In December, Reddit user Chef-BILLIEVE, who I'm just going to call Chef Bill or Bill for this story, turned heads among video game collectors with a painstaking recreation of a GameStop interior which he had used to fill out his basement and nostalgically display his game collection. I only recently learned of this after official GameStop social media shared his post, and it goes without saying that I immediately had to talk to Chef Bill about how and why this impressive display came together. Its origins are more frugal and more heartwarming than I expected.
Bill tells me he got into collecting games in the late '90s and early 2000s, beginning with a Nintendo collection and then adding in PlayStation with two all-timers: Resident Evil 2 and Final Fantasy 7. "This was the catalyst for what would become an enduring relationship with JRPGs which are heavily represented within the current collection," he explains.
After frequenting stores like Electronics Boutique and Toys 'R Us while working through high school, Bill says his adult working life afforded him a house with an "ample finished basement" which his wife proposed turning into a "man cave" where he could display his games. And thus, history was set in motion.
"I can't put my finger on where the idea of a retail format truly struck me," Bill says. "I think it may have started as a joke between myself and a close friend: 'I'm gonna build a game store down there.' I simply kept repeating the goal in my mind with no real tangible path to actually making it happen until last Christmas, when the wife bought me the glass display case. With that spark I could visualize things actually taking shape. It also made sense to my oddly wired brain: what better way to display a collection than with retail grade components in a setting that was literally designed specifically to display and store things?"
Built a GameStop in my basement from r/gamecollecting
Not long after this realization, lady luck gave Bill a push. A fabric store near his home was closing down and liquidating its interior, selling commercial furniture, fixtures, and related materials at "extremely low prices." Bill made the most of it, snapping up "the most difficult components" at a bargain, and making several trips to collect and stash it all until he could plan out his own shop interior. He bought so much that the folks overseeing the liquidation ended up just giving him even more on closing day.
Bill's GameStop took about three months of active construction, running up roughly $2,000 all told. Electric routing, lighting, paint, shelving, studs, sheet rock, the all-important carpet – the works. "There were definitely some misconceptions around how affluent I appear," he jokes. It's impressive work for the price, and that shut-down shop definitely helped keep costs low. He says his choice to use the basement slatwall led to "numerous unexpected difficulties," forcing him to finagle heights and panels. At one point he had to restart work on the ceiling due to spacing conflicts, "however, it was ultimately the correct choice despite the hardship as it achieved the specific look I was after."
"The CRT ceiling mount is a point of pride," he says. And he's still planning to add more to his shop. "I plan to expand both the games and improve the overall quality of the room itself. This has always been a lifelong hobby and now with the space there are new possibilities that present themselves daily."
What began as a novel way to display games also gained new meaning for Bill. "This was also an experiment in coping with grief," he says. "I lost my father to lung cancer in 2024. I was constantly searching for ways to deal with the pain and none of them were positive or healthy in any way. He trained me from an early age to be handy enough to get through the entire project on my own. As I worked on things it felt as though he was there with me.
"I noticed that others seemed to be struggling with a few things in the comments [on my Reddit posts]," he continues. "It reminded me that our passions can both distract and heal in equal measure. The spaces combined with the passions in our lives have the power to bring people together, perhaps when they most need it. The idea that the content may have actually helped another was truly powerful."
Bill was "blown away" with the online response to his collection. The love and nostalgia for this era of game collecting – which hasn't vanished, but has certainly shrunk, with GameStop notably shuttering more locations recently – deeply resonated among viewers on his posts.
"It went beyond the games themselves and was ingrained in the social tissue of the time itself," Bill says of such stores. "These were places where we grew up, played, interacted directly with each other and celebrated the media we all adored. I realized I had created a magical place of my own, it no longer had to exist in a memory or dream. To see the old guard orate what made these places special to them while simultaneously inspiring a new generation brought about a new dimension of joy for me."
This left the two questions that came to mind when I first saw Bill's GameStop. First, has he ever worked at a GameStop? He says he hasn't. Second, does he now ever roleplay working at a GameStop?
"I haven't had much foot traffic yet," he says of his shop, "but we have definitely toyed with the idea of a few specific skits for sure, just for fun. Like, my buddy comes in with a gem from his collection and I make some preposterous offer or one up it with a very specific opinion, and then proceed to hassle him to buy a pro membership."
I did work at a GameStop for a season, and I'm telling you right now, that's authenticity.
