Share your memories of closed game stores

[DigitalSpace]

There's always been at least one near you - or in this case, there was. A local game store (or some place with a game section) that is now gone. Maybe you had some awesome finds there, maybe it was a great place to look around. Or maybe the prices were too high and the owner was an asshat. Anyways, tell us about a particular store or two in your area (or an area you used to live in).

GameTrader, Mall 205, Portland
GameTrader was a local chain that I believe opened up in the 90s. They had a few stores in the area but now they're down to one in Beaverton and one in Battle Ground, WA, and I believe both are now independently owned. The Mall 205 store closed in 2002 or early 2003. Mall 205 was all but dead by 2001 when Montgomery Wards, the mall's only remaining anchor at the time, closed when the company went bankrupt. Fortunately, some new owners bought the mall and attracted new anchors, including Target, 24 Hour Fitness, Home Depot, and Bed, Bath & Beyond (which I heard was the first store in the chain's history to include both a parking lot and mall entrance). The anchors have done pretty well, but the mall portion, despite a renovation, has continued to struggle. GameTrader was one of the few mall stores who stuck around through the renovation. A friend of mine at GNC talked with one of the guys who worked there, and he said that it was so dead that sometimes it just seemed like all he did most of the day was play games.

I never visited the store that often (especially since I didn't start collecting until early 2004), but if I was in Mall 205 for some reason, I'd always look around. The store was pretty pricey, but I do have one particular memory: when I was a freshman in high school, I rode my bike to the mall to buy one of their cart only copies of A Link To The Past for $15. I really wanted the game and at the time, $15 seemed like the best deal for aside from going to garage sales and thrifts and crossing my fingers. I still have that copy today.

GameTrader, NE 41st & Sandy, Portland
This store was located next to the historic Hollywood Theater. My only visit was in the mid-90s, when my mom took me there to pick out an SNES game for a birthday gift. I remember that they had an NES top loader hooked up and Donkey Kong Jr. Math was in it, which I had never heard of until that day. I was pretty sure that I was going to get Super Mario All-Stars, and I got the last used copy, which came in a plastic case with the manual. I still have the cart, but lost the case and manual a long time ago.

In the late 90's, the building the store was in was destroyed in a fire that threatened the theater as well (fortunately, the theater was spared and today the area where the building was is still a grassy vacant lot). It's sad to think of all the games and systems that got destroyed.

[Iron Draggon]

Gametronix on Chimney Rock in Houston, TX... man I wish that place was still around now... I bought my very first imports there... Fire Mustang and Turbo Outrun for the MegaDrive... their prices were very reasonable... I got some really great deals on games there... new and used... but they went out of business when their supplier (Tommo) started advertising in Gamefan... they couldn't compete with their prices and still make a profit... so they closed :(

[exit]

CD City - If you lived in the Hollywood area before 2001, you knew and loved this place, it was the only good place to goto for CDs and Games. The prices were always reasonable, the employees were cool and it was only a 10min walk from my house. I would occasionally buy games there (I got my copies of Startropics and Shadowgate there) and they had a nice (but very small) arcade room in the back. I also went there a lot when my CD book was lost/stolen and I was able to recover a few CDs. A couple of my friends worked, so I would sometimes just hang out there and I eventually got to know the (almost) owner, who gave me a discount on more than one occasion.

From what I heard, there was some bad blood between the two owners. Apparently the guy Mike (who basically made the store what it was), was in the process of owning the place, something happened and everything changed. The new people were alright, but I hardly went there anymore and before I knew it, the place was shut down. One of the employees tried to turn it into a computer place, that still dealt with games and CDs, but failed miserably. It's since been turned into various things (one of which just closed down), but none of them lasted very long, it's destined to be a black hole of failure now.

[Steve W]

There was a computer store in Euless, TX that my friend took me to back around 1989. It was closing down, and getting rid of all their oddball stock (my friend almost bought an Osbourne 'portable' computer, the one that weighed forty or fifty pounds, and had the itsy-bitsy screen on it). They had all sorts of fantastic stuff. I bought an Intellivision ECS for $10, a couple of Atari 5200 Competition Pro joysticks for $5 each (for a co-worker; wish I had kept one for myself), and as many Atari 8-bit cartridge games as I could afford, which unfortunately wasn't much. Back then I was making something like four dollars an hour, so I didn't have much to spend. I really wish I had gone there in it's heyday. My friend had been there many times before, but he and I had just started hanging out, so I hadn't gone there before they were going belly up. Such a shame.

