Pawnbroker Simulator (Steam) – Review

I have always loved the TV show Pawn Stars and its antics, so when Pawnbroker Simulator came up for review from developer Next Sky Games and published by Ultimate Publishing, Ultimate Games, and Playway, I was excited to be selected for it. Let’s see how the game performs and if I can run my own successful pawn shop.

There is a nice character selection screen where you choose your physical appearance and then your outfit. Yes, you can be the sleazy businessman with the slicked-back ponytail or the clean-cut owner in a suit; the choice is yours.

Next up, choose your difficulty: sandbox mode, recommended for new players, or scenario-based save the store. There are a few other options, disabled stealing from your store, and difficulty level, which will affect your negotiations and skills.

You then have to choose the type of person you will be in the game, each with its own skill set and buffs. You can choose between Businessman, Collector, Craigs fist, Good neighbour, or Veteran.

You then begin your journey in front of a small pawn shop, and Uncle Berry is instantly in your ear, letting you know you’ve inherited the shop from your late father. Your uncle is here to help you along the journey and provide you with tips, tricks, and information to help you along your journey from rags to potentially riches.

Like nearly all simulators, you will need to open and clean the shop. A basic cleaning system for windows and footprints helps increase your shop’s reputation, and, interestingly, how you display goods and where you place them also improve its attractiveness and attract customers from the street. You don’t place garden tools with oil painting; it’s a neat little system and makes you think about extra display cases and where you are going to place goods.

You will see dotted lines come out from the goods. If they are meant to be placed together, the lines will be green to help you along the way. Speaking of display cabinets, you have a tablet on your counter, from which you order all your furniture, security cameras, and decorations, to name a few. It has a nice little feature as well; you don’t just click buttons to order, you control a hand with a pointer finger to interact with the tablet.​

The game then basically revolves around buying, selling, and pawning goods. When a customer brings in an item, you have two to six points to interact with and inspect it, which gives you a market value range, low and high sell. If you don’t select all points on the items, you may miss wear and tear or broken parts, which will affect their value when you sell them down the line. You then use this to negotiate a price with the seller.

When you are first starting out, your skills and knowledge are very basic, so your estimates can be well off the market value. You can learn 13 different knowledge types, from fine art, sports, antiques, and music, to name a few.

As you put skill points into these, your knowledge and market price estimates become more accurate, and so does your potential to make a profit. If you are still unsure of the value or the item is very expensive, you can use a phone symbol when dealing with the customer to have an expert call about the item to get a more accurate price. However, there is a cost attached, which will cut into your potential profits. This also lowers your knowledge in front of the customer, which affects your ability to haggle the price with them.

You also have the pawning system, in which you hold customers’ goods as collateral for money. Make sure you can cover the cost of the goods in case they don’t return, and ensure the interest rate is high enough to make a profit if they do.

Another skill tree is your negotiating or haggling skills to get a better price when you buy or sell goods, which essentially goes hand in hand with your knowledge skill tree. In this skill tree, you have five levels based on a star system. There are various licenses you need to apply for as you progress; the first one you work towards is being open to trade 24/7, so you can bring more customers through the door.

You also have a few more: a firearms license and a jewellery trading license, to name a few. Finally, you have a time management function: you can sleep to skip time or sleep to avoid overnight risks from thieves. It is entirely up to you. I don’t like how the screen just skips time; a back room or couch would have been nice. Don’t panic either, all this information is available in-game via the F4 menu, so you don’t get overwhelmed, you can keep referring back, and you always have your uncle in your ear guiding you along.

The graphics are nice and detailed; they need to be as well, so you can easily detect wear and tear and the quality of goods. The shop is surrounded by a nice functioning city block with pedestrians and cars driving past. You have a few shops on either side of you and a park across the road; the developers haven’t ignored the immersion this creates, which is good to see. The pedestrians who enter the shop are well-detailed, with different clothes and looks; I haven’t seen the same one twice yet.

With the park across the road, you can hear the birds chirping, and traffic going past the shop, which is constant depending on the time of day. The customers have limited speech, but when you hear the “great deal”, it’s music to your ears, selling something to them. During negotiations, it’s basically mumbling and reading communication on the screen, but the hello, goodbye, and deal all sound great.

​Pawnbroker Simulator is a great store management simulator. There are so many skills and unlocks, and the slow progression makes it great for longevity. Bargaining is a lot of fun: seeing how cheap you can buy something for and then trying to flip it for a healthy profit. Perhaps spending your surplus cash on big-ticket items, like the sports memorabilia you want, is more your style.

You essentially have to decide when to keep your stock levels high or liquidate them to keep the stock rolling over. As mentioned, I love the show, and this game is an extension of that; you won’t be disappointed. Jump in and see if you have what it takes to run a successful store.