Sporting Goods Shop Review (PC) – Flat Basketballs

If there’s one thing I did during Steam Next Fest this year, it’s play a lot of simulator games. When I say I played a lot of simulator games, I think I’ve played a digital version of every possible job that’s out there. Weirdly, I found myself quite drawn to them. I’m not entirely sure why, perhaps I was bored on racing around cities or living and dying with an underpowered sword in my hand. Either way, after Trading Card Game Simulator and Wild West Supermarket Simulator or whatever it’s called came and went, I was left with Mall Simulator and then finally, Sporting Goods Shop. Hey! It doesn’t have the word Simulator at the end! Still, make no mistake, this is very much a simulator and if you’re familiar with the genre you’ll feel right at home with this one. For better and for worse.

(Yes, that is an AI generated featured image, if you’re curious about how this is going to go...)

From the off you’ll have yourself an empty store and it’s up to you to fill it up with stands, branded merch and spending an awful lot of time on a computer ordering new products and keeping your stock in check. Buy a stand first though, so you’ve got somewhere to put everything. I didn’t. Not a smart move on my part, to be honest. Two stands will be available to place your initial stock of basketballs which works as a kind of tutorial, but then it’s up to you to remember to do everything in the correct order. I did not remember this, until I did. Rough start.

Still, selling basketballs is terribly fun and it turns out, really easy. Wherever your store is located in the world you’ve chosen an absolute goldmine as many customers will appear and want to buy your branded basketballs, some buying up to eight at a time because why not? As your store expands the variety of what’s on offer naturally changes, but I’ll not forget those early days of providing this no name town with all the basketballs they could ever wish to buy. You’re welcome, friends. I’m here to help.

The first person aspect naturally puts you in the ‘simulator’ of it all, and it certainly takes you step by step. From signing contracts with brands to have them sell their stuffs at your store to the stock immediately arriving ‘around the back’, to opening the box full of your awesome stock to throwing the box away, placing your stock on the stands, pricing them accordingly (with a handy RRP to ensure you don’t go too far over or under), and then pretty much standing at the till processing all the purchases, it’s a simulator through and through. If you work in retail I imagine you’d want to shy away from this kind of genre, but Sporting Goods Shop allows you to live that dream if you have ever desired to do so.

Keeping the store stocked up and clean is paramount, and as you make more cash you’re able to hire staff and make sure you can then focus the majority of your time unlocking new brands, customising your store to have it just the way you want and generally just making sure the cash is ever flowing.

From here you’ll just be expanding and expanding. The quick access bar – which you’ll see in the above image, bottom center, – is a hugely helpful mechanic, allowing you to carry a variety of different stock at all times, saving plenty of time not having to go ‘out the back’ to find what the customers are after. I found that piling up a number of the most popular items before the store opened worked in my favour, and was able to keep everything fully available throughout the store opening times. Handy when you don’t want messages popping up that customers couldn’t find what they wanted so they end up leaving without buying anything. A tragedy that you can avoid if you keep abreast of what needs to be stocked up on.

And credit to this game, whatever you can think of that is sold at a modern day sports store – except for a little GAME in the corner, desperately clinging onto life – is available to order and sell from general sports equipment to gym products, body care products, nutritional food and drink, jerseys, generic kits bought in bulk for local teams, you’ll not run out of things to sale so long as you keep an eye on your money and your outgoings.

Signing new brands and adding new varieties of products to the store is by far the most engaging aspect of the game. And naturally this will keep the regulars happy as they return to fill your pockets with dollar upon dollar of their hard earned cash, allowing you to expand even more and hire new staff, buy in more product, expand the store and the warehouse and more. As is with retail, the more you give the more you get back.

And that’s about your lot with this one. I had a good time with it, it’s about as cookie cutter as you can imagine it would be given the genre, and it’s not doing anything exciting or interesting that makes it stand out from the ridiculously crowded ‘run a store Simulator’ market that currently floods Steam, but it’s inoffensive and offers up a decent challenge if you find yourself falling into these kind of games.

Just please buy the stands first. Don’t be like me. Be better.

Sporting Goods Shop is available now on Steam.

Developer: Business Tycoon
Publisher: Business Tycoon

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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