Game Xchange Confusion

[8bitgamer]

I stopped at a few Game Xchanges while attending a comic book convention in Oklahoma City and was a bit confused as to their selling policies regarding NES, SNES, and Genesis titles.

Don't get me wrong--the employees were helpful and nice, but the store setup was less than conducive to buying.

Along several aisles near the front of the store, they have boxes (most of which have become severely faded) for various titles for the aforementioned systems. What you're supposed to do as a customer is look and see if they have the box for the game you are looking for, tell the person behind the counter you want that game, and they will go get the cartridge for you from the back. They won't sell you the box or the manual, and they say if they don't have the box, they definitely don't have the game cartridge.

The problem with this system is this: there were hundreds of games released for the NES, SNES, and Genesis, but the store obviously had far, far fewer boxes than that for each system. What if someone came in off the street and sold them some cartridges for games they didn't have boxes for? This would mean they would have carts in the back that aren't represented by boxes out front, so the system is inherently flawed. Also, what do they do with all the manuals they receive (not to mention the duplicate boxes)?

I came in with a list of NES titles I needed (for research for Classic Home Video Games Vol. 2) and asked the guy behind the counter if he would look in the back where they keep the cartridges. He said that "they don't usually do that" (which is an odd thing to say in itself) but he would do it this time. Predictably, he found some games that didn't have representative boxes out front.

I understand why they keep the games in the back (shoplifting is a regretable aspect of retail), but there's got to be a better system.

If any of you work or have shopped at Game Xchange, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Anyone else can add their thoughts as well.

[roushimsx]

For games that they don't have actual boxes for, they usually make mockups of some sort. Not sure where they get the source images, but they're typically black and white second or third generation photocopy printouts. Might have a database in the ol' computer system or some such.

Which Game Xchange did you stop by, btw? I don't get to go there very often, but I enjoy checking out the one on I-240 and Penn every now and then.

edit - and I've never gotten a manual with any of those old carts from there, either. Maybe they chuck 'em? I'll ask next time I go in.

A while back, I was trying to pick up a copy of SOS for SNES. They had the box out for it, but when they went in the back to find it, they only had Sink or Swim. Darn wrong box!

[Dungeon Master]

I know that in the Game Xchange variants we have down here in Texas, they print up xeroxes of box covers (the fronts of the boxes, basically) and put them in plastic slipcovers for display when they don't have the actual boxes. Kind of tacky, but they do it for their full inventory of the older stuff (SNES/Genesis); the NES, SMS, etc. games are all on display in glass cabinets.

[Push Upstairs]

I miss the one that used to be here. Deals abound for their less popular stuff (mostly SEGA stuff).

[Flack]

Brett, you should have looked me up. I would have loved to have taken you shopping around town, and I live about two minutes away from a GameXchange!

People have been complaining about their box/shopping system since they've been open. Most complains come from collectors, who (no matter how hard they try) aren't allowed to buy the boxes. Their system is far from perfect for the reasons you mentioned (mainly, trade ins that sit in the back until they can print a box up). You were lucky to get an employee to go in the back and look for you ... must've been a slow day.

[8bitgamer]

Brett, you should have looked me up. I would have loved to have taken you shopping around town, and I live about two minutes away from a GameXchange!

Next time I'm planning to be in OK City, I'll definitely give you a shout!

[8bitgamer]

Which Game Xchange did you stop by, btw? I don't get to go there very often, but I enjoy checking out the one on I-240 and Penn every now and then.

I went to the one off Meridian. I far prefer the way Vintage Stock sells their classic games.

[PentiumMMX]

There are still Game-X-Change stores that use that system? My nearest one did away with that just a few months after opening (That was back in 2004).

[Flack]

Next time I'm planning to be in OK City, I'll definitely give you a shout!

Heck yeah, man. There are at least half a dozen Game Xchanges, another couple of Vintage Stocks, and a whole lotta Game Rushes and other places that'll drain your wallet in a hurry.

[8bitgamer]

Heck yeah, man. There are at least half a dozen Game Xchanges, another couple of Vintage Stocks, and a whole lotta Game Rushes and other places that'll drain your wallet in a hurry.

Sounds like a plan!

[darkwingduck13]

You can get lucky at Game Exchanges sometimes. I had had a couple of good talks with the manager of the store in North Little Rock, AR, and one time when I stopped in and found some Genesis games, he let me look through their stack of boxes in the back and just take what I wanted. That's how I got my boxes and manuals for Shining Force II, Landstalker, Beyond Oasis, Gunstar Heroes, and Dynamite Headdy. :)

[8bitgamer]

You can get lucky at Game Exchanges sometimes. I had had a couple of good talks with the manager of the store in North Little Rock, AR, and one time when I stopped in and found some Genesis games, he let me look through their stack of boxes in the back and just take what I wanted. That's how I got my boxes and manuals for Shining Force II, Landstalker, Beyond Oasis, Gunstar Heroes, and Dynamite Headdy. :)

Weird. I don't know why they don't sell their games with boxes and manuals included. They could put the expensive games in glass showcases and put all the cheap games out on shelves in the store. A cart may get stolen from time to time, but they are losing far more money by giving away/throwing away boxes and manuals, and by keeping their inventory in the back, where customers have to ask for specific cartridges (and be frowned upon when they approach the counter with an actual list of games).

Strange business model indeed, but they must be doing something right or they wouldn't have so many stores.

[darkwingduck13]

The bitch that owns the store in Fayetteville, AR probably eBays all the extra boxes that they collect. I used to know a guy who worked there, and he said that her stores had standing orders to collect all the boxes and manuals that were "extra," ie. not needed to display on the shelves, and that once they'd gotten quite a few saved up, she would pick them up and they'd never see them again. The day he told me that, he had just finished telling me he had the complete sets of packing materials for several SNES/Genesis RPGs in the back, but he himself couldn't even score them because of the 'rules.'

