Games Unlimited

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Games Unlimited was founded in October of 1979 in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh. A second location ( and a short lived third store in "Station Square" ) was opened in the Brentwood Whitehall Shopping Center, but after 6 years was "liberated" due to lease problems. From the beginning, the concept was to offer quality games that were not available in the area, the games we and our friends were playing but could only acquire by mail order or on trips out of town. What amazed us was the sheer quantity of small one game companies whose product was totally inaccessible to the public. The best part was that many of these games were of such high quality design and just plain fun to play. The down side was, as you might expect, the packaging and sometimes the components. The question became: will the public try something that didn't conform to what they had come to expect in such a product? Some did ; most didn't. It was obvious that something else was needed to sustain a viable business. That's when fate ( AKA luck ) played it's hand. The game Dungeons and Dragons gained a following in the colleges and high schools in the area. It went on to start a whole sub-genre of gaming and Games Unlimited had several years of a head start on any future competition. Then in rapid succession came the Rubik's Cube, hand held electronic games, the Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Then just as things began to cool a bit, along came a game that the Canadian manufacturer claimed was doing very well north of the border. We tried 4 of this over priced import and to our surprise they sold. We decided to try 6 more and the scenario repeated itself for almost 2 years with ever increasing orders. Then the mass marketers found out about it, and Trivial Pursuit went on to be the best selling game ( gross sales ) ever. The process repeated several years later with Pictionary and Scruples although the head start kept getting shorter as the big guys started to wake up. More time passed when Magic the Gathering was released by a small company in the state of Washington. In some ways this was the biggest hit of all. Now, that same company has found lightning in a bottle a second time with the Pokemon craze. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! Through all of this, the main idea was still to offer not only unique games, but games we could talk to customers about since we played them. While it became impossible to play them all, it would be accurate to say we do try many of those in stock and, by reading the rules, are familiar with most. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it ; it may as well be us. Check out some of our customer's favorites of this year by clicking "Best Sellers" on the left side frame. Maybe you'll find the next Trivial Pursuit. Happy gaming!