Back in 2009, MTV (and G4) were very serious about airing a reality TV series called Game Street, about a couple of guys who ran a video game store. That’s right. Not pregnant teenagers, not moronic partygoers, not suicidal stuntmen, just two guys, trying to make a living selling video games.
The store in question was the ACME Game Store on Melrose Avenue in LA, and it seems the show was only canned because the store “was forced to close for legal reasons”.
While those reasons could have had something to do with the name – aside from its fictional origins, a number of American businesses are actually registered as trading under the name ACME – note that in 2006 the store was caught breaking federal copyright laws.
Co-owners Jason Jones and Jonathan Bryant – the planned stars of the show – were busted for copying games onto modded Xbox consoles, while a third defendant, Pei “Patrick” Cai, “failed to make court appearances and is considered a fugitive”.
In their defence, the trio claimed the modded consoles used in their store had only been modified to contain copies of games they already owned, so as to make switching between titles easier for demonstrations.
While the project never went anywhere, you can see a trailer/pitch video above that gives you an idea of what it could have been like.
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