I always just suspected that they ended up on eBay. I know several of the employees at that store were scoring the harder-to-find/popular games to sell on eBay, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out the owner was doing the same thing. This is the same lady who didn't go by the chain's guidelines for prices on trade-ins, and the resale prices for used games. She always paid less and charged more. I've pretty much stopped going to that location over the past two or three years. Basically have to be in the area on other business before I'll go in now.

This is the same place that when I tried to trade in Phantasy Star II, complete, the guy looked it up in their trade-in book and offered me $2 in store credit for it...with a cart-only copy sitting in the display case for $24.95.

edit: I should qualify that I'm talking about the store on Joyce Blvd. near the mall. The store on 6th Street has great staff from what I've been able to tell, and the manager is always on top of stuff every time I go in. He even got some Saturn controllers in stock when I asked about them.

[icbrkr]

The bitch that owns the store in Fayetteville, AR probably eBays all the extra boxes that they collect. I used to know a guy who worked there, and he said that her stores had standing orders to collect all the boxes and manuals that were "extra," ie. not needed to display on the shelves, and that once they'd gotten quite a few saved up, she would pick them up and they'd never see them again. The day he told me that, he had just finished telling me he had the complete sets of packing materials for several SNES/Genesis RPGs in the back, but he himself couldn't even score them because of the 'rules.'

I always just suspected that they ended up on eBay. I know several of the employees at that store were scoring the harder-to-find/popular games to sell on eBay, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out the owner was doing the same thing. This is the same lady who didn't go by the chain's guidelines for prices on trade-ins, and the resale prices for used games. She always paid less and charged more. I've pretty much stopped going to that location over the past two or three years. Basically have to be in the area on other business before I'll go in now.

This is the same place that when I tried to trade in Phantasy Star II, complete, the guy looked it up in their trade-in book and offered me $2 in store credit for it...with a cart-only copy sitting in the display case for $24.95.

edit: I should qualify that I'm talking about the store on Joyce Blvd. near the mall. The store on 6th Street has great staff from what I've been able to tell, and the manager is always on top of stuff every time I go in. He even got some Saturn controllers in stock when I asked about them.

Actually, DPs own Grimbal bought them all and sold all the extras or traded them to a bunch of us here a couple of years back. I have a few garbage bags full of them in the attic...

[Kitsune Sniper]

... Then why not sell them back? ;)

[darkwingduck13]

And hook us up with a few copies of Panzer Dragoon Saga and Shining Wisdom while youre at it? :D

[icbrkr]

And hook us up with a few copies of Panzer Dragoon Saga and Shining Wisdom while youre at it? :D

Heh. They're just the *boxes*, not the games. I'll send Heath a link to this thread...

[grimbal]

Greetings Programs!!!!!!

(sorry watched Tron last night)

Ah....the good ole box haul of 2005. 1,956 SNES, Genesis, N64 boxes, a few manuals, 1 game (Revolution X for the Genny), and a Sega Master System store demo unit. $550.00 for the lot.

Took my Dakota pickup and the wife's Chevy Lumina to get them all home.

I ended up keeping one of every box for my personal collection, put the rest up here on DP and once interest had dwindled I threw the rest up on EBay in one lot.


Anyway back to the topic thread.

I worked at GXC headquarters in Springdale AR from 98 to 99 along with the owner of the Fayetteville store before they were an owner as well as the person that runs the Siloam Springs, Lowell, and Rogers GXCs. Both are still friends of mine as well.

Keeping the boxes on the sales floor is what the chain originally did. If a store got in a game they didn't have a box for they would contact the HQ and see if they had any. If they had extra ones it would be shipped to the store. If HQ only had 1 box then a photocopy was made and that was shipped out. As consoles moved away from the cartridge format the boxes have came in less and less.

Nowadays, they just simply photocopy the cartridge front tape it to a plastic case and throw it on the shelf.

The problem you always have with this system is the box on floor but no game in the back. Happened to me last week or two with Punisher for the Genesis and Bignose Freaks Out on the NES. That has always been the biggest drawback to that system. Though I must say in my year there we did a much better job of keeping it up to date.

Used to be if you traded in the box and instructions they were worth $1 in credit but those days are gone.

Some stores have gone completely away from the box route and just put the cartridge on the sales floor.

As far as pricing goes it supposed to be set by HQ, but stores have started taking liberty in the more collectible stuff. You have to shop around when buying at the GXCs in northwest Arkansas as their pricing can vary greatly, as much as $30 in some cases.

[darkwingduck13]

So, I hit up the GameXChange in Rogers across from Vintage Stock yesterday for the first time in a long while. That place is just nuts now. I never thought it was the best of the bunch, but it's like they've lost their mind. I wandered the floor, looking in each section, and kept thinking, "Wow...they don't have much in the way of decent games. The size of the selection seems to be smaller too..." Then, before I left, I stopped up front to check the display cases, where they used to keep the GBA/DS/GameGear/other handheld titles. They shifted everything down the line, and now they keep the "OMG R4r3!!!" PSOne titles there. Literally the first thing I see in the case is Revelations: Persona. How much? $129.xx. I thought I had to be misreading it, and double-checked. Nope, I was right the first time. $130. There were multiple other PSOne-era RPGs in the case for similarly-inflated prices. The only thing I can think is that they've given up on the corporate price guide entirely and now base their prices on the highest value they can find on Amazon. Valkyrie Profile, Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete, Vandal Hearts, Rhapsody (which got one of those GameQuestDirect reprints just like a year ago!), all for ridiculous prices...and those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

I'm not even envious because I want to buy the games. I either have or have had all of those at one point. It just sort of proves the point that while we all wish Mom n' Pop-style stores could continue to give us alternative to GameSlop, some Mom n' Pop-style stores just deserve to go the way of the dodo.

