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How I opened My Store, 2 Guns Retro Arcade and Game Store with Rick | Ep 188

Indie Arcade Wave·video·30m 43s·analyzed·Jun 28, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Rick discusses opening Two Guns Retro arcade and game store in Missouri with hands-on renovation and collection sourcing.

Summary

Joe from Indie Arcade Wave interviews Rick, who is opening Two Guns Retro, a combined retro arcade and game store in Reed Spring, Missouri. Rick documents his journey from purchasing a dilapidated 8,500 sq ft former city hall building, completing extensive renovations himself, sourcing arcade and pinball machines across the region, and launching the venue with a grand opening scheduled for June 27th. The conversation covers arcade machine repair, retro game collecting, building community connections, and advice for aspiring arcade operators.

Key Claims

  • Rick purchased a former city hall building in Reed Spring, Missouri (population ~1,200) for 8,500 square feet through an auction after his mother-in-law (a local business owner) identified the opportunity.

    high confidence · Rick directly describing the building acquisition process

  • The building was in severe disrepair—roof caving in, mold damage—and Rick and his team completed most renovations themselves using home equity loans to minimize costs.

    high confidence · Rick describing the building condition and renovation funding strategy

  • Rick had never owned an arcade or pinball machine before November 2023, when he began sourcing games for the venue.

    high confidence · Rick stating 'before I started this endeavor back in November, I'd never I didn't even have an arcade game'

  • Rick collected arcade machines across a multi-state region, including a six-hour drive to Oklahoma to acquire a lot of games (Spring Break batch with Sunset Riders, Cruisin' USA, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and redemption games).

    high confidence · Rick detailing sourcing trips: 'it was six hours away to Oklahoma'

  • Two Guns Retro grand opening is scheduled for June 27th in the Branson, Missouri area.

    high confidence · Rick stating 'June 27th will be the grand opening'

  • The venue name 'Two Guns Retro' combines Rick's passion for multiplayer gaming (light gun games) with Reed Spring's local connection to Bonnie and Clyde history.

    high confidence · Rick explaining the naming: 'Two Guns kind of ties into something. I wanted to tie something into Bonnie and Clyde' and 'the multiplayer aspect with the light gun games'

  • Joe from Indie Arcade Wave recently moved to Pittsburgh and now works full-time for Compulsive Pinball, a Stern pinball distributor.

    high confidence · Joe announcing at episode start: 'I moved to Pittsburgh. I'm working full-time for Compulsive Pinball'

  • Rick's collecting passion began about two years ago when seeking to recollect childhood games like Rock Band, leading him to flip game lots for profit.

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm not scared to get my hands dirty. Like I don't mind putting in the work, assuming I can actually manage it, which I kind of get in over my feet sometimes when I think I can do what I actually can.”

    Rick@ 8:45 — Demonstrates Rick's DIY approach and self-awareness about overcommitting, key to his business model

  • “Everybody has an opinion. And I would say, like, the biggest thing is stick to like what your passion is and stick to what you're, you know, willing to stick through through all the hard stuff.”

    Rick@ 26:21 — Core advice to aspiring arcade operators about ignoring external criticism and maintaining passion

  • “If you have a computer background, you can repair any arcade game and any pinball like you definitely can repair it. It's just a matter of figuring it out and figuring out the differences.”

    Joe@ 28:43 — Demystifies arcade/pinball repair barriers for newcomers with technical skills

  • “The network is everything. The community is everything.”

    Joe@ 25:43 — Emphasizes the value of community connections over viewership metrics in arcade/retro gaming spaces

  • “I don't want to rent my games. I want to own my games. And that's that's a big thing for me. So I love what you're doing with the arcade and the retro store.”

    Joe@ 23:51 — Reflects broader community sentiment against digital licensing and for physical media ownership

  • “There's like, they're just simpler the farther down you go for like the fixing stuff is not hard...built for a college student to route and a high school student to fix or something like that.”

