Sega World, The Trocadero, London

London's SEGA theme park kicked off at the height of its mascot Sonic the Hedgehog's popularity on September 7, 1996. Housed in the Piccadilly Trocadero, it featured a number of indoor rides, coin-op arcade machines and a SEGA merchandise shop. It was heavily promoted in the UK's Sonic the Comic, where competitions were run to win items from the SegaWorld shop, and out on the streets where tokens could often be found for discounted or free entry, and free t-shirts were distributed. The loss-making venture eventually closed and was taken over by a new management and renamed the establishment "Funland". Funland was originally the arcade in the basement floor next to the Pepsi Max drop, which shared the same building as SegaWorld.

After taking over SegaWorld, Funland shut their basement arcade and the top floors remained open, along with McDonalds on the 3rd floor until autumn 2002 when the main entrance known as the Rocket Escalator, was shut. At that time the dodgems were moved from the 3rd to the 1st floor and a new lower ground floor was re-opened. The arcade is arguably the largest and most popular in England with recent games including DJMax Technika, Pump It Up Fiesta, Pump It Up Pro, Streetfighter IV, Initial D Arcade Stage 4. and As of 2010, the basement section leading from the London Underground is now an area for bboys and streetdancers to practice.

The name SegaWorld later referred to the basement arcade in Hamleys' Regent Street branch, featuring none of the rides and entertainment of its Trocadero predecessor, as a SEGA-dedicated coin-op den, which then became the Game Zone arcade, and finaly stripped and replaced with a franchised 'Game' outlet at the end of 2003.

A promotional video originally released in 1996 can be found below. It's quite weird to look back at this now knowing that it's been shut down because of such poor sales and figures. I do actually remember visiting London as a child and being totally blown away by the inside of Segaworld, with the only clear memory being scared by the mish mash of escalators going in all sorts of decorations. Oh and for some reason... giant gobstoppers.