[grimbal]

Changes are coming to GXC. Can't go into more details as I'm not privy to all the facts.


They were originally selling Persona for $179 so glad to see they marked it down some. I've gotten a few good deals from the Rogers store. I bought a mint near complete Chrono Trigger with guide. They wanted $150 for the set but thanks to Best Buy penny guides I got it for $40 :)

Some of that stuff they ebay the price on such as Persona and I've seen them do it with other games when I've been there.

[Diosoth]

This is the same place that when I tried to trade in Phantasy Star II, complete, the guy looked it up in their trade-in book and offered me $2 in store credit for it...with a cart-only copy sitting in the display case for $24.95.

This is the mentality by which every used game store in my area runs by. Pay 10% or less. It's why I've stopped selling/trading anything to those stores.

If it's really worth that much then I'll be the one who gets that money, not them.

[Steve W]

By the way Brett, there's now two Game Xchanges in the Dallas area. One in Irving and one in Lewisville. It seems they haven't been there long enough to build up any classic games, sadly.

[Gameguy]

This is the mentality by which every used game store in my area runs by. Pay 10% or less. It's why I've stopped selling/trading anything to those stores.

If it's really worth that much then I'll be the one who gets that money, not them.
This is why I stopped buying most games from game stores. I used to think that games were worth whatever they were priced, but then I asked myself why am I only being offered $3 for a game if it's worth $20? I haven't traded anything in for many years, but whenever I did trade games it was stuff I got cheaper so I didn't mind at first. I later realized that what I was trading in was still worth more than what I was getting so I stopped. There was a store that paid $5 cash for complete Genesis games(for titles like Aladdin) but the location near me closed up shortly after I found out about it. I know stores need to make a profit and I feel that stores paying 1/3 of the selling price is fair, but it seems that most stores I've been to don't feel that 2/3 profit is enough for some reason.

[darkwingduck13]

Changes are coming to GXC. Can't go into more details as I'm not privy to all the facts.


They were originally selling Persona for $179 so glad to see they marked it down some. I've gotten a few good deals from the Rogers store. I bought a mint near complete Chrono Trigger with guide. They wanted $150 for the set but thanks to Best Buy penny guides I got it for $40 :)

Some of that stuff they ebay the price on such as Persona and I've seen them do it with other games when I've been there.

Hopefully good changes, and not more bad ones. The penny guides were great back when I had time to do it. I remember picking them up 30-40 at a time from the Fayetteville Best Buy and one time I got 80+ at the Ft. Smith Best Buy. Ended up actually spending around a dollar on that trip. And I know Persona hasn't always been that high. I'd seen it come in at the Springdale location for around $30, which is much more reasonable. Granted, the Springdale location always did seem to have the best prices whenever I found something at multiple locations.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against stores making a profit. Hell, I love GameXChange for the most part, because most of the stores I've been in are really good. The only two I've ever had issue with were the Fayetteville (Joyce/Mall area) and Rogers stores. I was sad the Mountain Home location closed, and I was in Conway for the first time in a long while last week and that location has at least moved, if not shut down. There is a different store there now that sells manga, anime, DVDs, and games, but their pricing was crazy and selection was bad.

The one in Harrison looks like it's going out of business soon. It's about half cosmetics (!) now. I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering it's run by a little old lady, but still...they've marked their Genesis titles down to $2 apiece (and they've got a big selection compared to most GXCs I've been in), but I'd long ago scored what I wanted out of their stock and there's not much traffic to bring in new carts.

I'm going on a trip in June that'll let me hit up The Game Room in Hot Springs, as I usually do once a year. Hopefully it's still open. Last time I found an official Sega CD Memory Cart in one of the boxes full of Genesis games, and the guy told me I could include it in the 3-for-$10 deal he was running on Genesis/SNES titles.

grimbal, just make sure you remember to come back and tell us about whatever info you get. I swear, if it turns out that they're all getting bought out and turned into GameStops, I'm going to lose my mind.

[darkwingduck13]

Hit up the Game X Change in Springdale, AR today for the first time in recent memory. I didn't have too long to stay, but I did poke around a bit. They had a couple different Saturn titles from the last time I was in there (I looked at Bust-A-Move 2 Arcade Edition, but put it back after finally deciding I didn't need yet ANOTHER version of Bust-A-Move...I was just itching for a Saturn find), and while I browsed around, I heard the two guys discussing the "Best Game Ever" brackets that've been running on GameFAQs. It was cool to hear them discuss it...they obviously play games and don't just sell 'em. One of the guys working in there today is the same guy that I was seeing in the 6th Street store in Fayetteville...he would always chat with me when I'd go in.