[Damaniel]

GameTrader, Mall 205, Portland
GameTrader was a local chain that I believe opened up in the 90s. They had a few stores in the area but now they're down to one in Beaverton and one in Battle Ground, WA, and I believe both are now independently owned. The Mall 205 store closed in 2002 or early 2003. Mall 205 was all but dead by 2001 when Montgomery Wards, the mall's only remaining anchor at the time, closed when the company went bankrupt. Fortunately, some new owners bought the mall and attracted new anchors, including Target, 24 Hour Fitness, Home Depot, and Bed, Bath & Beyond (which I heard was the first store in the chain's history to include both a parking lot and mall entrance). The anchors have done pretty well, but the mall portion, despite a renovation, has continued to struggle. GameTrader was one of the few mall stores who stuck around through the renovation. A friend of mine at GNC talked with one of the guys who worked there, and he said that it was so dead that sometimes it just seemed like all he did most of the day was play games.

I never visited the store that often (especially since I didn't start collecting until early 2004), but if I was in Mall 205 for some reason, I'd always look around. The store was pretty pricey, but I do have one particular memory: when I was a freshman in high school, I rode my bike to the mall to buy one of their cart only copies of A Link To The Past for $15. I really wanted the game and at the time, $15 seemed like the best deal for aside from going to garage sales and thrifts and crossing my fingers. I still have that copy today.


This Game Trader had a hell of a collection of NES games, too--an entire wall display with games from the floor to the ceiling. I only ever made it to the store twice before they closed, and both times were before I became serious about collecting, so I didn't buy all that much. I wonder what happened to the stock from the store when it closed... ;)

(As an aside, I'm a fairly frequent visitor to both of these Game Traders; the Beaverton location carries just about anything you can think of, and I probably buy something there at least once a week, while the Battle Ground location was the home of my best find ever--my Caltron 6-in-1. There's also one other tiny store with the Game Trader name on Highway 30 on the way to St. Helens, which shares space with a video store. Their selection is almost non-existent, but when they do have something nice, the prices are really, really good!)

As for other Portland area stores, a few of them seemed to close in the same 6 month span about 3 or 4 years ago. The biggest of these besides the Mall 205 Game Trader was a store called Game Swapper out in the King City area. They had a ton of NES games and were fairly reasonably priced. (Two games I recall getting from here were Magic of Scheherazade and Mermaids of Atlantis). They'd let me go behind the counter and dig through their endless stacks of cartridges, and I picked up at least a couple dozen of the games in my NES collection from there.

Another small store in the Beaverton area that closed at the same time (after only being open very briefly) was called Temple of Pong. The owner's selection of games was fairly small, but I did get a complete TG-16 Order of the Griffon there.

NE Portland had a store on 82nd called Game Switcher (I may actually have the King City store and this one mixed up since it's been a while since either was open). I only went there once, and the next time I tried to go back it was gone.

Finally, a store called Gamers Trade and Play opened for a short time in Sherwood. Not a large selection, but I remember buying about 25 NES games there for a buck each. That store closed 2 or 3 years ago.

Even with all of these closures, we still have a large number of independent game stores in the Portland area, ranging from the good (CD/Game Exchange and Game Trader) to the eBay-pricing, annoying-as-hell bad (Video Game Wizards and Stuff). I really do miss the ones that have closed over the years, especially since they all closed before I got really serious about collecting! ;)

[y-bot]

There's always been at least one near you - or in this case, there was. A local game store (or some place with a game section) that is now gone. Maybe you had some awesome finds there, maybe it was a great place to look around. Or maybe the prices were too high and the owner was an asshat. Anyways, tell us about a particular store or two in your area (or an area you used to live in).

GameTrader, Mall 205, Portland
GameTrader was a local chain that I believe opened up in the 90s. They had a few stores in the area but now they're down to one in Beaverton and one in Battle Ground, WA, and I believe both are now independently owned. The Mall 205 store closed in 2002 or early 2003. Mall 205 was all but dead by 2001 when Montgomery Wards, the mall's only remaining anchor at the time, closed when the company went bankrupt. Fortunately, some new owners bought the mall and attracted new anchors, including Target, 24 Hour Fitness, Home Depot, and Bed, Bath & Beyond (which I heard was the first store in the chain's history to include both a parking lot and mall entrance). The anchors have done pretty well, but the mall portion, despite a renovation, has continued to struggle. GameTrader was one of the few mall stores who stuck around through the renovation. A friend of mine at GNC talked with one of the guys who worked there, and he said that it was so dead that sometimes it just seemed like all he did most of the day was play games.

