We started with £100, a bedroom, and no idea what we were building.

Fifteen years later, Itemdrop is a community space in the heart of Seaton - part game shop, part nostalgia museum, part gathering place for people who take their hobbies seriously. Getting here wasn't a straight line. It was a series of decisions, experiments, moves, and moments where something new found its way onto our shelves and quietly became something people loved.

This is the story of how it happened, year by year. 

2010 - Where It All Began

  • Preowned Video Games - It started in a bedroom in Seaton. Not a shop, not a unit, not even a market stall - a bedroom, with £100 and a passion for video games. The very first sale was a pre-owned copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on PS3. Nobody involved thought this was the beginning of anything much. It was just a way to make a little money while life figured itself out. It showed promise. So we kept going.

2011

  • Moved Premises to Colyton Business Park, Colyton.

2012

  • Moved Premises to Cross Street, Seaton.

2013

  • Gaming Merchandise - We were early to this one. The gaming merchandise boom was just beginning, and we were among the first independent shops to take it seriously. Our first order featured primarily Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag merchandise - a sign of things to come. The idea that a game could be more than a disc, that it could be a world people wanted to wear and display and live in, felt important. It still does.

2014 - A Big Year

  • Moved Premises to Queen Street, Seaton
  • New Video Games & Hardware - First preorders were Diablo III Reaper of Souls and Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare
  • POP! Vinyl Figures Embracing the collectables craze with these iconic pop culture figures
  • DVDs

2015

  • Studio Ghibli - This one started with a single plush: a small, soft Jiji from Kiki's Delivery Service. It felt like a gentle experiment. The response told us we'd found something - a quiet, devoted audience for Ghibli and anime that wasn't being well served by the mainstream. We kept going. The collection grew. It still does.

2016 - The Tabletop World Opens Up

  • Warhammer - Miniature warfare. Careful painting. Armies built one figure at a time over weeks and months. Warhammer attracts a particular kind of person - patient, creative, deeply committed to their hobby. We were glad to welcome them.
  • Trading Card Games - We launched Final Fantasy TCG and Pokémon TCG within days of each other. Magic: The Gathering followed not long after. We didn't know then quite how significant this would become - but the TCG world has been one of the most vibrant parts of what we do ever since.
  • Board/Card Games - Started with Portal's "The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game" and "XCOM The Board Game" - joining the tabletop world

2017

  • Plush Toys - Adding comfort and cuddles to our collection with high-quality plush

2019

  • Role Playing Games - D&D was having a moment. Stranger Things had sent an entirely new generation to the dice. We started with the Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual and haven't looked back. RPGs opened up a whole world of books, of imagination, of evenings around a table where anything could happen. We were glad to be part of that.

2020 - Building Community

  • Events - If 2020 taught anyone anything, it was that people need each other. When we could, we started bringing people together. Friday's Bring Your Geek was first - an open invitation for anyone to come in and play, share, and connect. D&D Mondays followed. Then Warhammer Saturdays. These weren't just events. They were the beginning of Itemdrop becoming something more than a shop.

2021

  • Moved Premises to Marine Place, Seaton. Our biggest move yet. Marine Place gave us the space to become what we'd always been trying to be - a proper destination. More room for more things. More space for people to linger, browse, and discover. The shop that customers still walk into and say, "I had no idea it was this big."
  • Toys - General toys for families, for collectors, for children who don't yet know what their hobby is going to be. Expanding into toys felt like a natural expression of something we'd always believed: everyone has their thing, and we want to help them find it.

2022

  • Posters - Acquired our poster rack from HMV Exeter - helping fans decorate their spaces with art from their favourite franchises

2024 - Building Things

  • LEGO - Our first LEGO set sold was Simba The Lion King Cub (#43243) - a fitting start for a category that spans generations.
  • Outdoor & Sports Games - We started simply: footballs. The idea that play doesn't have to happen at a screen or a table; that it can happen outside, in the sun, with other people. It felt right.

2025

  • Beach Play - Making summer memories with beach games and water play essentials
  • Vinyl Records - A large trade-in started it, and opening trade accounts cemented it. There's something about vinyl that fits perfectly alongside everything else we do - the nostalgia, the physicality, the commitment of a format you have to be present for. The crackle of a record feels like the right soundtrack for a shop like ours.

2025

  • Beach Play - Making summer memories with beach games and water play essentials
  • Vinyl Records - A large trade-in started it, and opening trade accounts cemented it. There's something about vinyl that fits perfectly alongside everything else we do - the nostalgia, the physicality, the commitment of a format you have to be present for. The crackle of a record feels like the right soundtrack for a shop like ours.

2026

    • Books - When Seaton's beloved local bookshop announced it was closing, we didn't want that to be the end of the story. Books belong alongside RPGs, alongside imagination, alongside everything we've always believed about the power of getting lost in another world. We're proud to be creating a dedicated book space in store - one that honours what came before and keeps it going. A new chapter, in every sense.

    Still Going

    Fifteen years. One town. One family.

    We started with £100 and a passion. We're still here because of the people who walk through the door - the ones who gasp at the museum wall of old consoles, the ones who come every Friday night, the ones who found their first hobby here, the ones who told a friend.

    Thank you for being part of it.

    Updated: 6/5/2026