Anyway, it's kind of sad to see how much of the store is DVDs now...almost a full half. There was a time when that store, in the same building, didn't carry DVDs at all. Now they've pushed all the PSOne and Dreamcast games onto very little shelf space, and the whole right side of the store seemed to be DVDs. :(

They did have some TG16 and 3DO stuff in the very back, left-hand corner where they keep the bootlegged anime/game soundtracks and imported action figures, just in case any local people are interested. I don't keep up with 3DO, so I couldn't tell you whether any of the titles were hard to find, but there was a much larger assortment of 3DO titles than TG16 cards. I'm just mentioning it in case someone else hasn't stopped in lately and likes that kind of thing. :)

[Ryaan1234]

I have no idea if our local chain of stores, FX Games, is related to Game Xchange (Xs hmmmm), but the FX Games near me uses boxes in place of actual games to display. They will sell NES games with the box or manual if they originally came with box/manual but I've found that they have a much higher generic price for boxed games than loose ones. They had The Rocketeer for NES boxed a while back for $19.99 while the loose copies were $4.99! They also have an oversized Earthbound box on display in lieu of the actual game. I've asked several times if they'd sell me that box, but they always turn me down. I can't remember if they still have the Earthbound box, cause I haven't looked to see it in a while, it's in a specific corner of the store. Someone probably convinced them to give/sell it. I will say that one time I asked about NES manuals and the guy working there gave me some extras that they had but the games they went to had already been sold. I got a top loading NES manual, a Crystalis manual, and a Mega Man 5 manual for free!

[Steve W]

Anyway, it's kind of sad to see how much of the store is DVDs now...almost a full half. There was a time when that store, in the same building, didn't carry DVDs at all. Now they've pushed all the PSOne and Dreamcast games onto very little shelf space, and the whole right side of the store seemed to be DVDs. :(

I imagine that's because people aren't trading in all that many games, they're just buying them from the store. I don't know where stores like that get their classic games from, but I don't imagine they're always refreshing their stock on a regular basis. DVDs take up room and keep the store from looking half empty. Nobody wants to go into a store and see it with barely any stock on the shelves.

[darkwingduck13]

I imagine that's because people aren't trading in all that many games, they're just buying them from the store. I don't know where stores like that get their classic games from, but I don't imagine they're always refreshing their stock on a regular basis. DVDs take up room and keep the store from looking half empty. Nobody wants to go into a store and see it with barely any stock on the shelves.

Yeah, I kinda get that. It's still sad, though...the Springdale store used to be the Game X Change national headquarters, and you could always count on finding good stuff there. Until the past couple of years, I could count on one hand the number of times I left empty-handed. One of the guys working at the 6th Street store mentioned to me one day that now when they request new stuff from HQ, it comes from Texarkana (I believe that's the place he named) and not Springdale...so I wonder if that has something to do with it.

Anyway, one more week and then I'll be on my yearly pilgrimage to Hot Springs...and The Game Room! :) I'll try to report somewhere as to how that particular Arkansas store is faring.

[grimbal]

So the Game Room is still around. The owners used to come up to the Springdale store once or twice a year to deal with the owner.

I went down there one time and saw the store and visited with them. They were going to let me go through their storage buildings to see if there was anything I wanted for my collection.


Sadly, my chump friends who went with me were 'Too tired' though I did all the driving.

We're no longer friends.


Anyway, the last time I was there they were located in a flea market place near the race track. Are they still there or have they moved?

[darkwingduck13]

So the Game Room is still around. The owners used to come up to the Springdale store once or twice a year to deal with the owner.

I went down there one time and saw the store and visited with them. They were going to let me go through their storage buildings to see if there was anything I wanted for my collection.


Sadly, my chump friends who went with me were 'Too tired' though I did all the driving.

We're no longer friends.


Anyway, the last time I was there they were located in a flea market place near the race track. Are they still there or have they moved?

Man, I think my "friends" might have walked home. Or hitchhiked. Or been found in a ditch. Whichever. :devilish:

I've been going to The Game Room once a year for the past four or five years, and as far as I know, it's never been located near the flea market you're talking about. They're in a little shopping strip mall thing at the other end of town from the race track now. I'll see if I can attach some of the pics I took the second time I went to the store. I was so in awe the first time of all their classic inventory that I barely shopped...just sort of stumbled around in a haze. The second time, I took the digicam and the owner was nice enough to let me snap a few pics. These aren't all I took, but they fit the classic theme of this board.

[icbrkr]

Hit up the Game X Change in Springdale, AR today for the first time in recent memory. I didn't have too long to stay, but I did poke around a bit.

I haven't posted it in the finds thread yet, but I was there on Monday and walked out with all the Japanese Virtual Boy games they had in the case for $4/ea. 6 boxed Japanese VB games for $24 isn't bad at all ;)

[darkwingduck13]

I haven't posted it in the finds thread yet, but I was there on Monday and walked out with all the Japanese Virtual Boy games they had in the case for $4/ea. 6 boxed Japanese VB games for $24 isn't bad at all ;)

Don't know too much about the Virtual Boy, but I'm glad you got some deals! I saw they had several JP Game Boy games, and several 32X titles in the front glass case by the DVDs. I always look over there since it's where they keep the Saturn titles now.

By the way, where is the Finds thread?

[Steve W]

I wish it wasn't a five hour drive from Dallas. It looks to be maybe a four hour drive from Monroe, Louisiana. I could visit my sister's family there and one day drive off to Arkansas for most of the day.

[icbrkr]

I wish it wasn't a five hour drive from Dallas. It looks to be maybe a four hour drive from Monroe, Louisiana. I could visit my sister's family there and one day drive off to Arkansas for most of the day.


Its about 4 hours from me too just due to the 2 lane road south of Fort Smith (at least I believe it is).

@Darkwing: It's under 'What's it Worth?'

[Steve W]

Its about 4 hours from me too just due to the 2 lane road south of Fort Smith (at least I believe it is).
At least you've got a fairly clear shot, whereas I'll have to navigate a load of back roads from Monroe (or Ruston, a little west of Monroe) to get there. Still, the more I think about it, the more I want to go. You can pick up Earl on the way, it's a two-and-a-half hour drive from OKC to Fort Smith, maybe Rob could meet you there and carpool... :)

[grimbal]

I've been going to The Game Room once a year for the past four or five years, and as far as I know, it's never been located near the flea market you're talking about. They're in a little shopping strip mall thing at the other end of town from the race track now.

