*~ NiCK'S GAMiNG EMPORiUM 4-EVER ~* todd's fansite, est. 1998 (28 years online!!)

~ EMPORIUM NEWZ ~

(newest first. i never delete, i only strikethrough. a webmaster respects history. — t.m.)

07/08/2026 — this site turns 28 in september. i turned 42 in march. i have now run this page for exactly twice as long as i worked at the company. some facts: (1) i finally built the TIMELINE — the whole thirty years, every date checked against the actual records, link in the nav. (2) ~~this site will never be updated again~~ — yes, i wrote that in 2016. i lied. grief makes you write in absolutes. (3) people ask why i never redesigned. because when i change the background color, i can't hear the mall anymore. next question.

04/23/2025 — THE ARCHIVE IS REAL. the administrators released the ENTIRE company record today — every sale, every shift, every payroll run, all thirty years. i'm in it (do NOT look up my 1998 salary). grandma jean is in it, right where she always was. the last sale is in it: september 29 2016, 11:48pm, evanston, $5.67, two games. people have started emailing me bits of it like they dug up fossils, and honestly? keep them coming. this page has always been the unofficial record. now there's an official one, and it agrees with me. also announcing: THE WALL PROJECT — uncle nick still has the actual staff-photo corkboard in his garage, and i'm scanning every photo on it, in order. new page: ☆ THE WALL ☆.

08/14/2021 — someone on ebay is selling a 1994 staff polo, "worn once," for $340. GARY IS THAT YOU. (update: it was not gary. gary still has all of his. of course he does.)

09/29/2017 — one year. i drove past the evanston store today. it's a vape shop now. i left a butterscotch on the doormat, and the guy inside watched me do it through the glass, and he nodded like he knew. maybe he knew.

09/29/2016 — the last store closed tonight. uncle nick rang the final sale himself at 11:48pm — $3.67, a connect 4 game and a used scooby doo. he gave the kid grandma jean's candy jar. the flagship on austin street closed two days ago, one day short of thirty years. tomorrow the lawyers process one last refund, because rule #1 was take anything back, and it turns out that was the only rule we never broke. thank you for 30 years. everyone gets a butterscotch. this site stays up forever. — todd macy, webmaster, 1998–∞

03/15/2016 — ok so "chapter 11" is a BANKRUPTCY thing and not a new store format. corporate has asked me to direct all EmporiumBucks™ questions to a law firm whose website is, and i say this as a professional, worse than mine. FIRE SALE NOW ON: 50% OFF EVERYTHING ~~50%~~ ~~60%~~ ~~75%~~ 90% OFF EVERYTHING!!

06/01/2015 — new CEO priscilla says the future is EmporiumBucks™!! trade in ur games and get paid in store credit which is "better than cash" (her words). project phoenix update: we now have ~~5,500~~ 3,500 stores, which priscilla says is "rightsizing." i looked it up. it's not a word.

11/20/2014 — mr. pyle has "stepped down to pursue keynote opportunities." in unrelated newz, online sales are now BIGGER than store sales!!! i would like the record to show that the REAL nge.com — the one i babysit for a paycheck — begged for a rebuild in 2010, 2011 and 2013, and the answer every time was, quote, "nobody will ever download a video game." also this fansite has outranked it on altavista, lycos AND google since 1999. — t.m., vindicated, underpaid

02/14/2014 — store #1 in chicago closed today. valentines day. that was great-uncle morty's store — first one ever opened, aug 6 1986, seven weeks before grandma's. morty made them give him the #1. grandma said fine, the customer is still number one, YOU can be store one. they're both gone now and the store is too. the chicago tribune made a massacre joke. morty would have loved it.

07/12/2007 — mr. rossiter's E3 keynote was 40 minutes long and he announced "Emporium Points" which as far as anyone in this company can tell DO NOT EXIST. he was very sweaty. margins are at an all time high tho so nobody is allowed to say anything. GO WII!!

01/15/2004 — corporate news: our CFO mrs. voss has "transitioned to a role within the federal system." also we have "restated" five years of books, which uncle nick explained means the old numbers were fiction and the new numbers are canon. i am keeping this site's hit counter as-is on principle.