I never visited the store that often (especially since I didn't start collecting until early 2004), but if I was in Mall 205 for some reason, I'd always look around. The store was pretty pricey, but I do have one particular memory: when I was a freshman in high school, I rode my bike to the mall to buy one of their cart only copies of A Link To The Past for $15. I really wanted the game and at the time, $15 seemed like the best deal for aside from going to garage sales and thrifts and crossing my fingers. I still have that copy today.

GameTrader, NE 41st & Sandy, Portland
This store was located next to the historic Hollywood Theater. My only visit was in the mid-90s, when my mom took me there to pick out an SNES game for a birthday gift. I remember that they had an NES top loader hooked up and Donkey Kong Jr. Math was in it, which I had never heard of until that day. I was pretty sure that I was going to get Super Mario All-Stars, and I got the last used copy, which came in a plastic case with the manual. I still have the cart, but lost the case and manual a long time ago.

In the late 90's, the building the store was in was destroyed in a fire that threatened the theater as well (fortunately, the theater was spared and today the area where the building was is still a grassy vacant lot). It's sad to think of all the games and systems that got destroyed.

My friend and I got Halloween & Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the Atari 2600 at Mall 205 Game Trader for 99 cents each! I still have my TCM. I miss having a CD/Game exchange across the street from my house. I never got anything great there but it was only a block away. There's one I drive by on my way to work but it opens after I pass it and it's a pain in the ass to make a left turn onto the highway it's on so I don't stop on my way home.

y-bot

[skylark]

Anyone remember Egghead Software? Used to be the largest chain in the country. Strictly PC stuff, and for a while they let you return stuff just because you didn't like. After they wised up, they would still install the game on their own PCs so you could try it out before you purchased. Long gone now. Not sure when they disappeared, but my latest memories of it include some smart ass assistant manager with one of those godawful rat-tail haircuts, so I'm guessing very early nineties at the latest.

[RJ]

All these are from an older post (Apr 06), talking about Game Cauldron in Roseville MN:
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Well, when I first discovered the place, I was blown away- another store to add to my "rounds", & in a good location (Roseville is sorta centrally located in the Twin Cities). They had HUGE enclosed tables of boxed Genny, S/NES, & other stuff, even some boxed 2600 carts, which I personally rarely see. I had a good conversation w/ the clerk & promised I'd be back on & off.

IIRC the next time I was there I got a few strategy guides for $2-3 each (good price). It was a younger guy behind the counter, & he didnt even acknowledge me OR say thanks! He was playing some RPG on the TV behind the counter & discussing the prev night's events on his cell.

The most recent time I stopped in, the place was dirty, messy (like items just thrown on/in the shelves/racks), smelled bad, & seemed pretty well cleaned out. Frankly, I was shocked- it was a real world example of entropy (look it up, kids! ) That's when I mentioned it to pacmanhat, as he'd known the previous owners. Hopefully, it sounds like the place has turned around. I'm going hunting this weekend, maybe I'll stop in...
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OK, just went there this AM...

Inside, the doors to the back room(s?) are closed, I'm the only one out front, wondering if anyone is even working there (might be nice to know when a customer comes in! I couldve taken anything & ran- not that I would.) Some time later 3 guys, maybe late teens all come in together. They seem to work there, 2 of them go behind the counter (not a word to me- no "hi" "hello" "can I help you?"), one gets on the phone & one hangs around, literally pacing in the store as if wanting to help me but not.

I find the Atari 2600 carts, no visible prices, so I ask Pacer (guy #3) how much each. He asks the cashier (guy #2), & HE asks Guy #1 in back on the phone (who seems to be the leader). $2- not bad, so I get 5 & find NES Blades of Steel for $1 & check out. Guy #2 stares at the screen a bit, confused, then calls for Guy #1 to handle my purchase.

Meanwhile, ANOTHER late-teen comes in wearing- I kid you not- PJ pants & dirty pink bedroom slippers. He's out in public like this! I stifle my laughter/comments as my transaction ends. At least I got correct change & a "thanks" (I think.)

The place still had a musty, attic-y odor which was on the carts too- I smelled it all the way home, although they were in a bag. The store floor was filthy too, in need of a serious mopping. On the plus side, they had the carts I wanted, all in decent/working condition. They also had a couch/TVs set up to play games for customers I think/hope!

pacmanhat- if you personally know these guys, maybe you oughta mention this to them. I dont go there much, but I know that place could look/be much better than the seedy hangout it feels like.
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[back to present day]

Last time I went there, I brought a friend & the place was closed down- from what we could see thru the window, was a total mess & under transformation. Some guy walked up & said he was associated w/ the strip mall financially somehow & reassured us it'd be open again soon as a game store. It became an office for buying/selling things over the internet, w/ NO video game associations whatsoever.