Entities

RickpersonJoepersonTwo Guns RetrocompanyCompulsive PinballcompanyIndie Arcade WaveorganizationReed Spring, MissourieventChar from Bad Axeperson[name withheld pending review]personRock Bandgame

Signals

  • ?

    venue_signal: Two Guns Retro, a combined retro arcade and game store, opening in Reed Spring, Missouri on June 27th. 8,500 sq ft space in renovated former city hall; represents grassroots arcade venue entry in secondary market.

    high · Rick confirmed grand opening date June 27th; Joe and Rick discuss building acquisition, renovation, and sourcing strategy extensively

  • ?

    operational_signal: Rick sourced arcade machines across multi-state region with significant travel (6-hour drives to Oklahoma, 2-4 hour regional trips) to acquire games. Lot-buying and selective cherry-picking strategy used to minimize costs.

    high · Rick: 'I had to drive all over, all over the place...six hours away to Oklahoma' and 'lots of like two, three, four hour trips'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Rick (with no prior arcade experience) adopted hands-on DIY repair approach leveraging tech background and CRT specialist friend resource. Identified parts sourcing/CRT monitor availability as primary challenge.

    high · Rick: 'drinking from a fire hose' on repairs; identified CRT issues and parts availability as biggest hurdle

  • ?

    business_signal: Rick funded venue acquisition and renovation via home equity loans and leveraged existing career income, avoiding negative cash flow from start. This financial runway reduces short-term revenue pressure.

    high · Rick: 'funded through like home equity loans' and 'I've obviously been lucky enough to have a pretty good career that funds this, so I'm not having to work off of being the negative'

  • ?

    content_signal: Rick documented venue renovation process via TikTok/Facebook content, initially with low view counts but successfully building community connections with other operators (Bad Axe, etc.) despite low early metrics.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.092

0:00
Ayo, welcome everyone to Today in the Scene by Indie Arcade Wave. I'm Joe, your host, and here on Indie Scene we dive into what's happening in the arcade space from new arcades, operators, game developers, pinball, and everything in between. Now, I'm really excited for this week's episode. Before we jump in, I just want to mention that I moved to Pittsburgh. I'm working full-time for Compulsive Pinball, so if you need a Stern for your collection or anything else, let me know. Hello, Joe at CompulsivePinball.com. I'll have a little out about it later, but we're going to jump right into this week's episode. I've got Rick with me. Rick and I have been going back and forth. I think we came to a conclusion since about November when he first started posting on TikTok about his location, Two Guns Retro. This is a retro arcade meets a retro game store kind of all in one place in Missouri. So let's bring in Rick and kind of talk to him about how everything's been going. So how are you doing, Rick?
0:51
I'm good. Nice to finally meet you, Joe. Yeah, it's nice to finally, finally, you know, put a face to everything. We've been talking over TikTok plenty, but we haven't really interacted like this yet. So I'm glad, glad to have you on and glad to kind of talk about Two Guns Retro. So let's just jump into Rick. Like, who is Rick? And how did you get started with video games? Yeah, so I think like many of us in the retro game world, we all started when we were pretty young. So I've always kind of been like an avid gamer of sorts and had a lot of like, you know, a lot of diversity in the games that I played. And, you know, sort of the experiences with my friends in person and stuff like that. So I think that kind of started me on the trend of like, you know, falling in love with gaming itself. I guess I've gotten older. I've gotten a little like stale in the gaming space, like what games are nowadays. And I kind of liked the nostalgia of what existed there. I would say that's kind of my roots and my origin as far as gaming itself goes. Yeah, I totally agree with you with the space feeling stale right now. I feel like every release is this huge, massive game, and there's so much time and so much money poured into it, and then you've got just a ridiculous amount of indies coming out all the time. But it doesn't feel as special as it used to. I guess for me, the peak era was 360, right? And I just got a 360 recently. I was showing you kind of the collection that I just bought.

high confidence · Rick: 'I realized that passion for like recollecting my childhood probably two years ago'

Joe@ 17:57 — Reinforces the accessibility and relative simplicity of arcade machine repair and operation

