to sidestep the pitfalls of the post-graduate employment hunt, instead diving headlong into opening a video game store. It was mixing business with pleasure, as he has always loved video games and gaming culture.