Page 7 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #43 FREE Edition

Gary: “I was in the department store business, and had been since I got out of graduate school, and was developing a very strong point of view. I was watching the department store's lunch being taken by specialty stores. It was a time when malls were all over America. Enclosed regional
malls were booming. They were putting the department stores
in big anchors, and they had to
do something to fill all of the inline parts. So there were chains exploding like The Limited, Victoria's Secret, The Gap and on and on. What I noticed was that every single category of consumer goods, except video games, was represented. So I called up my business school buddy Jim McCurry.
Everyone wanted to play in the space
of bringing entertainment into the home and out of the arcades. It
was becoming extremely competitive, and I said, ‘Well, wait a second, Jim.’ Jim was showing me penetration curves and installed
base growth numbers that would all look like hockey sticks. But he went back and he showed me all the way back to black and white TVs and colored TVs. I then told him I think we ought to start a specialty store.”
At this time, game systems
had started rotating through generations. Gary’s partner Jim predicted the rotation of systems from Atari to Intellivision to ColecoVision and then eventually on to Nintendo, Sega, and more.
Their first store opened, and they expanded more across Dallas and Texas with four stores opening that first year. Dozens of stores were added every year, and by 1987, they were in store number 114 (my store at Valley West Mall). In addition to video games, Babbage's also served the computer user market. While
I was personally spending my time with my Apple IIc, Babbage's carried software for Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, IBM DOS, with smaller sections for the Mac, Amiga, and others.
A plaque at the front of every store said, “Named for the inventor of the Difference Engine, which was the first machine to incorporate the major elements of modern computers.”
During this time, several competitors started growing around Babbage's, including Toys 'R' Us, Walmart, Target, and other mall specialty shops like Software
Etc., FuncoLand, and Electronics Boutique. FuncoLand was started in the home of David R. Pomije in
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