Who we are

The Gaming Zone was established in 2012 by two brothers, the idea was to give the local gaming community a place to get together and enjoy what they love most, Video Games.

Where we started

Our first location opened in Tempe Arizona with a 1400 sqft retail space, which included a rotation of 5-6 different arcades at the store front, where you could buy, sell, and trade your video games.

In addition, we had a back room dedicated to our Game Lounge, where we started with 8 gaming stations for pay-to-play games.

Our goal

We wanted to make a place where you can bring your classic and older Games and trade them towards a next-gen Playstation or Xbox game, but also a place where everyone could meet up on weekends, after work, or on their lunch break and play their games. Variety is what made us stand out from our local chain and big-box stores.

For the next 5 years to come, we established ourselves as the home of the Arizona Fighting Game Community, running weekly tournaments of Smash Bros, Street Fighter, Marvel Vs Capcom, Tekken and more.

Where we are going

In 2017 we had the opportunity to expand on our vision, and invest a little more into our community and equipment, so we leased a larger 2800 sqft retail space where we could now dedicate an entire 1500 sqft suite to arcades and host tournaments.

The response from the community was overwhelming. We upgraded our room to 12 stations and 25 arcades with an unlimited play arcade pass.

Our second major expansion

In 2019 we were met with another opportunity to expand our store, this time we chose Gilbert Arizona as the new home for The Gaming Zone 2.

We opened our doors of our second location to the public on November of the same year, this time with the idea of focusing more on the retail portion of the original store, with a handful of arcade games in the lobby, so as to differentiate the core goals of the different locations.

The Tempe location remains the go-to for our tournaments and arcade gaming, and Gilbert offers the same retail experience as our first store. As our business grows, so has the impact we've made on the community, the partnerships and team we've built is unmatched, from humble beginnings only time can tell where we go from here, maybe a third store, or maybe world domination.....or something in between.

Our commitment to the community

All of this exposure in the gaming community, and the partnerships we have created, have lead to us having the pleasure of being involved in some of the biggest gaming events in the Phoenix Metro area....

Seriously... we're EVERYWHERE....

Hosting our own RETRO NIGHT events

We proudly open our lounge to all gamers, young and old, and invite them to bring their consoles, games, or just themselves, for a night of all things retro-gaming.

Zapcon

We have been hosting fighting tornaments at Arizona Zapcon, a convention dedicated to arcade and pinball gaming, as well as holding a vendor booth since 2015

Arizona Game On Expo

We have been with Game On Expo since the beggining, and will continue to be a partner going forward, we have hosted the gaming area, hosted tournaments for everything from arcade to N64, provided prizes, operated a retail booth, and provided repair operations when things take a turn for the worse, the show must go on

Phoenix Fan Fusion/Fan Fest/Comicon/etc.

We have hosted the gaming area, as well as served as a vendor going way back before it was called Fan Fusion, remember that? It was simpler times back then.

Arizona State Fair

We operated a vendor space, and hosted E-Sports tournaments for the duration of the Arizona State fair, THE ENTIRE DURATION OF THE FAIR.