10 Reasons Why I Hate the Worldwide Video Games Store

[Great Hierophant]

This place (located in Weymouth, MA) has continually gone downhill from the first time I walked into the store a couple of years ago until a few days ago, when I vowed I would never cross its threshold again. First is the prices. $4.99 for NES commons, $3.99 for Atari commons. If I paid that much I would lose whatever dignity I ever had by the time I walked out of the store. Second is that the store just seems kinda unclean and is disorganized behind the counter. Third, I don't care for the attitudes of the employees nor do I care to listen to their ubiquitous fascist talk radio. Fourth, traffic around the store's strip mall is annoyingly heavy and its hours are not especially convenient. Fifth is that they don't have any interesting rare games or systems, at least on display. Sixth is that they put price tags on the cartridge labels. Gamestop employees who do that do it because they are lazy, low paid and ignorant, but I expect better from a specialty store. Seventh, the place is always dead so there is nobody cool to talk to. Eighth, they store most of their NES + SNES carts in these filthy plastic security boxes that prevent me from making a proper inspection of the cartridge. Ninth, the owner is knowledgeable but his most frequent employee is useless. Tenth, the whole place is so depressing and soul numbing for all the above reasons that I would rather risk my life hunting in some of the seedier Mass. flea markets than spend 10 minutes in this store ever again.

[Half Japanese]

Eleventh, they aren't forcing you to shop there...

[christianscott27]

i've said it before i'll say it again, that owner guy reminds me of al bundy in the shoe store...

on the plus side you can wheel and deal him down on prices unlike at say gamestop. oh well at least he's there doing his thing, its getting hard to find pre-playstation games in retail anymore, gotta root for the little guy carrying the retro torch. he needs to buy a digital press guide, in his case it would actually help lower prices.

[peeingas]

I have shopped there many a time. The owner guy is a liar, but the guy who works in there on wednesdays and sundays is cool, at least he's honest. They clearly have no clue how to price things there, So you can sometimes get good deals. For example I got a complete Warsong for the Genesis for $5 while they sell Mario 3 and Zelda for $30 each.

[roxybaby]

I realize it isn't the most economically sound practice, but I'll pay a little bit more for a game if I'm buying it from a local store and the salesperson is nice. I see it as thanking them for still selling games for the "dead" systems and not selling out to a chain.

[Ed Oscuro]

Sounds like my kind of place.

I was at a book store in Williamsburg, VA and man they had some nice stuff there. First editions and signed copies of books had a paper label outside them; the only bad thing about the place's handling of books is that prices were lightly pencilled on the first page of the book in the top right hand corner (common enough practice). They had a little of everything, from some very old (i.e. 1650s old) woodcuts to a couple copies of the English-language Soviet Millitary Review from the 1970s...and the sci-fi section had stuff I wanted to pick up pretty bad. The pricing was just too high for me, though...$10 for common hardcovers would've burned through my money too quickly and the better sci-fi was up to $30 (and some much higher). So sometimes a nice place can be a bad thing.

Back to this place...I would personally love to have a place like that in town. Far off in Lakeview there's a game store; I checked it out and all they've got are current games for the disc based system. Metroid Prime and that sort of thing. There's two Goodwills in the general area; one's close to my home (the shopping centers are slowly encroaching on my neck of the woods) and another's pretty far away off in Marshall. I think there's a Salvation Army somewhere or other but I haven't been by for quite a while and that was back before I was a classic games collector (or had a job, for that matter, so pretty much before 1998, and I didn't spend any of the money I made until 2001...)

So the only place I can buy classic games at is my local Goodwill and they had three cartridges in the whole place - a yellow tab EA sports title and two repackaged NES games (SMB/DH and Platoon, and I already found a loose Platoon there. Damn Platoon.) so stuff is very, very slow in coming.

