Retroville Games sells video games, trading cards and board games.
Even in 2025, there is a place in Whitewater where you can buy games for the PlayStation 2, Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii.
Co-owned by Mike Sersich and Bronson Thatcher, Retroville Games is an all-inclusive game store that opened up in early September. The store specializes in video game trade-ins, disc resurfacing and the sale of trading cards and board games.
Though the store is relatively new to the city, it has already found a new location that may attract more community members, now located in the busy restaurant section of Whitewater near Qdoba and McDonald’s.
The move to a new location was strategic, as the original store was tucked away and easy to miss.
“We’re in a primetime spot where it’s visible,” Thatcher said. “Our last spot was behind some buildings where most people couldn’t even accidentally walk by us, whereas this spot is very visible in the food center of the town.”
Another large factor that contributed to the owner’s choice to relocate was the need for more space. The store sees between 60 and 100 video game titles traded in every week, and the size of the original store was not enough to hold everything that was coming in as the original building was a quarter of the size of the new location.
The new location has been open for a week and a half, but Sersich and Thatcher had been selling video games at yard sales for three or four years before deciding to open a store.
“I amassed so many games that Mike would come over and say ‘what game do you want to play,’ and I would be like ‘just pick one,” Thatcher said. “He was like, ‘You have too many games, you need to open up a game store.’”
Originally a retro video game store, Retroville Games has quickly expanded their product lineup, including Pokémon memorabilia, comic books and board games. The last game store in Whitewater, Level Up Games, closed over half a decade ago. Sersich and Thatcher noticed Whitewater’s void in the video game market and decided to fill it.
“The area kind of needs this,” Sersich said. “We’re filling a gap, and people are starting to see it.”
An essential part of Retroville Games’ brand is the affordability of everything sold in the store. The store offers a “Retroville guarantee,” which promises compensation to those who purchase a product that does not work or becomes unusable. Additionally, depending on the quality and relevance of the game, a game sold at Retroville Games can be bought for almost half the price it is being sold for by online retailers.
“We don’t try to hit the top dollar with our games,” Sersich says. “We want it to be played. That’s really the whole point of it. We want it to be owned by somebody who wants it, so we’re not going to sell something at $150 when it should be sold at $80.”
The store has had a heavy social media presence since opening up, posting daily on Facebook and YouTube. Some of the most common social media content from Retroville Games involves unboxing trade-ins, which the owners say has drawn a lot of engagement from people who are interested in purchasing the product. The social media activity has also been an intentional move to reach out to people who may not have the means to get out and see the game store in person.
Though it may seem like a niche community, the market for retro gaming and card collecting has become widespread over the past few decades, which the owners attribute to nostalgia and people’s desires to move away from only purchasing video games digitally.
“Having a physical copy of a game is definitely something that I think is more desirable,” Sersich said. “We’ve seen generations of consoles that have stopped supporting online games, and sometimes they take away stuff that you already bought.”
Aside from selling games, the owners say some fun events will be happening in the future. Though nothing is currently set in stone, Sersich said he and Thatcher hope that gaming tournaments and weekly Dungeons & Dragons sessions will draw in even more engagement from the Whitewater community.
Retroville Games’ new building is located at 1132 W Main St. Find more information about the store on Retroville Games’ Facebook page.