Where do you buy your classic Games at?

[T2KFreeker]

Just curious, when you don't get your fix here, where do you go for it man? Just trying to find out.

[Tommy]

Luna Video Games In San Diego, Craigslist Or Ebay

[T2KFreeker]

Luna hacve a website?

[Hwj_Chim]

Bookmans in Tucson. It is about an hour and a half away but there are three stores there in tucson and it makes for a nice day trip.

[agbulls]

Video Games Etc. in Chicago or right here or ebay :)

[staxx]

Mainly Flea Markets or ebay

[NES_Rules]

In the summer, its either garage sales or flea markets. In the winter, its Goodwill or some other thrift store. I've never bought a game off the internet.

[Andred]

Disc Replay in Indy, fleamarkets, goodwill

[PSerge]

Well, I like so many others here do a lot of Thrift Stores, some Flea Markets, and some "Antique" stores, some are more flea market then Antique Store but that's what they call themselves. Craigslist is other good place to look for classic games, I myself have stored some GREAT deals from Craigslist.

There are a few game stores around Nashville that have classic games and I hit those up from time to time. But I love going to Flea Markets, you never know what you'lll find.

[xtremegamer]

Mostly pawn shops, thats where most turn up in my area. I have been into Trade-N-Games, the owner is a user on here. He is a very nice guy to deal with and has a good selection on older games.

[retroman]

Flea Markets, and a store called Power Gamer here in the Baltimore Area, and Online too.

[Japan-Games.com]

Bookmans in Tucson. It is about an hour and a half away but there are three stores there in tucson and it makes for a nice day trip.


Cool... If you've bought any Sega Saturn CD imports there over the last year I was probably the one who sold it to them...heh. When I'm in the US I stay in Tucson. Bookman's is pretty cool. They have some good random hardware there, things you don't really think to buy or look for until it's right in front of you.

[Push Upstairs]

I don't buy games, I concentrate really hard and they magically appear. 8-)













Ok...either a place called "Game X Change" or Ebay, Amazon, GameCrazy.

[DigitalSpace]

Wherever I find classic games I want at a reasonable price, and preferably as cheap as possible.

Fortunately, I haven't had to resort to ebay for anything yet (though I have bought and traded several games online).

Right now, most of my classic game purchases come from thrifting, pawns, trips to all of the local CD/Game Exchange stores, and whatever Game Crazy has left (though the recent 3 for $10 sale really cleaned out the local stores of the best stuff they had left, and even before that there wasn't too much).

[Fuyukaze]

Used to get em at gamestop and EB, then they stoped carrying em. Used to get em at local book stores but then they discovered e-bay and now demand e-bay prices, even if the listing never sold (btw, 3 of them went under, guess you realy cant expect $400 for a complete Chrono Trigger minus maps and manuel). With gamecrazy going out of clasic, it's e-bay and local pawn shops. I hate e-bay as it's full of auction snipers, re-sellers, and jackass sellers. It's getting more and more difficult to get the games I want these days for anything close to reasonable.

[pookninja]

gamecrazy,ebay,or goodwill is usually where i get my classic stuff

[Mr.collection]

fiea markets, thrift stores, and mainly The Exchange (N Ohio and Penn), I drool on ebay but only buy stuff I know I can't get locally like Playchoice games.

Never at any huge chain of game or electronic stores, they piss me off.

[Pantechnicon]

My main sources now are local game shops: #1 is Noble Collectibles, perhaps the only place in America where you can buy both used Genesis imports and a plate of fresh spring rolls at the same time. :?

There are other local shops as well: Gamerz Anonymous, Addicted To Comics, GameProz (not exactly local, but a relatively small southwestern chain). I'm a firm believer in supporting local shops above homogenous chains. I take this philosophy on the road with me as well. Whenever I visit friends or family that live out of state I make a point of knowing or finding out about local shops and paying them a visit. Yesterday I hit the two excellent Gamers stores in Omaha, Nebraska, and I've even been to the Luna Games of San Diego mentioned earlier in this thread.

I was a regular thrift store hound for the last ten years but I've hardly gone to them at all in the last six months. Goodwill used to be my main source of stuff but I haven't had a decent score there in ages owing to it being largely overrun by flea market racketeers and across-the-border resellers. The other thrifts were never that great in the first place. When things do show up, it's usually post-NES anyway, which suggests to me that most of the pre-NES stuff that people might have cleared out of their attics is already gone and is replaced largely with second and third gen consoles. So local shops are pretty much the only way to anything pre-NES anymore, short of going online, which I don't like to do very much, although the writing on the wall seems to suggest that I might not soon have a choice.

[RJ]

For the Twin Cities area there's always GameStop in the Mall of America in Bloomington, but IMO their selection, quality, & prices could be way better, & unfortunately, it's the only games store there now (used to be 3 or 4.) Of course there's the other GameStops, EB Games, & GameCrazy.