Sunset Ridersgame
Cruisin' USAgame
Pac-Mangame
Ms. Pac-Mangame
Final Fantasy seriesgame
Super Nintendo (SNES)product
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)product
Nintendo 64 (N64)product
GameCubeproduct
Xbox 360product
PlayStation 1product
Dreamcastproduct
Bonnie and Clydehistorical_reference
The Highwaymen (film)media

high · Joe: 'the network is everything...you probably have 10 to 15 people that you could shoot a message. They'll get back to you within an hour or two'

  • $

    market_signal: Rick participates in lot-buying and reselling model: purchases large collections, cherry-picks desired titles, and flips remainder to recover investment. Common strategy in secondary market retro game dealing.

    high · Rick: 'I tried to do it as cheap as possible...by buying and flipping games with lots that I would buy to pull out like a Final Fantasy'

  • ?

    community_signal: Strong grassroots enthusiasm for arcade venue openings with emphasis on community gathering, multiplayer experiences, and local history integration (Two Guns Retro naming tied to Bonnie/Clyde). Operators view venues as destinations, not just revenue centers.

    high · Rick emphasizes multiplayer gaming passion; Joe describes network-building value; both stress passion-driven motivation

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Joe (Indie Arcade Wave host/content creator) transitioned to full-time role at Compulsive Pinball in Pittsburgh, suggesting pinball distribution/retail is absorbing media/community personalities into operational roles.

    high · Joe: 'I moved to Pittsburgh. I'm working full-time for Compulsive Pinball'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Two Guns Retro combines arcade machines (play/destination) with retro game retail (retail/collection) in single venue—reflects hybrid business model addressing both casual location players and collectors.

    high · Rick: 'I think [arcade] has a big community draw...I need a destination place' combined with retro game store inventory

  • ?

    collector_signal: Rick's collecting focuses on cartridge-based systems (SNES, NES, Dreamcast, PS1) over disc media; Joe emphasizes N64 and GameCube. Both prioritize physical media ownership over digital licensing to preserve access and value.

    high · Joe: 'I don't want to rent my games. I want to own my games'; Rick favors cartridge systems

  • ?

    technology_signal: Rick adopted Meta glasses for automated filming during renovation work, attempting to balance documentation with task-driven workflow. Reflects emerging content creator infrastructure in niche arcade industry.

    medium · Rick: 'I'm using things like the meta glasses to kind of automate...some of the ways I can kind of film this'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Both Rick and Joe express strong optimism about arcade venue viability, citing growing nostalgia demand, tactile gaming appeal, and social interaction value as drivers. Contrasts with modern gaming monetization fatigue.

    high · Joe: 'arcades are doing well right now because...you get to play games with people next to you...it's like you're actually interacting'; Rick proceeding despite renovation challenges