This is a perfect example of a store going straight down the tubes.

[Flack]

Anyone remember Egghead Software? Long gone now. Not sure when they disappeared...

Egghead Software was one of the first companies to close up all their physical locations and move completely online. That happened in 1998. In 1999 they sold to OnSale.com. In 2001 they were acquired by Amazon.com for 6.1 million. (Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egghead_Software))

As for closed gaming stores, I can't remember any specific ones but in general I miss those computer stores at the mall where computer nerds worked and you could actually go in and have a decent conversation about computers or games or programs in general.

[Pantechnicon]

Replay Games, Albuquerque - One of the few places in town that bothered to carry pre-NES stuff without pricing it to the moon a la Ebay. They also had an extensive Dreamcast selection at pretty reasonable rates. IIRC they would do mod work for you if you were a regular customer that could be trusted to come back. They also had a lot of nice manga toys. A nice place, but one day construction began in the parking lot of this particular strip mall of combination EB/Starbucks. The owner of Replay was not happy about this, explaining how his landlords were getting around the exclusivity clause in his lease since percentage-wise the new structure was more Starbucks than EB. He estimated he had three months left before he was forced out of business. It was more like three weeks and Replay closed its doors :shameful:

The Game Exchange, Albuquerque - I used to go here for NES/SNES titles back when I first started branching out into other systems. The place was ran by this dumpy old lady in her early 60's and there were always a couple of grandkids with her in the store as well. They took total advantage of me back when I was an NES noob by trading me an NES toaster in exchange for my NES Jr (I wanted composite video and had no idea the Jr was anything special).

Two things struck me as odd about the place: One was that any time I was there I was the only customer in the store. I'm certain there had to be others but I never saw them. The second thing was that the place had this awful chemical smell. It was as if someone had taken a gallon of ammonia and poured it all over the carpet. It was strong and pervasive but the people running the store didn't seem to mind. I figured they were just obsessed with cleanliness. One day I went to visit them and they were inexplicably closed, never to re-open. Ten years later I was talking to another game shop owner and found out that the reason Game Exchange closed was because they were shut down by the police following the discovery that they were cooking meth in the back of the shop. At least that explained the chemical smell.

[thetoxicone]

All these are from an older post (Apr 06), talking about Game Cauldron in Roseville MN:

Last time I went to the cities I saw they had closed (they had still been decent the previous time I went there but don't know how long ago that was). I did end up checking out some place in the rosedale mall (i think thats the mall's name) and ended up getting road avenger pretty cheap and a $5 copy of blast lacrosse that I turned around and ebayed for $30.

On the side of closings I've dealt with, the best pawn shop for games in my hometown (a town of about 25000, so there isn't anything solely gaming based there) closed up not too long ago. I remember scoring some pretty cheap genesis titles (non-sports complete and great shape games for $2-$3) and a $3 earthbound.

[RJ]

Yep, Rosedale's the name. I grew up in Roseville (graduated from there too) & that mall looked TOTALLY different 20 yrs ago, that is, they really gussied the place up the past 5-10 yrs.

But I do know the mall place, name escapes me ATM. It's one of my half-dozen places I visit on a semi-regular basis.

[ubikuberalles]

I can't think of any memorable game store closures (that Pantechnicon hadn't already mentioned) but I can think of a few memorable computer store closures:

The Computer Shack - This was the first computer store in New Mexico and one of the first computer stores in the country. They opened in in 1975 or 1976 and they sold only Altair computers and related hardware. It was a pretty cool place as it displayed all sorts of MITS hardware that I only previously saw in magazines. When the Altair computers died, so did the Computer Shack. Mainly because of that contract they had with MITS and Altair computers. I know they stayed open as late as 1978 because that year I had to bring my dad's Altair in for repairs.

Federated Stores - In order to better sell their Atari computers, Jack Tramiel and sons bought Federated stores. Around that time they opened a Federated in Albuquerque. I remember visiting that store and checking out their computer section which consisted mostly of Atari computers. 8 bits, STs and even TTs were there. They also sold Atari game systems with an impressive array of games. I remember I was impressed by the display but disappointed by the sales staff (they knew NOTHING about Atari computers). What the Tramiels didn't know when they closed the deal with Federated was that the Federated accountants cooked the books: Federated was losing a lot of money. Soon after, Federated closed all their stores. I don't think the Federated store in Albuquerque was there longer than a year.

Plaza Computers - This store was an Atari dealership and was bound by contract to sell only Atari computers. Lots of software titles and cool hardware. I bought my very first hard drive there (a 20 Mb Supra drive - for a hefty price of $649). Their display of Atari laser printers was pretty impressive too. It wasn't long before they broke their contract with Atari and started selling other computer brands (Amstrad, I think). That delayed the inevitable but only for a year or so, I think.

