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Short Run Arcade

Money and games

Money, spent sensibly

Every game on our floor costs nothing to start. These three guides cover what happens if you decide to pay for something — here or anywhere else you buy games in the UK.

Checked against official pages on 24 September 2026. Prices and policies change — the source links at the foot of each section are the final word.

Guide 1

Paying for games in the UK

Cards, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay, paysafecard and the stores' own gift cards: which shop takes what, and where the fees hide.

Guide 2

What each cabinet really costs

All twelve games start at £0. Here is everything each one will sell you afterwards, with the price, and whether it renews.

Free games are paid for somehow, and the moment a game asks for money is the moment it is worth slowing down. The questions are always the same: what exactly am I buying, does it renew, which way of paying costs me least, and how do I stop a child — or myself — spending more than intended.

We answer those with facts from each store's and each developer's own pages, dated, with the links beside them. Where a store does not publish something, we say so rather than guess.

Our rules for this section

  • No affiliate links. We are not paid by any store, card or payment company mentioned here.
  • Prices are as displayed on the official page on the date shown, in the currency shown.
  • None of the twelve games on our floor sells a random-chance item for money, and we do not list games that do.
  • If a price changes, the logbook records the correction with its date.