Thanks for the pics. Yeah they've moved since the last time I was there which was 97/98.

[icbrkr]

At least you've got a fairly clear shot, whereas I'll have to navigate a load of back roads from Monroe (or Ruston, a little west of Monroe) to get there. Still, the more I think about it, the more I want to go. You can pick up Earl on the way, it's a two-and-a-half hour drive from OKC to Fort Smith, maybe Rob could meet you there and carpool... :)

It sounds like a pilgramage to me! We should set up a date. Well not a *date*, but a time to go do this :)

[darkwingduck13]

Thanks for the pics. Yeah they've moved since the last time I was there which was 97/98.

Not a problem. Their store is fairly large for a video game store located in a strip mall. The left hand side is all classic stuff, while the right hand side is current-gen. It's pretty much the best game store I've ever been to. It's funny now that I've hijacked this thread. I didn't intend to in the beginning, and I apologize. Rest assured there will be more Game X Change talk here soon, because, well...there's a Game X Change in Hot Springs too (or there was last year), and I'll end up visiting there as well. :guitar:

[grimbal]

I'd be up for a trip down there as well.

[darkwingduck13]

All this talk about you guys making the pilgrimage makes me glad I'm going soon. LOL :D

[MarioMania]

Is there a web site I could go to??

[grimbal]

I don't believe the Game Room does. Game X Change has had one in the past but doesn't currently.

[darkwingduck13]

They used to be at http://www.game-x-change.net, but the site was crappy and un-maintained. I think they used to have a list of stores that I used once or twice, but that was it. The Game Room does not, and I fully believe that part of the reason why the store has so much stuff is because the guy that owns the place (and whose daughter was staffing it when I visited last year) refuses to do business online. He told me 2 years ago that he hates eBay, too much of a hassle, etc etc, but that if I was ever looking for anything in particular that I could call and if he had it we could work out a deal and he'd mail it to me. He was a really nice old guy, and told me that the store actually started out in the beginning as just his collection of gaming stuff.

[darkwingduck13]

Just to whet appetites... :evil:

I never did have time to go through all their boxed NES and SNES titles. Guess it's just as well that I only do cart-only collecting for cart-based systems. :duh:

[icbrkr]

*sigh*

I'm going to go broke aren't I? Damn me for collecting for every system possible.

[darkwingduck13]

I gotta be honest, this store has made me wish that I was rich more than just about anything else on earth. I'd just buy the whole store if I could, then spend all my leisure time sorting through it. But, luckily enough my main systems that I collect for are the Sega systems, along with the occasional SNES/GBA/PSOne title, and the only titles where I care about completeness are the CD-based titles. I gots ta have my boxes for Sega CD, Saturn, PSOne stuff, ya know? Cart titles I keep in drawers for easy sorting/playing anyway. :)

[mobiusclimber]

Damn, I'm nowhere near that store, but it looks sweet as hell. Oddly enough, Seattle mostly sucks for game stores. We have plenty of them, but they're all painfully overstocked (and most aren't staffed with gamers).

[darkwingduck13]

Hit up the Hot Springs Game X Change on Sunday. Like most Game X Changes these days, the store is at least half DVDs by now. They still have a bit of classic stuff, though. Walked out with:

Adventures of Batman & Robin - US Sega CD, complete.
Heart of the Alien - US Sega CD, complete.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow - US Strategy Guide by DoubleJump.

These were the only decent Sega CD titles they had left. I scored their copy of Earthworm Jim 2 for the Saturn last year, and it didn't look like their Saturn selection had changed since then. Still, considering I was out less than $10 for all three of these items, I think I did pretty well.

Yesterday afternoon, I hit up The Game Room. The owner was back behind the counter, which was good to see, and he remembered me from 2 years ago as "that guy who wanted to take pictures of the store," heh. He was friendly and talkative and I warned him there might be a small group of Digitpress members making a road trip to see him in the future. Walked out with:

Black Hole Assault - US Sega CD, complete, MINTY cardboard box!
Dungeon Explorer - US Sega CD, complete, mint other than the cracked case. :P
Crazy Taxi 2 - US Dreamcast, complete, mint.
Jet Grind Radio - US Dreamcast, complete, mint.
San Francisco Rush 2049 - US Dreamcast, complete, mint.
I-Spy: Operation Espionage - US Dreamcast, complete, mint.
Front Mission 3 - US PSOne Strategy Guide, complete. Didn't even know they made a guide for this game! Never seen one in the wild before.

All this for $40 even. No tax, he just cut me a deal on the whole lot. He's marked his sealed Dreamcast games down to $15 apiece, regardless of title, and he says the used ones he sells for $5 apiece now because nobody but me buys them. The Sega CD titles were $10 apiece because they're "hard to find" and he gave me the guide for free. :eek 2:

I passed on mint, complete copies of Kolibri and Knuckles Chaotix and Tempo because I don't have a 32X yet. He had them marked at $15 apiece (they looked new, minus the shrinkwrap), but I'm sure he would've worked out a deal with me.

