Sometimes, when the growingly stale and depressing atmosphere of modern games devolving into a live-service mobile frequency gets to you, you need to take a step back and visit the world of retro gaming. Alas, those seeking to go back to the past this summer have to know about the premier destination in Illinois. A store that is hidden under the Brown Line Belmont stop but filled to the brim with so many unique and classic games you can’t truly take all of it in at once.

The Exchange is a retro-media store on the corner of Belmont and Sheffield avenues in Chicago. It is home to a seemingly endless amount of old-school movies, posters and CDs, but most importantly, it’s home to a wide selection of old video games and their respective consoles. Buzz spoke with the store’s manager, Jordan Shafer, to get insight on the selection and what’s going on in the used video game scene.

“I’ve been working for about seven years or so,” Shafer said. “We buy, sell, trade games, movies, music. All sorts of memorabilia.”

Games from all eras have a shelf. You can find titles from the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and even the Super Nintendo. Several incredibly rare titles are on-shelf, including “Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door” in factory seal, and more obscure yet incredibly rare games, like an untouched “Banjo-Kazooie” and “Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse.”

Shafer, of course, also had his favorite picks of the selection readily available.

“I started on the NES back in the day, but I really grew up on the Super Nintendo,” he said. “Probably once a year, I will go back to Super Mario World. Modern-day-wise, I’m currently playing through ‘Bioshock 2.’”

In February 2020, I bought a used PS3 from the store after completing “Max Payne” on my PS4 and discovering that the rest of the series was never ported to the new system, remaining trapped on older hardware. This led me down a rabbit hole of discovering a ton of games that never made their way to new hardware. The “Infamous” series, the “Killzone” trilogy and even the famous “Metal Gear Solid” series’ fourth entry is trapped exclusively on the PS3. Well, as the lockdown swept through the United States in March, I found myself completely content with my new selection of retro games to pass my time with. Since then, I’ve continually binged older (and the occasional new) games from the PS3 era. It’s worthy of a whole article describing my love for this era of innovation and original Intellectual Property, a far cry from the modern trappings of endless sequels and spin-offs.

I was seemingly not alone in this hunt for old titles. In fact, the entire used game scene exploded because of the pandemic, as Shafer would elaborate.

“There has seemed to have been a spike really,” Shafer said, “Hindsight will be better in the future, but the most obvious thing has been a definite spike on used hardware prices. Pokemon, all the Nintendo stuff. Even Xbox and PS3 have gone up.”

This combination of nostalgia/boredom-fueled desire for old games and the ongoing computer chip shortage affecting the entire entertainment industry and beyond has led to the process of buying a console, both old and new, becoming far more pricey than in the past.

“They are definitely harder to keep in stock than they were,” Shafer said. “It depends on the generation and stuff like that. We used to make thrones out of Wii consoles back in the day, but now they are in pretty high demand.”

For any and all patient gamers looking to dive into the past, The Exchange is a great spot to seek out whatever classic fits the bill. But as the clashing market forces take their toll, now is better than later to get a rare title before it’s far too late (or expensive).

[email protected]