Another Byte Computers - Used computer store. Lots of cool old stuff. I remember seeing a pdp 8 computer there once. I bought a couple cool items there including an 8800a Altair computer, a capacitance tester and my very first desktop PC (a 100 MHz 486). One regret I had with that store was they were selling an IMSAI computer (an Altair clone) and I didn't snatch it up. The pdp-8 would have been nice but that thing was HUGE! (Rackmounted, 5 feet tall).

[YoshiM]

In the early 90's there was only one video game store in my home county and that was GT'S Video Games. If memory serves, the store started in Sheboygan Falls on the main drag. They pretty much carried everything except computer stuff. I bought my first Atari 5200 (four port) there. Not long afterwards the store moved to Sheboygan and rented a spot next to Kohls department store. I'd frequent that place as much as my girlfriend (who a year later became an ex) would let me. Saw my first Tengen Tetris there. Got to know the owner pretty well. Months later the store moved back to Sheboygan Falls but at a strip mall. That didn't seem to last long either.

By early 1993 GT's moved BACK to the mall in Sheboygan, taking up a larger spot next to Sears. One of my friends from Elkhart Lake worked there and between he and the owner, I was able to get some good deals on the old stuff that never moved: Atari carts, SMS games (3D glasses for $10), an Atari 7800 with everything except the box, etc. Bought my first Sega CD from there as well. They were pretty much the only place in town that carried every console. GT's even had a genuine Panasonic 3DO display stand. Don't think they had CDi, because they'd shuffle those interested customers to me at Sears and then would snicker when I'd stop by. "So did the buy one? Pfffthahahah!"

They stayed at that spot until maybe 1997. The rumor mill said the owner got too heavy into laser discs, which cut into profits and that rent was going up. They moved to a kiosk a few feet from the storefront for a few months and then packed and moved to a storefront downtown. I don't think the store got a chance to open as I drove by not long after they moved and saw a sign stating a "going out of business" sale, which I missed.

[Nostalgicblight]

Game Trader... Yes, it was a damn shame that I moved far, far away from that store. When my girlfriend and I started going to Rivergate on a weekly (and at times, daily) basis, I noticed a Game Trader in a strip mall where she would buy a crapload of books.

I had gone to this particular Game Trader a couple of years before, before the NES was wanted by every emo kid in middle school. There I found a Mortal Kombat II 32x cartridge for $.50... I feel so stupid now, because it sat there for about a year, and I never got it. I reacall deabting on whether I should have gotten the cartridge or not - trying to predict my future of gaming. At the time, I didn't even know what a 32x was...

The last recollection I recall of that store was a few months before I moved. My girlfriend had just purchased a phase 2 Genesis, 32x, and CD with 26 games all together for $40, just for my birthday. I was walking around looking for some games for one of the three systems, and I ended up with a Genesis mouse for $9, still in the box. I found about 7 games, each for $3. Needless to say, I walked out with a big grin on my face. It's rather sad that I won't see that store for a long time...

[crazyjackcsa]

There was a microplay not too far away from where I was. Well, not to far as in about 20 miles. It may as well have been on the moon since I was 14 and there was no bus service. I wanted a copy of Vectorman 2 for the Genesis. This is when it was new. On release day I called the store to see if they had one. They had one "in the shipment" I took that to mean. "Yes" So I convinced my mom to drive me out.
When I got there, I asked for it and was told that the shipment had not been recieved. This was from the manager/owner. He said, the next day. So I went back in. CASH IN HAND. I mean I actually had cash out and in my hand. The BOX HADN"T MOVED!!!! The manager was yakking on the phone to somebody, I interupted and said I was back for vectorman 2. He was very rude in telling me he still hadn't unpacked it. Both times I went into the store there wasn't a sole in it! At 14, your willing to take a fair bit of crap since you're young. I wasn't willing to take this! I don't remember what I said, but he got the point. I never went back. A couple of months later it was closed. Good riddance.

[Greg2600]

Sticking close to home, the most infamous one for me was Video Dynasty, a movie/game buy/rental store on Main Street in Belleville, NJ. It was open during the 1980's, perhaps making it into the early 90's. It is a frequent gag on my podcast (www.paunchstevenson.com), because of the ridiculously overpriced games and ill mannered owners. One of whom was a dead ringer for AC/DC's Brian Johnson. I also frequented what I believe was a Radio Shack in Cedar Grove, NJ, on Pompton Ave. My friend lived there and he had a Tandy and would buy games there.

