Frustrated with the lack of Pre Nes Game stores........

[swlovinist]

Being that I am a collector of a wide range of games, I have plunged into the deep dark depths of the late 70's and early 80 for video games and early vintage computers. I have been collecting for years, and with retogaming becoming more popular, I am curious............why arent there more chain game stores going retro carrying pre nes games stuff? With Gamestop doing the exact opposite and cutting out their old stuff, and many other main chains scoff at the idea that this could be a profitable idea. All I know is that I went to a mall in Portland OR and came to a conclusion, CHAIN GAME STORES DONT GIVE A CRAP ABOUT RETROGAMERS. I know that they dont think they can make money on this, but personally, THEY HAVENT TRIED! It frustrates me, I know it can be done, even if I have to try myself, I will! There needs to me MORE stores that cader to game collectors. Either you have to go to a dark pawn shop and get reemed from someone who does not care about games and does not know what they have, OR you rummage goodwill stores praying that you will find an atari cart other than Pac Man!. I know stock is an issue, but this is something that game stores SHOULD consider.........cutting out reto games just makes the game store model that much more BORING!

[YoshiM]

When you get a store to cater to collectors (or at least try to) that usually equals out to big tickets on even the more common stuff. Even for those that love the hobby have to be able to sell the games at a decent profit in order to keep the lights on in their store and their employees paid.

Collectors are a minority. We have to face it. Businesses that deal with used games will try to fulfill demands if there's enough requests and I can bet you a zenny that probably the most requested retro game is the NES. Anything older than that is a risk. With NES on forward companies can still get their hands on many titles for cheap. A variety of "middle man" game wholesalers will buy out closing video stores, electronics stores, old stock from manufacturers and such for lot prices and will the sell them off to resellers who also buy them for a song. Then they sell the games for whatever they think the market will bare (the EBs that sell SMB for $14.99) or discount stores like K-Mart for a set price.

With pre NES the quantity of games isn't available. They've been out of the market way too long for companies to stock pile them and those that did have probably already sold them (see also O'Shaes who had a ton of Atari 2600, Jaguar, and 7800 titles for sale on the cheap as they bought out a warehouse). Thanks to the Internet people also feel their Pac-Mans and Combats are worth gold yet these same people wouldn't buy the Pac-Mans and Combats are the prices the companies would have to charge to make a livable profit by paying those "gold" prices. Even if they are able to get the games for a decent price it's back to the demand again. If there is little or no demand, it's costing them money wasting (in their minds) shelf space on Atari and Coleco carts when they could put demanded and fast moving merchandise there instead. As I said before, love of the hobby doesn't keep the lights on or put food on the table.

[swlovinist]

If anything, I would love for a chain to take the "risk" and go the way of retro gaming. I think game collectors are more prevelant than this site shows, as for there are many who dont want to be noticed :D When the future of game sales doenst pan out the way some of these game stores want, I wonder what they are going to do. It will be interesting what places like Gamestop, EB, and others are going to do in the future to make their chain stand out. I personally am getting the "Blah" feeling going into these stores as of late. When a used section becomes nothing more than a bin of scratched caseless sports titles, and 30+ used ps ones as the only available system to buy in the store. This is not going to advertise, "we have used games!" This advertises "we are generic and look like everyone else!" When game stores start looking like everyone else, then someone is going to loose and loose bigtime. The futre of game stores must change in order to survive in this turbulant and more unstable than people want to mention time of video games.

[YoshiM]

Sounds like the store or stores you go to have some pretty poor inventory management going on if scratched sports titles and crap PS1 is really all they have. :)

Honestly if I was still an active collector I wouldn't want an EB or Gamestop to carry pre NES. Even if they could find a plentiful supply for cheap (as I mentioned in my first post) they would probably charge a pretty penny for it as they are considered "collector items" and/or "rare". For a while EB was charging $14.99 for Super Mario Bros. (they've reduced it to about $5, according to their web site). They currently charge $10 for SMB 2. That should give you some indication at what they would charge for pre NES games. Would you really wanna pay $3 to $5 each for common Atari 2600 carts? I know I wouldn't and unless these stores didn't do their homework and sell rares for cheap collectors probably wouldn't drop the cash for the carts. Casual gamers also wouldn't pay that kinda cash for "ancient" games when they could spend that same amount on a good looking/playing PS1 or N64 game from the other rack. Even then other stores including Goodwills, pawns and Salvation Armies and even individual sellers (garage sales, etc.) would see this and MAY jack their prices up accordingly as "that's what you pay in the stores". I'm sure we've all seen instances of this in our respective haunts.

Naw, leave the pre NES stuff to the smaller stores. Besides, how much fun would it be if you had easy access to the older games? A big part of the fun is the hunt. Even though I'm not really collecting anymore I still get a thrill if I see a game for a system I do have or an item I haven't seen in a long time (like the original Merlin handheld game at Goodwill on Saturday).