Play 'N Trade stores?

[Bloodreign]

I visited the Play N' Trade down in Lafayette, Louisiana yesterday. It still has the name attached, even though the corporate branch went bankrupt. Apparently the owner of that location had it in his contract that he had the option to open up three locations, so he's opened up another store in Carencro, LA. At some point somebody at the company put his store's phone number down as the corporate headquarters, and the very few people still operating Play N' Trade stores keep calling him up like he has the ability to fix anything.

So, what's happened to the corporation? Do store owners have to license the name any more? I was only able to talk to the assistant manager at the Lafayette store, I don't really know anything about what's left of the company. When the owner of that location opened up a second store, it had a Play N' Trade sign on the building, so I would imagine he'd have to get that from somewhere, some corporate entity that's still sort-of in charge. Anybody know what's going on with them? Are there any other locations still open?

Yeah, Jeff opened up the Carencro one recently, I have yet to get a chance to visit that one as I visited the Lafayette one often enough till I started buying a ton of imports, something they rarely get at either location. I do follow both of their Facebook pages, but they never really seem to post whatever goodies someone might trade in (unlike the Texas Game Over stores, I follow all of them, they are always posting goodies they have). One of these days I'll visit the Carencro location, one of these day. The only other 2 locations I knew of were New Iberia, and Prairieville, both looooong closed down. The New Iberia store had a lot of stuff, but the guy was an asshole about prices, so I only made 3-4 trips there. The one in Prairieville I made one trip to, the guys were so excited I spent so much, and came from so far, they GAVE me a free model 1 Genesis that I wanted to buy. A week after I paid a visit, they shut down.

[Steve W]

Apparently there's a newly opened up GameXchange store in New Iberia. I only found out after stopping at the Alexandria store on my way back to Shreveport, one of the managers told me about the place. But I had checked Google Maps before driving all the way down there, and there weren't any new game stores I wasn't already aware of. I had to go to the GameXchange website to find its location. Who knows when I'm going to be in the area again to check the place out.

I think I've been to the Play N' Trade in Prairieville. On another one of my day trips from the Shreveport area, I went down to Baton Rouge to check out the Prairieville Flea Market of Louisiana, thinking that it looked so big on Google Maps that it should have something good. And I was wrong. On the way back I stopped at that Play N' Trade, along with the two Gameware locations in town. Don't remember finding much there either. A bit of a wasted trip.

As far as imports go, the only place around Lafayette I've ever found them is at the Jockey Lot Flea Market in Carencro, and that's only Super Famicom cartridges. You've probably already picked that one clean, there's way less SF carts there in comparison to the first time I visited them.

[JSoup]

I find it mildly amusing that after 10+ years of never getting thread update e-mails, I finally do and it's for someone bumping a five year old thread.

[Bloodreign]

Apparently there's a newly opened up GameXchange store in New Iberia. I only found out after stopping at the Alexandria store on my way back to Shreveport, one of the managers told me about the place. But I had checked Google Maps before driving all the way down there, and there weren't any new game stores I wasn't already aware of. I had to go to the GameXchange website to find its location. Who knows when I'm going to be in the area again to check the place out.

I think I've been to the Play N' Trade in Prairieville. On another one of my day trips from the Shreveport area, I went down to Baton Rouge to check out the Prairieville Flea Market of Louisiana, thinking that it looked so big on Google Maps that it should have something good. And I was wrong. On the way back I stopped at that Play N' Trade, along with the two Gameware locations in town. Don't remember finding much there either. A bit of a wasted trip.

As far as imports go, the only place around Lafayette I've ever found them is at the Jockey Lot Flea Market in Carencro, and that's only Super Famicom cartridges. You've probably already picked that one clean, there's way less SF carts there in comparison to the first time I visited them.
To be honest, I haven't gone there in a few years, last time I went there, the woman who runs the place had prices that were horrendous. When I saw a loose SMS cart of Fantasy Zone II go for $45, I walked away and never returned. It is also the only place I ever saw an Earthbound cart in person, $500 loose, and Chrono Trigger for $130, really made me wish I had picked up that $25 CT cart I saw years ago at the old Game Over in Broussard. The guy, Dom (who ran the Game Over), closed up shop, and last I heard manages a Gamestop.


The last several years I've gotten SFC games off of Ebay, and not the usual expensive suspects, but some pretty decent and fun games instead that aren't costly (the Go Go Ackman trilogy for example).

[Greg2600]

Interesting that there's any left. At the end of the day, the stores are only as good as the owner of the franchises. If you put the right effort and care into the store, it can succeed.

[Niku-Sama]

From my experience franchised game stores are pretty crap, the only exception was Game Crazy but they anchored them selves to hollywood video when the time was good for both video rentals and decent selections of used games before the collector market was a thing.

Interestingly enough there are 2 stores in Salem OR that are called Game Crazy that were some how exempt from the hollywood video game crazy's. its some sort of strange symbiotic relationship with the two and even stranger one when there were hollywood videos around still too