04/02/2001 — store number 1,201 is OPEN (that's 1201 stores in 15 years, 1175 of them in the last 5, do NOT think about it). also mr. harrington wants everyone to know the thing on page 6 of the post is "a fax formatting error."

01/01/2000 — WE SURVIVED Y2K!!! i personally checked every store's computer by which i mean i checked this website. badge below is OFFICIAL.

09/07/1998 — WELCOME to my nick's gaming emporium FANPAGE!!! i'm todd (nick's nephew, age 14). HUGE newz: the board saw THIS VERY PAGE and hired me TODAY to help run the real NGE.com — you know, the boring one with the shopping cart. $500 and a copy of starcraft. i am basically a professional webmaster now. but listen: that site is my JOB. this site is MINE. it has everything corporate won't let me post: real newz, a store locator, and a WALL OF FAME.
dedicated to grandma jean, 1925–1996. she gave everyone a butterscotch. even the sega kids.

~ THE TIMELINE ~

the whole thirty years. started this list on index cards in 1998, finished it in 2026. every date checked against the administrators' archive — if the archive and my memory disagreed, the archive won. it usually agreed with me. — t.m.

08/06/1986	STORE No. 1 opens, chicago — great-uncle morty's strip mall. first sale ever: a civil war strategy game + super mario bros, $68.54. (it's transaction_id 1 in the archive. the FIRST ROW.)
09/28/1986	store #2 opens, queens NY — grandma jean's store. the real one. first thing she ever rang up: a game called "memory manor." i am not making that up. nobody could.
1986–1995	the butterscotch years. 26 stores in ten years. jean's rule #4: "never open more stores than you can love."
03/17/1994	IPO. NASDAQ: NICK. jean watched the bell on the back-office TV and said "don't let them tell you what the butterscotch costs."
12/1995	the playstation christmas — best holiday we ever had. jean worked the queens floor handing out candy.
12/31/1996	grandma jean retires and dies on the same day, age 71. the machine she never wanted had already doubled the chain to 58 stores that year. rule #4, repealed while she watched.
1997	uncle nick steps back. chip harrington becomes CEO. "the best memorial is scale." (it wasn't.)
09/07/1998	a 14-year-old launches a fansite. the board hires him. (hi.)
1999	international everywhere + dale wickersham invents the trade-in formula. thirty cents on the dollar, half of it in store credit. wall street loved him. you didn't.
2003	the voss thing. 1,400 employees who did not exist. five years of books restated. chip out ($18M), brock in.
12/31/2007	THE PEAK: 6,696 stores, 18 countries, best profits ever. also the year of the sweatiest keynote in E3 history. nobody thought it would end. i thought it would never end.
04/30/2012	first profit warning. management "discovers" digital distribution, five years after everyone else's nephew told them.
02/14/2014	store no. 1 closes. valentine's day. chicago papers got their massacre headline. morty didn't live to see it (1918–2003) and i'm glad.
11/2014	pyle out ("nobody will ever download a video game"), priscilla in. project phoenix. EmporiumBucks™.
02/08/2016	chapter 11, northern district of illinois. the company came home to die in morty's jurisdiction.
04/02/2016	fire sale, everything must go: 50% → 70% → 90%.
09/29/2016	11:48 PM: the last sale. evanston. $3.67. uncle nick on the register. the kid got the candy jar.
09/30/2016	the last entry in the books is not a sale. it's a REFUND. rule #1 — "take anything back" — outlived the company by a day.
04/23/2025	the administrators release the archive: the entire company, thirty years of it, laid open. the story becomes checkable. it checks out.
2026	this site turns 28. still here. everyone gets a butterscotch.

~ WALL OF FAME ~

[ photos scanning... 56K detected... if a photo is missing, the scanner (me) has not gotten to it ]
★ NEW 2025: the ACTUAL staff wall — every first-day photo since 1986, scanned from the real corkboard — is now its own page: ☆ THE WALL ☆ ★

🕯 GRANDMA JEAN MACY 🕯
1925–1996
co-founder. chief everything officer. wrote The Rules. the good one we built was hers.

NICK MACY
founder, 1986
fired from crazy lenny's for letting kids play the demo console. history's greatest firing.

MORTY FEIN
1918–2003
first investor. demanded store #1 and got it. appliance king. great-uncle. legend.

