A day in the life of an independent video game store

[Administrator]

Places like this are too few and far between. Step into Console Connections in Shildon, County Durham, and it's like walking into an Aladdin's cave of games. Boxes reach up to the ceiling along every wall, and seemingly every console from the past four decades is represented in some way; from the PS4 display by the door to a boxed Amstrad GX4000 sitting proudly on the counter. Why can't all game stores be like this?
For owner Chris Bowman, Console Connections is the culmination of a lifetime's passion. The store opened in 1996, but its origins go back much further than that. "I had my first shop when I was 13," says Bowman. "There was a swap shop in the next town along, and I used to swap all my games, and I thought: 'well, there's money to be made in that'. And then I started doing markets and car boot fairs, and it sort of snowballed from there."
When he was part way through college, Bowman decided to follow his dream of swapping the car boot sales for a bricks and mortar store of his own. He ditched his studies and started Console Connections.
Read more…


More...