I wish there were more stores which traded and sold used games back then, because I probably could have gotten a lot more if that was the case. I don't remember any video game stores that were anything worthwhile until Funcoland came around. I spent more time in baseball card stores and hobby shops, and bought the occasional game at Christmas or birthday time at Toys R Us.

[joshnickerson]

Game Xchange - Athens, Georgia

I had been stuck working at a crummy TJ Maxx in early 2005, which was in a dying shopping complex, and one day I noticed that one of the vacant suites was being renovated, and a few days later, a bright banner with the Game Xchange logo was put up, and I was stoked. There was a Game Xchange in Shreveport that I had visited a few times as a kid and I loved it. They had tons of NES, SNES and Genny games, as well as a modest selection of more modern stuff. They also had playable kiosks set up of almost every system you could think of, and I would go there on my lunch breaks occasionally to play some Super Mario World. I bought quite a few games there, including my copies of Fun N' Games and Ren & Stimpy Firedogs! :)

Then that summer, Goodwill opened up next door, and they started getting in stacks of old games. I'm not sure how much that could've hurt Game Xchange, but it must have had some effect. And it didn't help that Game Xchange never really had any signage or anything by the road, just the pathetic vinyl banner hanging over the door. Plus, most people I knew got their retro games cheaper at the local dirt mall.

After Christmas, they had a big 1/2 sale going on, and then *poof* the next day, the building was empty. I was bummed, but going on a hunch, I did manage to salvage a few manuals and boxes out of the dumpster in the back.

I've long since gotten a better job, and only visit that complex once a week to check out Goodwill (which also, sadly, has started to suck), and I always take a glance at that empty suite, hoping that maybe Game Xchange would return... never will though.

[7th lutz]

video game exchange- Milwaukee, WI

It was a chain around the Milwaukee area in Wisconsin. It had used video games and movies to buy.

There were 2 or 3 of them. They closed in late 2004 after being opened in 1992 or 1993. They were one of the only places that had a Neo Geo system. I think it the cd model of it. I used to buy genesis, nes, and playstation 1 games there with some of the games being cheaper or were to be found at Video game Exchange. Around 2003, they started have games systems that were older then the nes, or were more uncommon when the nes was king like the Sega Master System. I got Spy Hunter, Pitfall 2 there for the 2600. They had some really rare games like Chase the Chuckwagon, Star Fox Super Weekend Cart, Buster Douglas Boxing for the Sega Mater System and a couple others I didn't mention. I regret not getting them.

[Chuplayer]

There was this small video game store in the Route 18 Market in New Jersey. Everything was expensive, but you could find so many cool things there. They had Atari stuff, imports, and a bunch of never opened old stuff. I got a Genesis Menacer gun there five years ago, and I swear it was new. It was clean as a whistle, and all the baggies for all the parts were there. It was expensive, but it was good stuff. They even did modchips for the PS1.

They closed a couple years ago after shrinking to half their previous size.

[zektor]

The Program Store
Willowbrook Mall, Wayne NJ

This store used to be located directly across from the BK in the mall. More of a computer game store, but also carried console stuff. I remember hanging out with my best friend and going there almost every day. We'd grab some BK, talk about games, and stare at the "Space Ace" demo on the amazing Amiga 500. I finally ended up purchasing an Amiga 500 from them for $700 I think. Best money I had ever spent :) I remember they used to get all of these great Psyclapse/Psygnosis Amiga titles, along with some not so popular games like "Major Motion" (a Spy Hunter clone with some nice graphics) and others. I really miss those days...

[Steven]

Sadly, I didn't get to say goodbye to two mom and pops which I held near and dear to my heart. One day I came back and they just mysteriously vanished. I actually wrote about some of these stores on my site under a piece called "Memories of Renting"

Actual game store-wise, I miss the Software ETC. store at the mall back in the early-mid 90s. Its ultra-cool blue hue would always draw me in like moths to flame.

[Push Upstairs]

I never got to say goodbye to either the store I worked at or the Game X Change near me.

The store I was at was being closed, but I had to wait a few days to find out if it was going for good or not.

Game X Change I didn't even have a warning. The last time I was in the mood to go peruse their inventory I drove up to see the sign was taken down and note was left on the door.

"We lost our lease and had to close up. Store credit can be redeemed at our other locations...blah blah."

It just hit me hard because it was so sudden. Made me think of all the good memories from that place, buying a cheap Saturn Import cart, getting a sealed "Magic Knight Rayearth" on Saturn, playing "Burnout 3" for the first time.

To the awesome guys who worked there...Vaya con Dios.