If you guys do get together and go, here's a tip. There's an upright display case on the left side of the store just after you go in the front door. It's got glass on the front, and it's locked (or it has been in years past). It's full of Master System titles up front (saw Golvellius boxed this year), but on the bottom it's got Jaguar, Odyssey/Odyssey II, 3DO, and TG-16 games stacked all over. If you ask him, he'll open the case and let you go back behind the front row of display cases to look inside. :) I don't collect for those systems, but if I did I'm sure I'd have been having a heart attack. :love:

[Mathius]

I shop at two Game Xchanges in Indiana. One in Kokomo and the other in Lafyette. The Kokomo store is real bad at keeping NES, Snes, Genesis, etc. behind the counter without any box on the sales floor. How are you supposed to know that they have the game you want when there is no box to tell you? I went into the Kokomo store one day looking for Castlevania II and didn't see the box. So, just out of curiousity's sake I leaned over the counter, and looked at the rack of NES games, and sure enough there it was. That's happenning way too often at both stores, but their prices are so good that I really don't want to give them up. It's so infuriating though.

[darkwingduck13]

Left out something from The Game Room. For the first time in the wild, I found a copy of the guide for Skullmonkeys for the PSOne. I don't own the game yet, but it's on my list of PSOne titles to pick up. I did a quick eBay search for completed auctions, and while there were a few for the game, I found no auctions for the guide. On Amazon, the cheapest price on the guide was $40, and there were only 3 or 4 copies up. Eh, either way I'm not interested in selling it...I'll keep it for my collection. :)

[Steve W]

I have no idea if our local chain of stores, FX Games, is related to Game Xchange (Xs hmmmm)
I'm pretty sure they aren't related. Their title written on the receipt says "FX Games game exchange" which doesn't mean a whole lot (there's one up in McKinney, TX also). There's a little independent video game/role playing game store in Lewisville, TX called Game Exchange that isn't related either.

I was trying to work out how to get the time to go up there the next time I'm on vacation and meet up with some of the locals from the boards at the Game Room, but it doesn't look like it'll work out for me. Damn, that's a shame. I really want to hit that place.

[darkwingduck13]

I'm sorry that it doesn't look like you're going to get to go, Steve. It's a really cool place. Just keep it in mind for the future.

I thought I'd also mention, now that I've remembered, that for any Game Gear collectors, the Game X Change in Hot Springs had a cart-only copy of Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya for sale. I didn't see the price on it, but I'm sure it was cheap since all their older stuff save for popular NES/SNES titles seemed to be cheap.

[grimbal]

Just some news for you.

The Game X Change stores in Rogers, Bentonville, and Siloam Springs (Cities are in Arkansas) are no longer part of the GXC family.

They have split off and are now calling themselves Crossfire Games. Though the signage may still be GXC they are no longer affiliated.

[icbrkr]

... and those are some of the worst Game Xchanges I've been in. Maybe they won't suck as much now ;)

[darkwingduck13]

... and those are some of the worst Game Xchanges I've been in. Maybe they won't suck as much now ;)

QF MotherF'n T. My recent trip to The Game Room just made it more clear how bad the Rogers store was the last time I went in. :grumble:

[plastic]

... and those are some of the worst Game Xchanges I've been in. Maybe they won't suck as much now ;)I'm pretty sure that's WHY they were so bad.

They were the only locations I typically passed by. I will continue to pass by them, in lieu of the other, MUCH better Game-X-Changes.

[darkwingduck13]

Visited the Game X Change in Springdale last weekend. They'd actually gotten in some different Sega CD titles, which is rare...but unfortunately, it wasn't anything that I didn't already have. If anyone's looking for cheap copies of Sonic CD or Eternal Champions CD, better hurry over there.

I did pick up a few older strat guides. I love how many they carry at the Springdale location, and it seems like every time I go in I end up buying one or two. Granted, it's usually the 32-bit/16-bit guides, but still, that stuff isn't easy to find in the wild at most of the Game X Change stores I hit up...at least not compared to this one.

Has anyone been in the Rogers/Bentonville/Siloam stores since the "split"? Anything changed/different?

[icbrkr]

I think you can blame Heath (Grimbal) for the abundance of the strategy guides in the used stores. He funds most of his collection by the trading in of penny-guides that he got from Best Buy.

[darkwingduck13]

I think you can blame Heath (Grimbal) for the abundance of the strategy guides in the used stores. He funds most of his collection by the trading in of penny-guides that he got from Best Buy.

I think we've had this discussion before...I used to do that back when I had time. But in this case, I'm just talking about the old, old stuff. The store in Springdale actually has a good selection of the older SNES/Genesis paperback books that had strats for tons of games. Those make good "on the can" reading material. ROFL

[darkwingduck13]

Visited the Game X Change in Harrison this past weekend. It's still half cosmetics, and most of the classic games are the same games that were there the last time I visited months ago. The place just doesn't seem to get a lot of traffic. I did pick up The Dog Island for PS2 for $4...basically minty-new, just opened.

For anyone who travels that direction, Pocahontas AR has a new game store called Game Xtreme that's actually got quite a few 8-16-32-bit games in stock. The owner's also got quite a few old Tips N Tricks mags that he sells with the strat guides.

[icbrkr]

Is that near Jonesboro?

I haven't hit the Harrison store in some time. I did find a nice lab loaner of Journey Escape there a few years back.

[darkwingduck13]

Is that near Jonesboro?

I haven't hit the Harrison store in some time. I did find a nice lab loaner of Journey Escape there a few years back.

