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No Cash Value’s Jim Bennington Brings Reimagined Amusements to Michigan Mall

Industry veteran Jim Bennington, founder of the entertainment consultancy firm No Cash Value LLC, has been quite busy in the last year bringing a whole new world into the revitalizing Oakland Mall, located in the Detroit suburb of Troy, Mich.

The mall’s owner, Mario Kiezi, purchased the expansive 1 million-plus-sq.-ft., 117-acre property along the I-75 corridor in 2022 and has been working from a state level down to startup tenant interest to create a modern mix of “retailtainment”-centric enhancements to this unique indoor complex.

“We are excited to be an integrated operating and consulting partner with this legacy property in the communities we live in and serve and to be on the front edge of each of the major developments we have in motion for 2025,” Bennington explained. “This venue has served generations and will continue to be a central anchor for entertainment development for the state.”

He added that success comes “one follower at a time,” and that’s what started happening coming out of IAAPA Expo 2023. “I started fielding inquiries while Mario set the cornerstone with Bandai Namco that would introduce the Japanese-inspired capsule vending venue, ‘Gashapon,’ to the mall.” For those unfamiliar, Gashapon is a Bandai trademark and the colloquial term for these popular vending machine-dispensed capsule toys.

The Oakland Mall location opened in mid-April 2024 and included a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the local mayor. Of course, the mayor was small peanuts compared to the on-site appearance of social media influencer Kira Kabuki, who was live streaming and sharing the Gashapon opening with her 1.4 million TikTok followers.

The venue draws from No Cash Value’s diverse industry resources and Bennington’s approach “to deconstructing the overbuilt FEC model and redistributing the niche experiences in an approachable storefront manner … an approach that speaks to the intentional gaming-arcade consumer, trend-driven impulse player and inspires childlike moments of spontaneous joy in a public space.”

It’s also about reimagining a brick-and-mortar space in an era of digital entertainment and social media influence.

The Gashapon location at Oakland Mall features 530-plus machines – the largest footprint of these capsule-dispensing vendors in the United States with expansion plans to be announced. The “IP-driven and intentionally under-stimulating environment” has a retail dwell time of more than 20 minutes and an average spend of $20 for these high-quality collectable miniatures inside colorful capsules.

“Watching our guests ‘window shopping’ the triple-stacked capsule machines reminds me of a Friday night at Blockbuster in 1994, trolling the titles of niche interests for short form entertainment that appealed to me,” Bennington said. “It’s a very duplicatable formula for appealing to a complex consumer. ‘Live selling’ is an art mastered by Mario Kiezi himself, who also has a TikTok following upwards of 800,000 and uses social media to gain more traction in leasing his properties and in support of his tenants’ concepts.”

Busy Bennington

No Cash Value also developed and launched its own concept, Varcade PvP Arena. A 1,000-sq.-ft. virtual reality shooting lounge, adding it to the mall’s entertainment mix.

Varcade PvP Arena is the first location in Michigan, Bennington said, to feature the VAR BOX VR System in which players can team up or go head-to-head on the first-person shooter games, which are connected to a global arcade-based mixed reality battle that is now hosted in 11 countries 24 hours a day.

The Player vs. Player Arena has eight units of the Japan-based company’s machines with live streaming – OBS masked channels are coming online this summer to compete with sister locations like the VarboxArena, launched by the team behind Sandbox Social in Terre Haute, Ind., which also has 12 of the units. If you can’t get out to Oakland Mall anytime soon, you can visit them at www.var-cade.com.

Bennington’s second arcade location at the Oakland Mall is the Rhythm Lounge, a Japanese-inspired “Bemani” music community courtesy of traveling arcade operator Psychic Drive (www. psychic drive.com) that currently features Marvel VS Capcom 2, Tetris: The Grand Master and Puzzle Bobble 3, Chunithm, Sound Vlotex, Flash Beat, Para Para Paradise, DDR, Jubeats and many other unique arcade beat/rhythm classics.

Rounding off the reimagining of the Oakland Mall, No Cash Value has also been consulting with local operator Mike Bradley, owner of Sparks Pinball Museum, to launch “one the largest collections of playable vintage to modern pinballs and unique video games in Michigan, 6,500 sq. ft. of flipping fun,” said Bennington.

And a bit further from home, the NCV crew has also been working with Jim Zespy, founder of the Logan Arcade in Chicago. They will activate Elston Electric Arcade inside the historic Morton Salt Shed, an I-94 landmark. This mega-industrial factory turned indoor-outdoor live music venue – anchored by Goose Island Brewery – will feature a massive FEC-style arcade, and curated redemption merch shop blended with the right mix of eccentric games and pinball machines. Look for their launch this spring!

“It was a good freshman year for our consultancy,” Bennington concluded. “2025 is shaping up to be just as robust and we are grateful for our clients’ enthusiasm to grow alongside our strategic partners like the Success Squad and GoTrain teams at Embed.”

To learn more about No Cash Value, or for franchise info, scalable entertainment investment and FEC/amusement/resort development projects, contact Jim Bennington at www.ncvllc.com.