    • 2:16
    And playing Gears of War and playing Halo, it hits so much harder than anything new just because the games, I feel like they're still sold in the games. And now it's just how much money can we extract from the players as fast as possible. So let's talk a little bit about like you mentioned that this kind of all started through you programming a little bit on Unity and just kind of give us the story of like how everything has unfolded between collecting retro games and arcade stuff.
    2:48
    Yeah, so I'd say like, as I got probably like mid 20s or so, like I started diving into more of like the tech side of things. I was always a very like physical labor type of person. Jair Ritchie, Rodeo, and Sennheiser. Settling
    3:58
    J.E.R. Ritchie, R.E.A.L.D.E.R.I.E.L.D.E.R.I.C.K.E.R.I.S.S. Distractions on your phone. All you want to do is listen to music. Like, just leave me alone. Let me listen to music. Stop sending me a notification for every social media, every email account, everything all the time. Like, just let me breathe. And so we're seeing a lot of people kind of go back to older tech just for that. And arcades are doing well right now because, you know, you get to play games with people next to you and it's like you're actually interacting with these people. It's a different tactile feeling. Hey guys, quick break. If you want to support the channel, one of the best ways to do that is purchasing your next pinball through Compulsive Pinball. They're helping bring some amazing Stern pinballs to players everywhere, and the next game that they're releasing, you're not going to want to miss. Whether you're looking to add a machine to your home collection or you're an arcade owner or operator, Compulsive Pinball has you covered. They offer special pricing for operators and can handle routing operations for businesses all over the East Coast. Check out compulsivepinball.com for your next Stern and let them know that you heard about them from Indie Arcade.
    5:47
    Tell me how you went about getting the building. Like, what was the process of getting the building and then stripping it to what you want it to be now?
    5:55
    This is kind of an interesting idea here. So, like, basically, we're in Reed Spring, Missouri, which I know we haven't talked about a whole lot, but very small town. Also, I think there's like twelve hundred people in the town of Reed Spring, but the county itself is pretty large. There's like thirty two thousand, thirty three thousand people in the county and it's all kind of, you know, very spread out. So basically, like, what ended up happening, small town sort of antics here. My mother-in-law owns a couple of buildings here and businesses in town here as well. So this was actually the old city hall of Root Spring, the building that I actually purchased. So it's pretty, pretty good size. I think it's 8,500 square feet in total. It's a multi-unit complex. But anyways, we basically started as like, you know, I kind of hit this point. I was like, I've really been collecting games for a while. And I guess we can talk about that a little bit later. I've been collecting games for a little while. I wanted to open up a small retro store for those types of games. My mother-in-law was like, hey, this building has been sitting here empty for a long time now. I've got to talk to the mayor. We can see if we can just lease it from them. So that kind of started the conversation and then it transitioned into, well, the building is actually going up for auction like next week, surprisingly.
    7:06
    So we put in a bid and, you know, we were the highest bid that happened. We had the best business case because they were also kind of considering that. And we had multi businesses sort of planned out as part of this unit, not just this one. But this was a pretty big factor in that in the first one that we started with. But that's kind of how we came up. It was kind of like dumb luck in a way, but also kind of strategic in a sense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, having the connections is huge. I already having people in town that have businesses and have dealt with the politics of the area help a lot with kind of navigating that initial hurdle of getting the building which for you sounds like it was pretty easy to find it I heard people talk about how they spent two years or longer waiting for the right building to come into their lap
    7:53
    So it's good that it was easy for you. Let's talk about the demolition and the remodeling process, because you did it all. You documented all of it. I guess first off, what was your thought process and planning for that for someone that's interested in opening one? And then how did you stay dedicated to filming all that time? Because there were days that you like had propane heaters in there and shit like it was cold, like it was not a comfortable process. Yeah. Yeah. So a couple of different things. Like one thing is this building was in a rough shape. It was just it was very bad. The fact that the city hall moved out of this was because of the fact that like the roof was caving in. It was mold damage. Like it was pretty it was in rough shape. So we got it for obviously pretty cheap. But as part of like that evaluation of like, OK, do we do this? To me, it was like I'm not scared to get my hands dirty. Like I don't mind putting in the work, assuming I can actually manage it, which I kind of get in over my feet sometimes when I think I can do what I actually can. And but so we bet we got this building with the intent of doing the renovations ourselves and trying to keep under like a specific number. Right. That we're working with. A lot of it was funded through like home equity loans and things like that whenever we did it.