Yep, about 45 minutes north of Jonesboro. I was at a flea market in Poplar Bluff, MO on Saturday and passed on a whole box full of Odyssey/Odyssey2 stuff. Some were loose carts, some were sealed in boxes. I did not pass on the complete Wizardry VII for $2, or the complete Full Throttle CD edition for $5.\\^_^/

[darkwingduck13]

Was in Rogers on Saturday and stopped in the Game X Change by Sonic/Vintage Stock. They have indeed put "Crossfire Games" on the door with a sticker, while the big signage does still say Game X Change. The prices are still the same, too, with plenty of insanity to be found. The copy of Persona that I mentioned last time was still there (and still $179.95 according to the tag), but this time what floored me was the selection of used PC games (usually priced above retail, from the examples that stuck out), and the strategy guides. Rather than the standard $5.95 most Game X Changes use, they were apparently priced according to "merit" of some other type. I saw one random RPG guide with a $39.95 price tag on it. I can't remember the exact title, but note that I'm not talking about the Lunar 2 hardcover or the PSOne Valkyrie Profile guide. It was dog-eared and everything. Needless to say, I walked out empty-handed. :-/

On the way home, I hit up the Game X Change in Fayetteville on MLK, and picked up the DoubleJump guide for Disgaea, which covers all three versions of the game for $5.95.

[Steve W]

Well, the GameXchange in Lewisville/Flower Mound, TX that opened up just months ago has been bought out by the website Screw Attack and is now named Game Attack. The only other location around Dallas, in Irving, will stay a GameXchange. It strikes me as odd that Screw Attack would buy out a months-old store rather than just making a new one on their own, but this way they get a lot of inventory right away instead of having to build it up. But at least they have a lot more classic games there (maybe 80 Saturn games, only seven or eight are non-sports), and by the entrance is a Ms. Pac-Man arcade cab set to free play! A nice little touch. I just wonder what's going to happen to the Irving GameXchange. Apparently the Lewisville store manager went there once the buyout occurred, hopefully they'll stick around for a few years. And build up some more Atari and other classic console games.

[darkwingduck13]

Stopped in Conway during a trip early this week...the Game X Change there seems to be gone. I had no way of finding out whether it's just moved or gone out of business completely, but it's no longer in the same shopping center, that's for sure.

Hit up another store called Game Point while I was there...left thoroughly unimpressed. They had a decent enough selection of new and old stuff, but their pricing was high. Maybe I'm just getting jaded in my old age. :(

[PC-ENGINE HELL]

Man, I think my "friends" might have walked home. Or hitchhiked. Or been found in a ditch. Whichever. :devilish:

I've been going to The Game Room once a year for the past four or five years, and as far as I know, it's never been located near the flea market you're talking about. They're in a little shopping strip mall thing at the other end of town from the race track now. I'll see if I can attach some of the pics I took the second time I went to the store. I was so in awe the first time of all their classic inventory that I barely shopped...just sort of stumbled around in a haze. The second time, I took the digicam and the owner was nice enough to let me snap a few pics. These aren't all I took, but they fit the classic theme of this board.

Yea, The Game Room used to be located in the large flea market in Hot Springs. Mike eventually decided to move it into a normal store space after issues with being in the flea market. At one time in fact he was located at the front of the flea market, and someone broke in, just smashed the store all to hell and stole alot of shit. Its been awhile since I have been to his store, but I was under the assumption he has his daughter running it now or something from what a friend told me.

His brother Jeff owns Gamebiz in Hot Springs also. Mike and his wife were always solid to deal with. I used to deal with him alot when he carried imports, NeoGeo stuff, and other things. After while though he stopped messing with the import stuff, and other things in general due to not making much money on it.

Game X Change....yea back when I managed one, back in 2000-2k1, we just kept the Nes carts on a rack, no boxes, ect. I know the one in NLR now doesn't uses boxes for Nes, Snes, Genesis, N64. They just keep all the carts on a bare rack, unless its rare. If its rare its stuck in a glass case. The Springdale store, I used to deal with them a lot, and I would take them alot of 3DO and Dreamcast imports and other items. It was always funny for me to take this stuff in and watch it sit in their glass case for months at a time before someone bought something. Not a bad store back when I went, but its been a few years.

The Fayetteville one wasn't too bad either, but not great either, especially after Steve left to Fort Smith or whatever. I do believe Kelly Roberts lost all his GXC stores, Conway, NLR, LR, and Harrison locations, so the GXC in LR,NLR is under a new owner, same as the Hot Springs GXC. Kelly Roberts was a horrible owner either way it goes. I dont really care to mess with GXC anymore if I can help it. Maybe hit the NLR one once every 5 months.

Also darkwingduck13, pm sent your way.

[darkwingduck13]

So over the weekend I was in the Branson, MO area and took a look around for some game stores. Wow...not much to be had from what I could tell from the phonebook and hours of driving around. I did find one store in West Branson called Game Werks that had quite a bit of inventory, but their pricing was wonky. On the older stuff like PSOne or Saturn/Dreamcast, literally ANYthing that wasn't a sports/kids/greatest hits/budget title was pulled into the glass cases in front, and I think the cheapest price I saw on anything in the case was around $30. The rest of the store was reasonably priced, and I did get a good deal on some DVDs, so it wasn't a total wash, but the girl running the store was watching me look at the Saturn games and tried to play saleswoman. They literally only had one game that I would've bought (In The Hunt) for the Saturn, out of a bunch of gems like Albert Odyssey ($99.99), Dragon Force ($100+), Dark Savior ($49.99), and it was priced at $29.99 which was about $15 more than it's worth. I told her as much, since she wanted to talk about it, and she said that she prices everything by averaging the value between three or four different websites she looks at.

Not the best way to do business. I always end up just kind of shaking my head at these places where the games are priced according to online resources. If they want those prices, just sell online. :-/

[Steve W]

I drove past the only GameXchange in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, the store in Irving, and sadly it's closed and empty. There was another location farther North in Lewisville, but it was bought out by the Screw Attack website for their storefront. Maybe GameXchange felt that there wasn't a point in having only one location so far away from their main territory? Either way, I'm sad. They didn't have a whole lot of retro stuff, but what they did have was pretty nice. I hope that maybe they just moved to a new location or something. It'd be nice to have more competition for GameStop in this area.

