Vintage game consoles, games and movies reign supreme at this southside store

Time traveling is scientifically impossible, but a store in Emerson Plaza on Indy’s south side comes pretty close.

OldSchool Outpost, a retro video game and trading card shop, is a gamer’s paradise, time capsule and historic preservation site. When you walk inside, you’ll hear vintage video game music on loop.

You can play The Beatles: Rock Band and other games on PlayStation 2 and 3 kiosks. You can flip through vintage gaming magazines or devote your time to a Pokémon pinball machine, or spend time inside a Pokémon room. There are even Beanie Babies.

Steven Willoughby opened the business four years ago as a side hustle while he worked as a residential technician for Comcast.

OldSchool Outpost exists in a time period where major retailers are abandoning physical media, leaving consumers questioning long-term ownership. In the age of digital gaming, you’re technically licensing or renting from a company.

Recently, PlayStation announced it will end physical disc production for new games in 2028. In 2024, Best Buy discontinued the sale of physical movies in-store and online.

But the store’s presence is a part of a resurgence of Gen Z and millennials’ return to physical media like vinyl records and DVDs.

“Digital media is killing a lot of stuff we grew up with,” Willoughby, 31, said.

A side hustle no more

When Willoughby started the business, he was just looking to fund his first trip to Japan, the mecca of anime, manga and gaming. But the side hustle quickly turned into 15-18 hours of work. He would collect, trade and buy items at yard sales and Facebook Marketplace to sell them out of his work van.

He scaled up to hosting yard sales and then opened a booth at the South Side Flea Market.

Dakota Laker, who is a retro game collector, has been buying and trading items with Willoughby since he had a booth at the flea market. Laker’s first OldSchool Outpost purchase was a Pokémon Stadium.

“It’s been cool to see its growth,” Laker, 33, said. “There’s always something that I’m not expecting to see, especially at a local shop. I like to call it ‘treasure hunting.’”

He said he and his wife also collect VHS. They are excited to see video tapes are now available inside the store. Earlier this week, Laker had stopped by the store while on vacation to explore and learn how to build a Pokémon deck.

A couple of years ago, Willoughby met his future business partner, Luke Marks, on Discord. Their trust was built early on when Marks’ son accidentally traded $700 worth of Pokémon cards at the flea market. Willoughby called Marks to let him know that his son made a mistake in underestimating the value of the cards.

Before joining the business in 2025, Marks had just left his job as a butcher at Fresh Thyme. He said he was looking to buy and open a laundromat.

Now, the duo run the store together seven days a week. They said Sunday afternoons are their busiest. Customers come to trade, sell and buy.

On any given day, they will see valuable items. Most recently, a pair of friends who cleaned out one of their parent’s homes brought in TurboGrafx-16, Super Nintendo 2, an original Nintendo and a zapper gun for a GameBoy.

Lunch table vibes

Marks described OldSchool Outpost as recreating the feeling of hanging out at the lunch table in the late ’90s and early 2000s — “child-like wonder.”

“It’s the only free time you got as a kid. (OldSchool Outpost) is a snapshot of excitement and whimsy,” he said.

Marks, 32, is the resident Pokémon aficionado and has been playing since he was 5 years old. He views physical games in this day and age as a multi-generational hobby worth passing down to his children.

Beyond physical media items, the space also contains five blue “lunch-like” tables. Marks said some customers will sit for hours, quietly sifting through bulks of Pokémon cards.

“It transports you back to getting a crick in your neck, staring at the gaming kiosks in Walmart and K-Mart while my mom shopped for groceries,” Marks said.

He gave Mirror Indy a crash course on the history of the Japanese media franchise. He pulled out his green card binder that contains over 1,024 Pokémon cards.

Once a week Reasa, Willoughby’s mother, helps sort Pokémon cards. In late June, before her shift at the Kroger across the street, she was cleaning cards and making decks.

She wonders how much money the cards her son collected as a child would be worth today.

“I threw cards away if they were on the floor,” she said.

It’s an act that she said her son won’t let her forget.

Theft as a blessing in disguise?

Selling physical media and in particular the 30-year-old Pokémon industry is a multibillion-dollar business. At OldSchool Outpost, some items cost as low as 25 cents for a bulk card and upwards of $1,500 for a Pokémon EX card.

On display is a 2007-2008 Japanese edition Sony PocketStation, 1970s Mattel Electronic Intelligent Television and an unsealed black Sega Dreamcast Sports Edition released in 1999. Altogether these would sell for about $3,000.

When your store carries expensive and coveted products, the threat of theft is very real.

In May, the store made local headlines after posting on social media security video footage of a man stealing $60-100 worth of Pokémon cards.

They said were able to recoup the money and their sales doubled because of the attention.

“God turned the negative into a positive. In a weird way I’m kinda grateful it happened” Marks said.

Now, they have their sights set on renting out the vacant retail space next door and use it exclusively for video games and DVDs, and their current space will be reserved for board and card games.

But it’s not all business; Willoughby said he donated some items to IU Indianapolis’ video game preservation lab.

As more physical media becomes obsolete, Willoughby and Marks believe OldSchool Outpost will become more valued.

While reflecting on ownership, Marks said that only physical media can be yours forever.

“You can play for generations,” Marks said. “It bothers me when the corporate overlords can dictate what you can and cannot play. It takes the passion out of it and it kinda stings.”

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Mirror Indy reporter Mesgana Waiss covers arts and culture. Contact her at 317-667-2643 or me***********@********dy.org.

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