    9:12
    So that's essentially the path that we went with it. The roof was a big consideration because that was probably the biggest cost. And it was definitely the biggest cost to getting the roof completely repaired. So, yeah, like going into it, I knew what I was getting myself into is always the surprises. Obviously, that pop up, but I feel like navigating those spaces between myself, my wife, my mother-in-law, all business partners in this endeavor, obviously, we've navigated in this way based on different skill sets that we had and different connections that we had to kind of get this as cheap as possible. I mean, small town, we need to run the union, right? And so that's what we're attempting to do. With that, obviously, I did all the demolition stuff, a lot of the renovation stuff. It sucked, though. It wasn't fun. Like, I'm tired, that's for sure. But we're getting on the other end of it now where we're getting closer to opening.
    10:03
    Yeah, I mean, it was interesting keeping an eye on it. Because, I mean, one day you're tearing out walls and then you're tearing out the ceiling and then you're doing the lighting and you're painting. And it's like you really got it was it was it was really fun.
    10:18
    From far away to watch you do this, right? I think it'd be cool to do this myself, but it's a much larger endeavor than I want to take on right now.
    10:28
    Just learning about all these machines and stuff is enough for me at this moment. I love it. I was going to say, to the other point that you made, too, about the documentation process, filming in was very hard. I want to be very transparent because I'm very much like a doer, move to the next thing, very task-oriented.
    10:49
    Filming was really hard. And it took a lot of like trying to like tweak my mindset on a lot of these things, which is challenging. And I've gotten worse about it as I've gotten closer to the opening because it's just like I don't want to show them this. Right. I don't want people to see this. And some of it's just like there is beauty in the filth and the mess of what is this process.
    11:09
    So it's been tough. I'm trying to get back and better about it. I'm using things like the meta glasses to kind of automate, you know, some of the ways I can kind of film this as I'm doing a different task that I don't know I'm going to do until I get there. So there's some of that, but it is very challenging. I think it's beneficial in ways that now I've connected with you. I've connected with Char from Bad Axe because she's also been following this process. I've been connected with other retro game stores that I've also gotten some advice from. There's just a lot of connections and things that this opens up. So totally worth it. It doesn't feel like it when you're doing it, especially when you're getting like 10 views and not that little. But you're not getting very many views in the beginning, but it's helpful. It still helps build that muscle and, you know, train you on what people are looking for, essentially.
    11:52
    Yeah, I think, I mean, obviously, like, none of us are really getting into the arcade space to get to get rich, right? Like, that's not the goal. It's like, it's passion, it's love. So I think, like, for anybody that wants to do this, that's interested in this process and is going to document it, don't worry about the views. It really doesn't matter because at the end of the process, I mean, you're at a point now where you probably have 10 to 15 people that you could shoot a message. They'll get back to you within an hour or two and kind of tell you like, this is what I would do. This is how I did it. Like, here's some advice. And having that network is so insanely valuable at this point in time. There are people that I've met through the development space where I can be like, hey, how'd you do this? And they'll give me an idea of like, oh, well, we bypassed it by doing this. And so it's like, you can learn from other people and pull from their resources. It's so nice to get that way more than the followers and the views and stuff. Of course, it helps in the long run for like, you open up, people in your area know they can come. So it's advertising, but just the network is everything. The community is everything. Thank you for having me. That was another piece of things I wanted to document, too, because I think it is an interesting idea. And I honestly, like before I started this endeavor back in November, I'd never I didn't even have an arcade game. I just collected all of those over that period of time. And it was just like, hey, I'm going to do this thing like I love retro games. And, you know, the arcade portion of it, I think, has a big community draw to what I'm trying to do here. And like I need a destination place and those types of things bring people in. And so that's kind of what the original idea was. But getting those games, different type of challenge. There's not a whole lot available in this area, as you could probably imagine. So I had to drive all over, all over the place. I think like the Spring Break one, I got lucky on a couple where I could get like lots of games, but it was few and far between. Spring Break was a part of a lot that came up like Sunset Riders, a couple of my like Redemption games, Cruisin' USA, Some other ones like that that were there. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man. So like there was a few there that I was like, OK, this is a great pickup. It's worth driving to, you know, six hours away to Oklahoma for, which is what ended up happening. So I got like a U-Haul, just drove out there, picked them all up and came back. And that was that was definitely the longest, the furthest one I had to go for. But lots of like two, three, four hour trips that I took for sure to pick them up. I try to make them as worthy as possible so I could pick up multiple in that area. But it's so hard to do still. So, yeah, I mean, you got to be ready to travel. I think that's that's like the big thing, especially if you're in a small town kind of like you are. I mean, for me, like, you know, being around Pittsburgh, I can go pretty much anywhere to get games. It's not a crazy travel thing, but I did start routing games in Minneapolis from a distance with with a buddy that retro gamer who was routing already, but we're sending him games. So that was about I think 13 hours to Minneapolis and then 13 hours back just to bring them like nine pinballs which was a crazy drive but worth it I excited about that But like that I feel like that just part of it is like we make these connections all over the country and we travel Like that just you know you go to conventions you go to different arcades you see different things And especially with getting games and routing games and operating like it's a little bit of a trick there.
    15:35
    You said that you had never owned an arcade game before this. So first pinball, first arcade game. It's only been a few months that you've had them up and running. But like, what are you what are you learning so far with with the mechanics of it and repairing it? And like, is it easier than you thought or is it harder than you thought to repair these?
    15:53
    Yeah, so I think being in like in the tech world and working on computers and stuff, I wasn't super scared to dive into it. That's why I just kept buying them. Like there would be like, you know, several of them that didn't have like they were planned blind or something like that. And I was like, OK, like I can handle this. I know at least I can do a monitor swap or whatever if I needed to. I want to keep things original, obviously, so there's that debate. But it has been drinking from a fire hose, for sure. Like, there's still, like, it's super simple in a lot of ways, but it's kind of complex in others. And that's where it's like, some of these tasks I can manage myself. It's not a big deal. I've got another friend that has been rebuilding CRTs for a while now, and he also has his own arcade cabinet. So he was kind of like my resource that I, anytime I was like, you know, I think I can do this, I would just be like, yeah, I'll figure it out because I have somebody that I can lean on if I absolutely have to. J.E.R. But I mean, we're still learning. He's learning with me too, right? Like some of these things, we're trying to fix a couple machines that just don't seem to be working the way they should be working type of thing. But yeah, like, it's been a journey. I've learned a lot. Again, it's like pretty straightforward and simple on most tasks. It's some of the more complex ones, like the CRT stuff, whenever you're having like power issues and you know, whatever, like, can be challenging at times to get parts, which is probably the bigger hurdle that I'm struggling with is like, I know what I'm doing. J.E.R.D.E.R. They're simple machines. They really aren't that crazy. I mean, I'm trying to remember what they said. It was like built for a college student to route and a high school student to fix or something like that. There's like, they're just simpler the farther down you go for like the fixing stuff is not hard. And I think that's like you having a resource that works on CRT specifically is like an invaluable resource because that's always what goes wrong. That's always what needs to be swapped. And CRT monitors are not easy to come across. Like you're not just going to find one that's in perfect working condition. It's going to be like, oh, this is wrong. And you can tweak them and fix them. But yeah, that's that's so often the issue with the game. And yeah, I... These things, when I actually do need it, now I have this connection, this resource that I had to pay up for the first aspect of it, but now it's a little bit better of a relationship that I can help source some of this one if I do need it. So, again, like, it's just part of the journey, and you don't know until you get into it and just start following how the trail leads you, you know?
    19:13
    Yeah, it's the connection the other way. Like, that's now somebody that can go out and find a lot of stuff, right? And he can be like, oh, well, I don't need these, and I know a guy that would use these. So let me call that guy. And it's like an instant sale, an instant flip. Like he gets right back to where he was at. So that's I mean, you're helping him out just as much as he's helping you out. And that kind of leads right into like the retro video game stuff. Right. Because we were talking about that. Like, I just bought a big lot. I took what I wanted out. I'm reselling the rest just to get my money back. And I'm happy right there. Right. Like you can build your collection out for free. So let's talk about you collecting retro stuff. What what are you chasing right now? Like what is what's the collection you're going after? And like, what's some stuff that you want to have at the store for people to be able to?
