Retro Island Gaming — From Content Creators to Video Game Store Owners
The retro video game scene has been booming in recent years. With so many people wanting to relive their childhood memories or create new ones as an adult, buying and selling games is becoming more popular.
On Long Island, there’s plenty of stores that specialize in the hobby. From East End Gaming to the Video Game Trading Post, you won’t have to look far to buy older games.
However, there is a new challenger entering the scene. Fittingly called Retro Island Gaming, opened their doors earlier this month in Islip Terrace on Carleton Avenue.
Owned by three people; Josh, Elliot, and Kimmy. Together, they sought out to open a retro video game store online and in-person. Within 13 months, they made Retro Island Gaming a reality for everyone around the world to enjoy.
Humble Beginnings
Speaking with two of the owners, Josh “The4thGenGamer” Loerker and Elliot “GalacticElliot” Hakimian, they both have a background in Pokémon content creation on YouTube and Twitch.
Elliot first started on YouTube back in 2006/2007, inspired by Let’s Players and began with videos about Club Penguin. Starting fresh in 2011 under his current alias, he made one of the first co-op Nuzlocke Random Encounter videos which went viral. “After that, it was hard for me to even think of doing anything other than Pokémon,” Elliot said.
Josh first started on YouTube in 2013, doing videos on sports games before quickly transitioning into Pokémon. Although they both focus heavily on the monster catching series, there’s a lot of variety and sub communities within the single franchise.
“Between the shiny hunters, the competitive battlers, the speedrunners, there are so many people that are passionate about Pokémon,” Josh said. “A lot of people that we made friends with and we’re just lucky to know so many great people through Pokémon.”
The duo met online through mutual friends in 2013, despite both being Long Island natives. Not only did they love talking about Pokémon but also sports, baseball in particular.
They’ve collaborated on each other’s YouTube channels and Twitch streams a number of times over the years. In April 2023, their biggest collaboration was on the horizon. “Let’s open up a video game store,” Josh said to Elliot.
Full Steam Ahead, No Breaks
From that moment on, Retro Island Gaming got to work.
“Forming the brand, doing all the research, making connections, it has been a marathon of a 11 month period to get to this point,” Josh said. Countless Facebook Marketplace deals, garage sales, eBay listings, and all the other work to make Retro Island Gaming where it is today.
At first, a physical location wasn’t in the cards until two to three years after forming the brand. The online website launched at the end of November 2023, about seven months later to allow their online community to buy games from them. Then, what seemed like a few years turned into one year. Now, Retro Island Gaming has a physical location as of May 4, 2024.
The fast pace nature of Retro Island Gaming is due to their time on YouTube and Twitch. “When you’re your own boss, if you already own your own business, if you make your own hours, you know that you probably work more hours than anyone else,” Josh said. “It’s a lot of work but you got to love what you do. And we love this.”
“I’ve been going to retro game stores for over a decade now,” Elliot adds. “And I just love it so much.”
“Every video game store is different,” Josh continues. “That’s what’s so cool. They’re all going to be completely different. We wanted to throw our hat into the ring and make our dream video game store that we would love to shop in.”
“Whenever we set our minds to something, we don’t know how to half ass it. We just go full steam ahead.”
- Josh “The4thGenGamer” Loerker
Over the course of the next year, the trio have learned to work as a team more than ever. Figuring out what they all bring to the table while learning from one another as well.
“We’ve definitely had to learn the hard way in a lot of things,” Elliot said. “But I think even then, we’ve done a really good job and I’m really proud of the three of us. The fact that we’ve taken this idea and now we’re in a store. It’s surreal to me still.”
What Makes Retro Island Gaming Unique?
The team pride themselves in providing high quality merchandise. Ensuring everything is tested and cleaned before getting into the customers’ hands.
A constant sale Retro Island Gaming have is Buy 2 Get 1 Free on all video games priced $10.99 or less. Over 2,000 games under this range, customers online and in-store can take advantage of this sale. When asked who came up with the idea, Josh raised his hand, smiling.
“I love that sale so much,” he said. “I think it makes for a really fun browsing experience. That’s something so important for us. Whether you buy something or not, you love browsing [video game stores] and you love looking around. People love [the sale] and we’re happy to do it forever.”
“We want that experience to be for everyone,” Elliot adds. “Buy 2 Get 1 is definitely a good way for customers to look around and maybe find a gem that they didn’t even know they were looking for.”
Because Retro Island Gaming have most of their inventory available online, they’re able to provide a service no other store on the island offers: local pick-up. The benefits of having their entire inventory online to make the shopping experience easier for Long Islanders.
Taking inspiration from other retro video games stores in the United States such as Pink Gorilla Games and Double Jump Video Games, Retro Island Gaming also streams the store during opening hours.
Especially as content creators already, streaming the store’s day-to-day operations was a no brainer.
“I love that we get to stream the store,” Josh said. “It’s a way for us to stay connected with our community, grow our store, and it’s free advertising.”
They have a joke with their community and call the viewers “unpaid security guards.” Amassing 20–50 viewers per stream across YouTube and Twitch, Josh, Elliot, and Kimmy are able to interact with viewers when no customers are in the store. Talking and hanging out while also promoting the store.
“Somebody from our YouTube stream at one point asked about a bunch of Xbox games,” Elliot said. After he showed them the games, the person bought it on the Retro Island Gaming website. “It can help people feel connected, whether they’re in the store or not.”
Compromising the Vision — The Future
Although the team was able to get the store up and running for customers to stop by, it came with a price to their original vision.
Tournaments for video games to trading cards had to be cut from Retro Island Gaming’s services. The size of the Islip Terrace location is very small and would not be able to comfortably host tournaments on a large scale.
“We don’t want to bite off more than we can chew.” Josh said. “I think it would have been too much for us and we maybe just wouldn’t have done the best job.”
“Whenever we do tournaments in the future,” Elliot adds. “We [want to] do it right and we make sure that everyone’s not only happy and having a fun time but is also comfortable because at the end of the day, this is our storefront and comfort-ability is one of the most important things we want for not only ourselves but for the people that come in.”
All is not lost though as Retro Island Gaming has become the blood, sweat, and tears of this dynamic trio. Most people might take a few years to get a store like theirs off the ground but they managed to accomplish that in 13 months. The duo will continue to stream on their personal channels but more so as a hobby.
Other than selling video games, VHS, Pokémon cards, plushies, and imported snacks, Retro Island Gaming’s most important goal is to keep growing their community.
“I just love talking to customers,” Elliot said. “Whenever someone comes in and starts geeking out like ‘oh I got into video games with the Sega Genesis’ and they start naming all of these games. I’m like ‘tell me more about these games! I want to know.’”
“Aside from putting out consistently quality products,” Josh said. “I just want to keep making new friends and meeting new people in the space. At the end of the day, whether it’s three years or 10 years that we can get a bigger space, money comes and goes, different store spaces come and go. But the people, that’s what matters the most.”
Read More: Game Away From Home on Long Island
Travis “tvsonic” Vuong
Business e-mail: travisvuong56@gmail.com
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