I wouldn't mind if common stuff was higher priced if they had MORE. Any store owner who doesn't have some eBay knowledge or (better yet) a Digital Press guide is a store owner who's either going to overprice anything or walk away from a lot of money selling things much lower than they're worth. If I had a game store I might sell some of the more expensive stuff $5 or maybe even $10 less than it's worth if I found it cheaper, just some of it to get people to walk in. Hey. I don't have a lot of love for "rare and awful" games, but a lot of really decent Genesis titles NEED to show up at my local Goodwill one of these days.

Stickers? I leave 'em on my carts. Some stuff I've found I'll be able to show to somebody some day - "heh, I found this for $2.99" and that's worth it in my book. As far as I know their sticker gun doesn't damage the cart itself if they just glide the sticker on.

[Ed Oscuro]

I realize it isn't the most economically sound practice, but I'll pay a little bit more for a game if I'm buying it from a local store and the salesperson is nice. I see it as thanking them for still selling games for the "dead" systems and not selling out to a chain.
It's alright if you do that, but man, don't punish yourself. Thank stores that sell games at good prices by buying from them.

I thank Goodwill for selling some stuff at good prices by buying from them. It's simple and we all come out ahead. Money's too scarce for me to be going on wasteful philanthropic endeavors to "thank" folks for supporting "dead" systems

...I guess I'm saying I play by the IKSS rule (I Keep Spendthrifty, Stupid), and that's the way it should be ;)

[Bratwurst]

I realize it isn't the most economically sound practice, but I'll pay a little bit more for a game if I'm buying it from a local store and the salesperson is nice. I see it as thanking them for still selling games for the "dead" systems and not selling out to a chain.
It's alright if you do that, but man, don't punish yourself. Thank stores that sell games at good prices by buying from them.

I thank Goodwill for selling some stuff at good prices by buying from them. It's simple and we all come out ahead. Money's too scarce for me to be going on wasteful philanthropic endeavors to "thank" folks for supporting "dead" systems

...I guess I'm saying I play by the IKSS rule (I Keep Spendthrifty, Stupid), and that's the way it should be ;)

I'm pretty sure he'd be keeping it within reason, Ed. In most circumstances I'd be willing to spend five extra bucks on a complete Genesis title in great shape at a storefront rather than justify the cheaper, ratty loose cartridge at a flea market booth.

[Keir]

I have shopped there many a time. The owner guy is a liar, but the guy who works in there on wednesdays and sundays is cool, at least he's honest.
That's true, but he still listens to the same awful radio station. Every once in a while I find a good deal, but last time I was there I had to walk out before I finished looking because I just couldn't take the yelling (on the radio).

[christianscott27]

96.9 or that really dumb howie carr AM station?

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm pretty sure he'd be keeping it within reason, Ed. In most circumstances I'd be willing to spend five extra bucks on a complete Genesis title in great shape at a storefront rather than justify the cheaper, ratty loose cartridge at a flea market booth.
I'd pay the extra for the better game no matter where I found it ;)

All things being equal, which is what he said, he'd pay a bit extra to support a store just because he likes it. Now if there's something really wrong with a store then you certainly don't have to give them your business...but I feel that if I pay $3.50 for a game that I could've bought for $2.99 elsewhere, I'll go with the cheaper price because that'll add up to getting another game pretty soon.

That said, I'd guess that the store one likes will indeed have better quality merchandise, in which case I'd probably make more purchases there.

[Queen Of The Felines]

Psst...roxy's a she. ;)

Kristine

[Great Hierophant]

96.9 or that really dumb howie carr AM station?

I think he is probably a Jay Severn listener...

[roxybaby]

Psst...roxy's a she. ;)

Kristine

True dat. Girl through and through. :)

I've certainly fallen victim to paying too much for games before. I probably wouldn't pay more than a dollar or two extra at a local store. Even though the selection isn't great in Colorado, the guys who work at the stores have been very nice to me as I learn and one of them is pretty damn hot. Plus, I figure that if I bought the games on ebay I'd have to pay shipping, so it all evens out in the end.