    19:59
    Yeah, so I would say the retro game stuff. I realized that passion for like recollecting my childhood probably two years ago, I think is about when that process started. And it started because I was like, you know, it sounds great as playing rock band. Like I want to play rock band again. I just play with my friends all the time. Great. Like, you know, party game. I'll play with my kids. It'll be fun. And I realized how expensive they were to like recollect that if you're buying it through, you know, online or whatever. So that kind of started it. And I was like, oh, well, that's interesting. And what about these other games? And I kind of went down this rabbit hole of like these things I wanted to get. So I tried to do it as cheap as possible because that's just the nature of what I would prefer to do. And that started by buying and flipping games with lots that I would buy to pull out like a Final Fantasy. And then I would sell, you know, the rest of the lot or whatever. So that's kind of what started that whole journey of like the reselling and kind of discovering that passion. It's not even necessarily about the flipping. It's like the treasure hunt of it. But there's also like the the idea that like I think it's pretty cool whenever I can sell like a specific game to a specific person that has been looking for that game or whatever. Like it's a really rewarding thing to me also.
    21:06
    So like there's that. I would say from my collection perspective, I collected everything, which is what started this, this retro game store. Jair Ritchie, Rune, and J.E.R. Pinnacle of the Rings. And then I'll just rebuild it in the future if I need to. That's kind of that's kind of the path I'm going. So like my collection is very sporadic now, but it's also like I'm going to favor, you know, other people having availability to the things that I think are great. And that's kind of more important to me at this point. So if you had to say there's like two systems that you're really chasing, like for me it's GameCube and 360. Like what are your like two consoles that if you see a lot, it's like pretty hard to walk away from it?
    22:16
    Super Nintendo is probably my like one of my most and honestly NES. And I didn't really like I played NES when I was little, but I just like like the roots of the NES to me is just like super great. And like my grandfather, like I got his like old NES. So I'm like collected that. So I have a bunch of games that he gave me and then just kind of building that out. So cartridge based games are like my bread and butter. Disc doesn't, I don't care as much about, but PlayStation 1 would probably be, or Dreamcast would be probably the two that I would say disc would be most important. Yeah, for me, cartridge is definitely 64. I've got lots of 64 games. That's such a fun party console. It's just my wife loves it too. So we got all the Zeldas on the GameCube and everything That her jam I happy about that N64 is a great console I did go through a phase two of collecting VHS and so I got like all the commercial N64 like VHS cartridges they used to send out in the mailers and stuff. So, which I think is super cool. That's like one of the more nostalgic things. I'm like, I love these a lot. So that was, that was another thing I flipped for a while. My dad and I got a huge collection of VHS and didn't really want many. I mean, he picked out maybe a hundred. I think it was like just over 2,000 VHS that we got like for free in this lot. So the vast majority of them kept like 100. But it's really cool like all the nostalgic like physical media is coming back. And I think that's so important that we own the stuff that we're buying, right? I think that's the biggest thing for me with this modern stuff that turns me off is like I can buy this game on the store and then any day it can just be taken away. And then I have nothing, right? So I don't want to rent my games. I want to own my games. And that's that's a big thing for me. So I love I love what you're doing with the arcade and the retro store. Now, tell me Two Guns Retro. Like, where's the name? Is there like something hidden in there? Like, yeah, so the Two Guns Retro is interesting. So I've been like I've tried for a long time to figure out what is what is the name that makes sense? I'm a huge like multiplayer gamer fan. Like, I think that's the part that I love most about gaming and retro gaming is that sort of connection you can establish with other people. J.E.R. Ritchie, R.D. R.D. R.E.A.L.S.E.R. The Missouri-Reed Spring area, like Bonnie and Clyde, is like a pretty big history fact around here. So to me, it was kind of a play on that as well. In fact, I was watching a movie, Highwaymen, I believe it was, and there's like a specific spot in Highwaymen where they're like, over the radio, you can hear the police chatter about Reed Spring, Missouri, which I thought was pretty cool. And then it was shortly after that that I was like, you know what, like Two Guns kind of ties into something. I wanted to tie something into Bonnie and Clyde in some way, shape or form. So that was kind of interesting and cool history fact. So that kind of all tied that in together with the multiplayer aspect with the light gun games. And so I was like, yeah, it makes sense, you know.