[HayakawaKen]

Game World - San Antonio, Texas
Gamefellas - San Antonio, Texas


Game World was started roughly back in 94 IIRC, with the first location off of Pat Booker... I only got to visit that location once, then they moved off of Naco, and opened a second store off of Blanco and a third on Bandera.. they had everything from Atari to the newest PS and Saturn games, and best of all they carried imports for Saturn and PS during the high demand times of both systems. I even got the chance to work at the Blanco location for a brief time before unfortunately getting fired.

The staff there was pretty cool, and was pretty much the same for a good 6-7 years before people started leaving or getting fired. There were plenty of cool people like Don, Adam, Jason, Pete etc. and they always gave good service. The launch of the DC and PS2 systems sort of became a death toll for the stores, as they got less and less customers and EB and Funco started moving in, and finally around 2000-2001, the stores were sold to EB to become EB Game World, which if I recall spread to a few different states. I got to go back to work there in 2002, at the old Bandera location, and worked there for 4 years till it finally closed and moved down the street to Mainland and Gilbeau, at this point EB and Gamestop merged, and the company went to crap.


Gamefellas was another store that was briefly here in SA, being an Austin company, they were around from 2000 to roughly 2003, opening 2 locations, one in North Star and one in Rolling Oaks.. they carried a great deal of games from atari to PS2 and Xbox, but were a bit higher priced.. I don't have too many memories of them, but they were ok, not as good as Game World though... I was glad to see them go as their staff got progressively worse and worse.

[DreamTR]

My first game store I ever went to that I saw that sold USED games was:

NEW FOCUS-Miami, FL

I was working at Publix Super Markets in 1991 on weekends, and I remember when I first set foot in the place, they had a used copy of Startropics complete with box and manual for $27.99. I HAD to have it. Minimum wage had just creeped up to $4.25, so with my 10 hours of work after taxes and two buses later, I was a very excited 15 year old. This place had it all. Famicom and Super Famicom systems and games, Mega Drive, PC Engine stuff, the WORKS. It was only open for a couple of years. Some rumor about them importing more than just games from Japan.

DIEHARD GAME STORES-Miami, CHicago, Los Angeles

I miss this place. THere were a few of these all over the US, and they had an amazing layout and very good import stock. Definitely for the hardcore at the time.

Microplay-Miami, FL
I know this is a Canadian company, but we had ONE Microplay out in Miami (there were a few I saw in Atlanta) and I'll never forget the owner of the place. It was open for about 8-9 years surprisingly, and when I worked there, the guy had a huge issue when a customer came in, asked for a game, it was not there, but since I was moving out of state in a month, I told him I had one available immediately. I went out to my car and sold a loose copy of Final Fantasy II to a guy for $35 (this is 1996) and the owner was pissed at me. Sure, I could have used some better judgment and sold it on my own time, but he expected me to pay him compensation for me selling my own game!!! That always pissed me off. Oh yeah, and when he paid me my paycheck, he just handed it to me in cash with "taxes" taken out mysteriously, but no actual paycheck showing deductions. Nice. A friend of mine worked there for a few years and would not get paid for months at a time. He got a bit pissed and took around 25K in inventory over the years, and even sold burned games over the counter sometimes. Sheesh. They changed the name to MegaPlay and disappeared soon after that, but it was the longest running used game store I had seen in the city.

Windy City Game Exchange-Chicago, IL

Anyone ever frequent this place? It's like shopping at Atari2600.com, except this place had crazy high prices. They had the rarest and BEST selection I had ever seen, but wanted $40-80 for boxed NES games, and hundreds of dollars for all sorts of other stuff in the late 90s. Boy do I wish I picked up that boxed X-Man they had for $400 in the display counter. That was a rip-off then, but I'm willing to pay it now! TOo bad they disappeared...

[Gentlegamer]

There was an electronics store in a run down mall near me in South Houston, TX (not far from Gilley's) when I was a kid. I don't remember its name . . . it was just "the video store." They had a huge selection of games to rent, and most of my game playing during that era was via rental. Back then, I was able to rent a Genesis console for $20 . . . with no deposit! What's more, I was also able to rent a Super Famicom for the same price before the SNES was released in the US. That's how I first played Super Mario World, Final Fight, F-Zero, and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (again, no deposit, and I was around 12 years old!). The rental prices were super cheap and on Wednesdays you could rent 2 for 1.

One day I went in there and most of the games were gone . . . someone had come in and offered the owner a lump sum for all their stuff and he had accepted it. So that was it. I never really rented games again because the major video rental chains were too much of a pain to deal with, too expensive, and had paltry selections of games for rental (sames goes for video cassettes, too).

