Robert Maurus’ desire to “pass the torch” of playing retro video games to his son, Gavin, led to Maurus becoming the manager of the newest Game On retro video game store on Long Island — this one in Patchogue.
The downtown location, at 12 South Ocean Ave., is the third Game On store, following the Miller Place location that opened in 2015 and the Smithtown venue that opened in 2017.
The stores offer places for kids and adults to explore games and equipment primarily from before the early 2000s and to share their community interest in gaming nostalgia. “Our store is about playing the games as they were meant to be played on the original hardware,” says Game On founder and owner Tristan Whitworth. “It’s about passing it on to the next generation. The most magical thing is when these kids eight to 10 years old are coming in to buy retro games they see on YouTube or that their parents told them about.”
Like the first two stores, the Patchogue locale sells items related to Atari (such as Donkey Kong), Nintendo Entertainment Systems (such as Mario Duck Hunt), Sega Genesis systems (such as the 1992 Sonic the Hedgehog game) and PlayStation (such as Spyro the Dragon). It also has an arcade area in the front offering free play of old favorites such as Pac-Man and Asteroids.
Whitworth had been getting requests to open a South Shore location for a while, he says. “The biggest thing was finding someone who was passionate enough to run the store,” Whitworth says.
That’s where Maurus came in. He’s been a customer at the Miller Place store for years, visiting most weekends from his home in East Patchogue with Gavin, now age 4, to pick out Mario, Ninja Turtles and wrestling video games to play with him. “The colors, the sounds, the overall games are easier for him to play,” Maurus says.
The two men became friendly and decided to work together. “We made it happen,” Maurus says. He says he likes the “vibe” of being in downtown Patchogue, where kids can, “like the old days,” stop into the nearby ice cream parlor and then come to the store to play video games together.
The Patchogue store may not be the last on Long Island for Game On, Whitworth says — he says he’s been getting requests from customers to open a gaming venue in Nassau County.
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
Source: https://www.newsday.com/lifestyle/recreation/game-on-video-game-store-long-island-1.50468244
