Blockbusters May Have Gone Bust But You Can Still Rent Retro Games
RIP video rentals.
But whilst you can still access an internet load of films, finding retro games online is not so easy. There are several free-to-play old school games knocking around, but they are not so hot.
Fortunately, retro games are still available for rental or purchase from dealers such as superretrogamers.com for under £5 so come and check out our games for Xbox and SNES.
Retro games industry – a joke?
The demise of Blockbuster videos a couple of years ago followed hot on the footsteps of other high-street giants such as HMV, Gamestation and GAME. To be fair, HMV collapsed because nobody buys CD’s and DVD’s anymore.
GAME and Gamestation are another matter entirely. Owned by the same company, they went into administration in 2012 when games manufacturers refused to stop selling them new titles – allegedly due to bad credit.
The collapse of GAME and HMV prompted financial analyst, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan to label the UK games market as a “joke.” But with consumers spending of £4.2bn on games in 2015, we don’t agree. Consumer research shows the UK games market is the 6th strongest on the planet. And we’re only a little island!
So, what’s happening with Britain’s gaming industry?
According to the stats, it’s growing. And that’s not a joke is it Pachter?
In actual fact, and it seems that not a lot of people know this, but the UK has a “proud tradition of producing world-class video games.” And this from Jo Twist, CEO of UK Interactive Entertainment. If anybody knows about the UK’s gaming industry, it is Jo.
One of the reasons for the thriving British games market is because video games companies were given a 25% tax relief of production costs a few years ago. Some business owners will scoff at that, but it was needed. The games industry was seriously flagging five years ago.
The revival of UK video games industry
The financial collapse finally caught up with many of the gaming industry’s small studios and huge-cost cutting hit publishers big time. There was a knock-on effect which took out the middle-tier of games developers as well.
But then, in two evolutionary strokes the failing heart was revived. Mass mobile gaming boomed and the Unity platform opened up games development to a wider user base. The surviving studios were able to create games with just five or six programmers rather than a team of fifty or sixty.
Whilst there may not be many retro game retailers, the few that do exist have always stood strong and proud. Because we know the love for retro games will never waiver as long as we are here to serve the gaming community.