[Steven]

Game World - San Antonio, Texas
Gamefellas - San Antonio, Texas


Game World was started roughly back in 94 IIRC, with the first location off of Pat Booker... I only got to visit that location once, then they moved off of Naco, and opened a second store off of Blanco and a third on Bandera.. they had everything from Atari to the newest PS and Saturn games, and best of all they carried imports for Saturn and PS during the high demand times of both systems. I even got the chance to work at the Blanco location for a brief time before unfortunately getting fired.

The staff there was pretty cool, and was pretty much the same for a good 6-7 years before people started leaving or getting fired. There were plenty of cool people like Don, Adam, Jason, Pete etc. and they always gave good service. The launch of the DC and PS2 systems sort of became a death toll for the stores, as they got less and less customers and EB and Funco started moving in, and finally around 2000-2001, the stores were sold to EB to become EB Game World, which if I recall spread to a few different states. I got to go back to work there in 2002, at the old Bandera location, and worked there for 4 years till it finally closed and moved down the street to Mainland and Gilbeau, at this point EB and Gamestop merged, and the company went to crap.


Gamefellas was another store that was briefly here in SA, being an Austin company, they were around from 2000 to roughly 2003, opening 2 locations, one in North Star and one in Rolling Oaks.. they carried a great deal of games from atari to PS2 and Xbox, but were a bit higher priced.. I don't have too many memories of them, but they were ok, not as good as Game World though... I was glad to see them go as their staff got progressively worse and worse.



OMG!!! Dude, I might have dealt with you, or at least ordered from you.

Summer of '99 I bought from GameWorld Fighter's History Dynamite (JP Saturn). Maybe you fielded my order, but the store copy came with the 1 MB Ram for $23 I recall. I said I already had the RAM so you guys sold me just the game for $18. This was via mail order. I took a chance on Game World (search engine'd Fighter's History Dynamite one summer night... I remember it arrived 7.4.99! How sad huh)

IN the summer of 2002 I went to the GameFellas at Lakeline Mall (IIRC) when I visited my cousins. I was the guy who that evening bought Night Warriors strategy guide and Impact Racing (Saturn). I remember asking the clerk (maybe it was you?!) if you could set up Impact Racing just so I know it would work.

Anyway, maybe I'm just a raving lunatic, but I have fond memories of those stores. GameFellas was sweet as hell, all sorts of retro goodness, and strategy guide heaven, too.

[HayakawaKen]

OMG!!! Dude, I might have dealt with you, or at least ordered from you.

Summer of '99 I bought from GameWorld Fighter's History Dynamite (JP Saturn). Maybe you fielded my order, but the store copy came with the 1 MB Ram for $23 I recall. I said I already had the RAM so you guys sold me just the game for $18. This was via mail order. I took a chance on Game World (search engine'd Fighter's History Dynamite one summer night... I remember it arrived 7.4.99! How sad huh)

IN the summer of 2002 I went to the GameFellas at Lakeline Mall (IIRC) when I visited my cousins. I was the guy who that evening bought Night Warriors strategy guide and Impact Racing (Saturn). I remember asking the clerk (maybe it was you?!) if you could set up Impact Racing just so I know it would work.

Anyway, maybe I'm just a raving lunatic, but I have fond memories of those stores. GameFellas was sweet as hell, all sorts of retro goodness, and strategy guide heaven, too.



Nah, it wouldn't have been me, that was someone else running the mail-order part of the store, most likely Jason. As for Gamefellas, I worked at the one in North Star Mall in San Antonio, and never really got to go to the Lakeline location, which iirc, is closed along with almost all of them I think excluding the one in Northcross..

[Chuplayer]

and finally around 2000-2001, the stores were sold to EB to become EB Game World, which if I recall spread to a few different states.

The EB on Route 9 in Old Bridge, New Jersey that opened in late 2001/early 2002 originally opened as an EB Game World. It's now EB Games, but for a while after the transition, their doormat still said EB Gameworld.

[Rob2600]

Sticking close to home, the most infamous one for me was Video Dynasty, a movie/game buy/rental store on Main Street in Belleville, NJ. It was open during the 1980's, perhaps making it into the early 90's. It is a frequent gag on my podcast (www.paunchstevenson.com), because of the ridiculously overpriced games and ill mannered owners. One of whom was a dead ringer for AC/DC's Brian Johnson.

Yes, Video Dynasty! Back in 1988-89, the owner was charging over $65 for NES games and $30 for Atari 2600 games. Why?

That store was in the Grand Union strip mall. There was also a tobacco store there where I got my picture taken with Randy "Macho Man" Savage.