A farewell to Ponca City's Gamestop

The graveyard of nostalgia in Ponca City has welcomed another lost soul: GameStop.

The video game store, a bastion for every teenager in the mid-2000’s through the 2010’s, has joined the likes of the Carmike / AMC Theater, Hastings, Wendy’s, and now (in a temporary plot) Burger King.

The struggling franchise, which has been closing locations globally, finally pulled the proverbial plug on the store which was located on Prospect, in the shopping center where it outlived 24 different pizza and cellphone shops and a handful of tax firms over the course of its long and fruitful life.

A life which encompassed 4 generations of consoles from the GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 to the Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 5.

One life which allowed a generation of gamers to live thousands.

Opening in the early 2000’s as “GameStop and Movies Too”, GameStop began as a competitor to the then-thriving Hastings, allowing customers to buy, sell, and trade their video games as well as DVDs. 

The “Movies Too” aspect was fairly short lived, but I do have fond memories of selling back hundreds of DVDs for the whopping $26 in cash or $29 in store credit. 

On particular nights, GameStop’s tiny little corner of that shopping center would look like a festival- headlights in idling cars illuminating a line of teens and adults wrapped around the building, fast food bags and fountain drinks around them, as they eagerly awaited the midnight launch of blockbusters like “Halo 3”, “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2”, “Grand Theft Auto V”, and more. 

I remember those midnight releases- standing in line in warm summer nights or the blistering winter darkness, shoulder-to-shoulder with friends from school or people I’d never met before in my life, anticipating coming home and gaming until the sun came up, receipts clutched tight, watching the tournaments the staff would set up in the small store lobby. 

The cheers and hollers as the first round of customers would leave, clutching their new consoles or games like prizes. Rewards for a year of waiting, for payments made, for that final home stretch towards the counter. 

I remember the drive home, eagerly and delicately peeling off the shrink-wrap, staring with wide-eyed wondered and anticipating at the game case in my hands. I remember sprinting inside, sliding that disc in, and agonizing over the Day 1 updates and patches, waiting to finally dive in. 

I remember my mom dropping my friends and I off as high school freshman, with our Mountain Dew Game Fuel and bags of Burger King (because they had the sick tie-in meals) waiting for Halo 3. 

I remember the first time I could drive myself to a midnight release, begging my parents to let me go to Ponca on a school night to get Modern Warfare 2. 

The staff at GameStop was a revolving roster of smiling, helpful faces. A roster of beautiful women that I think I fell in love with- at least once per year, with the longest of those one-sided love affairs being “GameStop Girl”, as my friends and I referred to her as. 

Recently, in the final throes of the store's life, there was a very friendly man who could never remember my name, but he definitely remembered my tastes, and we would stand at the counter talking about the new releases, which recent titles we'd loved, which we didn't, and what our hopes were for franchises like Mass Effect and Metal Gear Solid. 

There were some employees who worked there for weeks, some who worked there for years, but they were all always excellent. They would occasionally snag me some extra goodies- unclaimed pre-order incentives like artbooks or keychains. They would always help me, they were always so damn good at their job. 

And it was, of course, just a job. They probably don’t remember most of their time there, however long or short. But I do. I couldn’t believe such a place existed, with such people that “knew” about video games. It felt like a sort of home- they felt like a sort of family. 

GameStop was a routine teenage stomping ground- the stops on a typical bored visit to Ponca included that, Hastings, and of course Burger King, and no-doubt they would all be hit up when my friends and I would load up and head to the movies. 

Now, none of them are there. One by one, all the homes of my adolescence have been vacated. 

The AMC / Carmike has been an empty tomb for 5 years, set to welcome a new theater for a new generation- a generation that will live their whole lives never seeing it how I did.

Hastings has had many new tenants, from some overpriced furniture store to Spirit Halloween, and now Bealls. A clothing department store where teens will shop, never knowing the books or movies I discovered in that same building, under a different name, that changed my life. 

Burger King will get a new building, built from the ground up, with hungry customers who will never have ran through that drive through at 3 am on a Saturday night, or swarmed in with a group of friends after seeing a new movie. 

GameStop’s location will, no doubt, welcome a new tenant. Some soulless branch or kitschy boutique. Some business that won’t matter to me because I’ll never be able to step foot in it.

A generation will grow up without ever knowing it for what it was. A generation that will download their games from the Xbox or PlayStation store, and never know the rite of passage of a midnight release, will never know the companionship you can share with someone at 11 p.m. on a school night, waiting for the doors to open, making memories with people you’ll never meet again.