    25:34
    I mean, that's a that's a name that means something. You know, it's like you didn't just throw Two Guns retro out and that's just what it is. Like it means something to you personally. It means something to where you're at. It kind of ties everything, the community, the location, everything together. And that's that's it. I mean, you need all that in a name. So I love that.
    25:53
    Yeah, I really appreciate you coming on and kind of telling your story, I guess, before we wrap everything up, like what advice would you give someone that's in the same position as you were in September, right? Like thinking about doing this, you want to do it, you want to find a building, you want to bring all these games in. Like, what are some pitfalls that you would advise them to avoid and how would you help them get started?
    26:17
    Yeah, I would say one of the biggest things is like everybody has an opinion. Everybody has an opinion. And I would say, like, the biggest thing is stick to like what your passion is and stick to what you're, you know, willing to stick through through all the hard stuff, because it's not I mean, it's clearly not easy. We're not even we're not open yet. I don't know if it's going to be profitable, but I have a lot of contingencies in place to where it's like, if this doesn't work out, you know, like in this portion of it, the arcade doesn't, you know, do well or whatever. Like, how can I adjust this to be more online or how can I start flipping things online more? And so I've kind of had a bunch of contingencies and backup plans to it, just knowing that I can't expect a specific thing to work out. But again, everybody has an opinion on it. A lot of people don't agree with a lot of things that I think would work or don't or will or will or won't work. Um, but once you get into it and start kind of working through the nuances of every single task, because everything has a way around it or something you can do or adjust for, um, you just gotta be not scared to just do and figure it out. Like, and that's the biggest thing I would say. Um, if you're passionate enough about it, I'm confident in whatever you do that you can make it work if you're passionate enough, because that's, that's pretty much all it takes is just the willpower and determination to make it happen. Um, so that's, that's probably like my biggest advice there. Obviously, there's financial aspects to this. I've obviously been lucky enough to have a pretty good career that funds this, so I'm not having to work off of being the negative right off the bat.
    27:44
    But I think there's ways of making it happen regardless and lifestyle changes you can make to make these types of things happen. And if you want it enough, you can make it happen. So that's probably the biggest thing I would throw out as advice. It's just like it's not easy for anybody that does it and just don't expect it to be. Go into it with that idea and make it work.
    28:04
    I mean, I think that's great advice. You're so right. Everybody has their opinions. I get plenty of comments that I'm like, I don't care. That's just that's that's how you feel about it. I just don't see it that way. And, you know, people can say whatever they want. But until you're doing it and you're there, it doesn't matter. Like you have to have the actual experience of what happens physically doing it as opposed to just in theory. Right. So, you know, anybody can tell you like opening an arcade or working on working on arcade cabinets is way too complicated. It's difficult. You'll never be able to figure it out until you do it. And you realize it's really not that hard. Right. Like if you have if you can build a computer, you can repair any arcade game and any pinball like you definitely can repair it. It's just a matter of figuring it out and figuring out the differences. Right. So I guess last piece is just shout out your social medias, Rick. Let people know where they can find you and how they can follow along on the journey. Yep. So you can find me on that Two Guns Retro on TikTok as well as on Facebook. Both of those tags for those. Yeah, you can follow me the journey there. We have a grand opening coming up on the 27th. So June 27th will be the grand opening. So that's where we're going to put, you know, trial of the fire and see how it's going. But big, big ceremony. So if you guys are in the, you know, in the area, the Branson, Missouri area or anything like that, you guys feel free to come on out and join us. But yeah.
    29:29
    Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on, Rick. I really appreciate your time. I hope the best for Two Guns Retro. And I'm sure we're going to be talking in the future. I'm sure there'll be stuff we can chat about. I'm happy to help in any way that I can. I don't even know how far away you are from me. I'll look that up and check into it. But yeah, for any way that's still watching, don't forget to like, share and subscribe. It helps us a ton. The way we'll continue to grow, we can all ride it together. If you're looking for any new games, any indie games, ice cold beer, pinball, I've got all that. You can email me at indiearcadewave at gmail.com or at joe at compulsivepinball if you're looking for a new Stern. And until next time, peace.
    30:28
    Thank you.