Turning retail footfall into a leisure destination.
NELFE STATION is a new-generation arcade concept designed for shopping centres, retail parks and leisure zones. It combines free play, competition, spectacle and the discovery of retro, neo-retro and independent games. Its evolving programme gives the public a reason to come, to stay, and above all to come back.
The orders of magnitude.
Every figure carries its source and its period. They describe a national context; they say nothing about any particular site.
Leisure has become a driver of retail attractiveness.
Shopping-centre footfall depends less and less on shopping alone. Centres are turning into hybrid destinations combining retail, food, services, culture and leisure.
The French estate covers over 20 million m² and continues to shift towards experience-led uses ( Cushman & Wakefield, 2025).
The shift already shows in new openings: in 2025, the leisure sector recorded a net 91 additional openings in shopping centres and 99 in retail zones ( Codata Digest France 2026).
NELFE STATION sits squarely in that shift.
A new anchor for the catchment area.
A NELFE STATION is not only a complementary activity. It can become a reason to travel, at the scale of the catchment area.
The audiences reached
- Families looking for something to do together.
- Teenagers and young adults drawn by play and competition.
- Regular players wanting to improve or set records.
- Adults attached to arcade and retro culture.
- Spectators coming to watch a final or a tournament.
- Local communities, associations, schools, companies and creators.
Visits do not depend on a fixed catalogue. Featured games, leaderboards, challenges, seasons and events can all change regularly.
What the concept aims to do for a landlord or an operator
- Create one more reason to come to the site.
- Generate repeat visits through records and tournaments.
- Strengthen evenings, weekends and school holidays.
- Extend the time spent on site.
- Encourage complementary spending in food and retail.
- Bring a unit to life with a visible, event-driven concept.
- Gather a community around a recognisable local fixture.
These are the concept’s objectives, not measured results. They will have to be quantified site by site through a local footfall and catchment study.
Video games have become intergenerational.
They no longer belong to one age group. That is what makes a games venue compatible with the audience of a shopping mall, families included.
| 10–17 | 92% | |
|---|---|---|
| 18–24 | 86% | |
| 25–34 | 90% | |
| 35–49 | 75% | |
| 50–64 | 66% | |
| 65–80 | 49% |
76% of players play at least once a week, and 84% play multiplayer games — with friends, children, family or a partner. It is a social pastime, and NELFE STATION makes it visible in physical space: players become finalists, runs become events, and the audience shares the experience.
Source: SELL and Médiamétrie, “Les Français et le jeu vidéo”, 2025.
Giving retro and neo-retro games their visibility back.
Thousands of older games still hold cultural, creative and playful value, yet remain hard to discover legally and in a form that suits how people play today.
New neo-retro and independent games face a different problem: they are available, but they have to surface within an enormous digital catalogue.
What the venue gives them
- A recognisable cabinet, configured for the game.
- A marquee that shows its world.
- An instruction card explaining its rules and its scoring.
- A control panel where only the useful controls light up.
- Demonstrations you can join immediately.
- Visible challenges and records.
- Commentated tournaments, shown on the room’s screens.
- A direct meeting with a real audience.
The game stops being one thumbnail among thousands in a digital store. It becomes an experience that is played, watched and talked about.
The NELFE STATION and NelfePlay loop.
NELFE STATION is the physical stage. NelfePlay is its digital continuation.
- Select — NelfePlay lists games whose exploitation or redistribution is legally authorised: an agreement with the rights holders, a distribution licence, a freely redistributable title, or another applicable legal framework.
- Introduce — the selected games are shown in NELFE STATIONs through the cabinets, the screens, the challenges, the records and the events.
- Build engagement — people play, compare their performance, watch a final, and clearly identify the game, its studio or its publisher.
- Carry it on — after the venue, the player finds the game on NelfePlay: description, news, updates, wishlist, download or purchase where the rights and the distribution model allow it.
- Pay the creators and rights holders — commercial exploitation can generate contractual payment for the studios, publishers and rights holders concerned.
- Reinvest in visibility — games that find their audience get further competitions, longer rotations or a presence in several NELFE STATIONs.
The usage data used to gauge interest in a title stays aggregated and anonymised. No individual player data is sold.
The venue creates the discovery. NelfePlay turns that discovery into a lasting relationship and shareable value.
A site is assessed locally.
National figures confirm the weight of video games, the growth of indoor leisure and the transformation of retail places. They are not enough to guarantee the performance of any particular site.
What every project has to assess
- Population within 15 and 30 minutes.
- Age structure and household composition.
- Centre footfall, broken down by day and by time.
- Access, transport and parking.
- Presence of cinemas, restaurants and other anchors.
- Competition from indoor leisure.
- Proximity to schools, universities and workplaces.
- Rent and service charges.
- Tourist and events potential.
- Player communities already active in the area.
That analysis is what lets the capacity, the programme, the opening hours and the business model be matched to the reality of the catchment area.
Making play a destination.
NELFE STATION is not trying to reproduce a traditional arcade. The concept turns video games into an accessible spectacle, heritage into a contemporary experience, and a retail unit into a meeting place.
A place to play. A stage to be seen on. A platform to carry the experience on. A new way to give games and their rights holders value.