[8bitgamer]

I drove past the only GameXchange in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, the store in Irving, and sadly it's closed and empty. There was another location farther North in Lewisville, but it was bought out by the Screw Attack website for their storefront. Maybe GameXchange felt that there wasn't a point in having only one location so far away from their main territory? Either way, I'm sad. They didn't have a whole lot of retro stuff, but what they did have was pretty nice. I hope that maybe they just moved to a new location or something. It'd be nice to have more competition for GameStop in this area.

Is the Screw Attack store any good?

[cracked8ball]

I'm sad as well that the only Game Xchange in the DFW area is dead. Got a ton of rare and obscure NES and SNES carts from there. I'd stop by every week on my lunch break. I noticed in the final months they had reduced their hours, and the store never seemed to have customers. They also had the same stock for the past several months and never seemed to get anything new in. I'd say its safe to assume lack of business did them in. Shame since they had decent prices. Yet the overpriced Console Game Xchange down the street still lives.

I'm interested in GameAttack's status as well if anyone has been there in the past few months. I stopped in on opening day and it didnt seem much different from GXC that was there before.

Also, anyone know the hours for this Game Room in Arkansas?. I stopped there on the way back from a road trip in July on a Monday and they were closed. No one seems to answer the phone when I call either. Would love to head up there and explore one day.

[Steve W]

Is the Screw Attack store any good?

It's a nice place, but not a whole lot of retro stuff. Or at least, pre-NES retro stuff which is the kind of thing I tend to look for. I emailed the GameXchange headquarters last night, just to see if they closed down for good or maybe they moved to a better location. I know that the manager of the Flower Mound store went over to the Irving store when Screw Attack bought that one out. Maybe the manager decided to move a little closer to where he lives, if he lived close to the other store.

The Irving Game Xchange must have come across a box of Sega Saturn copies of Nights Into Dreams, because they had a whole bunch of unopened sealed copies in their retro game case, all $9.99 each. The last time I stopped by, they'd sold all of them except two or three. I didn't bother since I already have a copy bought at the Oklahoma Game Expo years ago. I kind of wish I'd picked one up.

[PentiumMMX]

The nearest Game-X-Change to me (The one in Tyler, TX) is starting to go downhill again. Their manager, in an effort to get more out on the shelves, has stopped taking the cases for Sega Genesis, so now the games for it are taken in cartridge only (Although it's annoying that they did not have the case to Phantasy Star II).

Still, they are a decent store; it's still the only place close by that I know of that deals in anything made prior to the PS2.

[Steve W]

The nearest Game-X-Change to me (The one in Tyler, TX) is starting to go downhill again. Their manager, in an effort to get more out on the shelves, has stopped taking the cases for Sega Genesis, so now the games for it are taken in cartridge only (Although it's annoying that they did not have the case to Phantasy Star II).

Still, they are a decent store; it's still the only place close by that I know of that deals in anything made prior to the PS2.

Isn't there another game store with retro stuff in it? There's a game store that's down in Waco, and they told me there was a second location up in Tyler. I can't recall what it's called off the top of my head, though. I hope that store has the same good prices that the Waco store did. I wiped out their Sega CD rack when I was down there!

[darkwingduck13]

I hit up the Game X Change in Rogers over the weekend...or I guess I should say Crossfire Games, though they still don't have a sign up. Good news: someone working there must be reading these boards, because the price on that copy of Persona dropped down to around $52.95, I think it was. Bad news: their selection is dwindling and the DVDs are taking over the store, covering way more floor space than they used to.

It's gotta be hard to keep a B&M store going these days (as if it were ever EASY). This store sells used PC games, many of which are priced at the retail price but for a used copy...and even then, there are websites like http://www.gogamer.com where you can get the same titles cheaper even after shipping (and new on top of that). Sega CD and Saturn stuff is hard to come by in Arkansas, and all this place had was sports titles and one or two FMV titles for each of those systems.

Still, it's good to see there's some progress being made.

[darkwingduck13]

So, I hit up the Game X Change in Fayetteville on Joyce today for the first time in a long frickin' time. I've had bad experiences there before, so I usually avoid it, but I'm in the market for a PSP 2001 model and I was driving right by it on my way home, so I stopped in to see if they had any in stock. "Elmo," the guy who I most often have seen in there for the past several years, was working the counter with a large purchase. Some guy bought a 360, several games, some controllers, and even some accessories. I waited patiently, browsed the store while "Elmo" (this is just going by his nametag) processed the guy's transaction. You'd think he'd be happy he just made a big sale, right? I didn't hover or make a nuisance of myself, and when he got done, I waited a little longer for him to finish up whatever he was doing. When he got done, he looked up and I stepped over and he just stared at me. I asked him if they had any PSP units other than the 6 PSP Go units that I saw stacked up in the display case, and he said they were just getting ready to put out a PSP 2001 for sale. It was sitting on the counter behind him, wasn't wrapped or anything yet, but he'd said they'd finished going over it. I asked him if I could try it out and test the buttons and the screen...partly because my current 1001 model has a single dead pixel that bugs me and I'd like to avoid that on my new one, and partly because I like to test the D-pad/buttons before I buy a used system. This never used to be a problem at Game X Change, but "Elmo" just flatly tells me "No." No explanation, no I'm-sorry-but-this-is-our-policy speech, just "No" without even looking at me. I tell him that I'm in the market to buy one and have the cash, but I'm not going to buy one that I can't test first. He replies "Okay" and waves me off toward the door. He literally swept me out of the store with a hand gesture. I've never been so close to just flipping someone off in public in my life.