The shop, which opened in November, continues to offer old-school video games and consoles, along with a new movie section.
Photographed by Ellen Gobeille
Inside Cleveland’s Mediahead store, Rob Kvasne organizes stacks of used video games behind the counter for the second stint in his life.
Close to two decades ago, the owner of Mediahead worked in the same building, then known as Video Game Connection. When the former store’s owner Mike Gedeon retired last year, Kvasne bought the shop.
Today, it’s filled with games and consoles, ranging from handheld Game Boys to Segas, PlayStations and Xboxes. You’ll even find games for the Atari 2600, one of the first popular home consoles.
“They’re very simple by today’s standards, but some people really like that,” Kvasne says. “So often (modern) games are, like, 80 hours long; they’re very bloated with side quests, and not everybody has time for doing everything.”
Coupled with popular Pokemon and Super Mariogames, Mediahead also offers harder-to-find items. That included, earlier this year, an Atari Jaguar CD attachment from the ’90s, and a coveted copy of Bubble Bobble Part 2for the Nintendo <a href="https://comicvibe.com/police-consider-investigating-kfas-sexual-entertainment-allegations-from-15-years-ago/” title=”Police consider investigating KFA's 'sexual entertainment' allegations from 15 years ago”>Entertainment System, priced at $1,149.95. (Both have since been sold, Kvasne says.)
Since starting Mediahead, Kvasne expanded the shop’s physical media offerings, adding movies to the store. The rest is, as always, dominated by video games — a sight which clashes with modern sale formats.
PlayStation announced in July that it would end physical disc production in 2028 and limit future games to digital release. Sony, which owns PlayStation, also removed items from its digital librarythis year, erasing customers’ access to previously purchased media.
Digital ownership of games or movies comes with other troubles, Kvasne says. Movie streaming can compress videos, and companies can swap movies to alternate cuts with no warning. Game of Thrones created controversy in 2019, when dark battle scenes in its penultimate season were reportedly difficult to view on home TV screens due to video compression. Last year, Amazon Prime presented an abridged, shortened version of the holiday classic, It’s A Wonderful Life, to the frustration of viewers.
“That’s a nice thing about physical media,” Kvasne says. “You have that version of it, and nobody can come in and doctor it later.”
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Annie Nickoloff
Annie Nickoloff is the senior editor of Cleveland Magazine. She has written for a variety of publications, including The Plain Dealer, Alternative Press Magazine, Belt Magazine, USA Today and Paste Magazine. She hosts a weekly indie radio show called Sunny Day on WRUW FM 91.1 Cleveland and enjoys frequenting Cleveland’s music venues, hiking trails and pinball arcades.
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