CHIP HARRINGTON III
CEO 1997–2003
took us public. very interested in "retail consultants" (?). left with $18M and a fax problem.

MARLENE VOSS
CFO 1997–2003
employed 1,400 people who did not exist. named the shell company after herself. legal says say nothing else.

DALE WICKERSHAM
EVP pre-owned 1999–2011
invented the trade-in formula. "a memory is worth what i say it's worth." never broke a law. :|

BROCK ROSSITER
CEO 2003–2009
rode the greatest console wave in history and believed the wave was him. resigned 2 spend more time with his boats (plural).

GORDON PYLE
CEO 2009–2014
"nobody will ever download a video game. it's in the bible somewhere." killed my redesign THREE TIMES.

PRISCILLA BLAINE-HURST
CEO 2014–2016
turned around four companies. all four were later found facing the wall. EmporiumBucks™ was her idea. so was the phoenix pin.

NICK MACY
executive chairman, the end
refused the last layoff. "we go down with the crew." rang the final sale himself. $3.67.

TODD MACY
webmaster 1998–∞
built this site at 14 in notepad. still here. hi.

~ TRADE-IN-O-MATIC 5000 ~

find out what ur games are worth!! powered by the OFFICIAL wickersham valuation formula (patent pending 1999)

what r u trading in? condition:

* quotes are final. quotes are policy. policy is a promise. wait no it isn't, rule #3 got repealed. — mgmt

~ STORE LOCATOR ~

find ur nearest emporium!! enter ZIP/postcode:

serving 26 ~~1,201~~ ~~6,985~~ ~~3,500~~ 0 locations in 1 18 countries!!

~ GUESTBOOK ~

[ sign it!! be nice or i delete u — t.m. ]

xX_Sephiroth99_Xx (03/12/1999): first!!! also the guy at store 214 lowballed my chrono trigger. FOUR DOLLARS?? dale wickersham i know ur reading this

MahjongDot (07/04/1999): I played mahjong with Jean Macy for 40 years. She once won Morty's Buick and gave it back. There will not be another. — Dot

butterscotch_kid_94 (11/30/2003): grandma jean gave me a butterscotch in 1994 when my mom couldn't afford the game i wanted. she put it on "the jean account." i work at store 88 now. just found out what the jean account was. it was her purse.

G.Pyle (11/21/2014): The board's decision was disappointing but I remain confident that physical retail is eternal. People need to hold things. Also how do I delete a guestbook post.

KleinFeldman&Associates LLP (04/02/2016): If you or a loved one hold unredeemed EmporiumBucks™ you may be entitled to compensation. Att'y advertising. We also sign guestbooks.

roxanne_from_the_bellagio (10/01/2016): 11 days, nicky. best 11 days. sorry about the store. x

nick (09/30/2016): todd showed me how to post. thank you all. jean used to say the register only remembers what you did, not why. turns out the why was in there too, if you know how to ask. everyone gets a butterscotch. — n.

candyjar_kid (05/02/2025): went through the whole archive tonight and found the last sale — $5.67, two games, 11:48pm. i am absolutely not crying about it. anyway. does anyone know if the candy jar made it out?

todd (webmaster) (05/02/2025): it made it out. — t.

~ LINKZ + OFFICIAL BADGES ~

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© 1998–2026 todd macy. this is a FAN SITE, online 28 years — not affiliated with Nick's Gaming Emporium, Inc. (1986–2016, R.I.P., NASDAQ: NICK, delisted) or its administrators. EmporiumBucks™ are not legal tender, redeemable value, or (per settlement) "a promise."
webmaster-4-life: todd macy, age 14–42 — last updated 07/08/2026 — ~~this site will never be updated again~~ this site will never be taken down.
"So we'll build the good one." — Jean Macy, 1986
Nick's Gaming Emporium is a fictional company and everyone here is a fictional character; this is a fan site made for a synthetic-data project. No real business, person, or product is depicted.

est. 1986 — Queens, NY — "So we'll build the good one."

*~* EMPORIUM NEWZ *~*

*~* THE TIMELINE *~*

*~* WALL OF FAME *~*

*~* TRADE-IN-O-MATIC 5000 *~*

*~* STORE LOCATOR *~*

*~* GUESTBOOK *~*