Discland- 35W & 98th St, Bloomington. Impressive selection of most classic systems. Also sells music, T-shirts, accessories, etc. I'd go there first.

Also check the Half-Price Books locations. I've scored good deals there, like Genny carts for $1 each, & DDR MAX (PS2) for $10 while it was still in stores for much more. Gaming mag back issues too, at least at the Northtown location.



In the eastern St Paul suburbs there's quite a few. I'm in Oakdale & a short distance from these:

Hi-Score Games (off Century Ave & Minnehaha behind McDonalds), & on Hwy 5 heading east to Stillwater on the svc rd near Wal-Mart. They also have a kiosk/carts set up in the Maplewood Mall food court. Good selection at the stores.

ToyRiffic on Beam Av & White Bear Av by Maplewood Mall. Good selection & fair prices.

Media Exchange 123 in Valley Creek Mall in Woodbury, but their buy-back policies are VERY strict- they demand used games to be like new to buy them back. Big selection of PS/PS2/XB/GC.

Inetdvd(.com)- south of 10th St & 35E (north of I94) Oakdale. Havent been in there in ages but the clerk showed me some Genesis carts he'd been hauling around in his car.

There's a guy named Lance up in Stacy that sells (a bit pricey) Atari systems/games/access thru his website: www.atarisales.com



God, there's gotta be more- I've shared these places so many times...I dont go to them much anymore so I really dont care if they get cleaned out. Hope this helps- let us know your experiences at these places if you go...

[Schenley]

I'm lucky.

1 hour north of me is this place (some of you might have heard of it):

Digital Press Videogames. (www.digitpress.com/store)

And, 1 hour south of me is this place:

Next Level VideoGames. (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93033)

You really can't beat that for a one-two punch!

[cyberfluxor]

Warning, lots of chatter about the places I go. :)

I'll start with the indy stores.

My favorite, Replays, exists about 20 minutes from my house and it's not a big place but the owner is awesome and generally sells renouned titles and more rarities. He carries very few sports titles, which is awesome because I'm not wasting a bunch of time staring down Madden's and NHL titles I don't care for. His prices are reasonable when you're looking for that hard to find game and his trade-in values are some of the highest in the area. It's an overall great place to deal with and some interesting conversations also happen and I end up spending a few hours there a week.

Another place that I enjoy going to (mainly due to somehow having Saturn games in stock) but don't go out that way but once a month or so is Extreme Media. I've seen the store owner at some of my pawn shopping stops beating me to some deals (and actually one time he saw me and walked out knowing I was grabbing the goods). It's a larger store with a wider selection but the prices are sometimes a bit high, however there's always at least one game that's worth the buy.

The largest store around here is Cool Stuff, full of so many duplicates and they buy pretty much anything you bring in. They compensate the high volume of games with some of the highest prices around. $6 is the magic number for older games (to keep up profits it seems) and newer games just vary around. Sometimes you can find some deals but it's rare due to the massive selection there's a lot of overlooking. The owner (I believe) swears by the DP rarity guide as the game bible and generally dictates his prices, with a combination of eBay. Whenever you trade something in the store the owners pawns (which are gamers that somehow know little to nothing about older games) always refer to the boss for prices. It's a shame a store with such volume has generally poor service and pricing.

The least place I like to venture to would be Video Game Heaven. They are some of the biggest rip-offs in the world. I had a friend that once worked for them and agrees they have a dumb ideology of the gaming business. I've seen the owner of this place too out shopping (and she also has a flea market booth) and has bought Saturns for $20 and resells them for $40 at her stores. Same goes with monitors and video games, so she horribly buys average to over-priced items then turns around passing on the high bill to consumers. One thing I can say positive about it is that she'll beat me to places locally and sometimes overlook what she has and sell it for a bit cheaper at the store (and her cronies don't know a thing about gaming either). I got SNES Mario RPG for $9 there once and some other deals but it rarely happens making it a location at the bottom of my shopping list.


Over to the pawn shops!

There's really only one pawn shop I go to for gaming and electonics needs. This place is of course Cash Converters. They have a dozen locations in my area 3 of which I go to bi-weekly and one I go to 1-3 times a week. They sell older games for $1-2 each loose/complete and newer gen games (GC, PS2, Xbox) for $3+, beating Game Stop and EBgames 9 times out of 10 in prices. I also get some decent deals on electronics and computers there (one time got a brand new 160GB hard drive for $8 and been using it since :D). Also it's my record place of choice since they range from 50 cents to $1 each, but they don't get new vinals in often and it's generally a poor selection full of rap, but sometimes you can find a good oldschool hip-hop/breakdance record or some techno or various other things.


The chain stores I go to are Game Stop, EB Games, Circuit City, Target and Best Buy. I don't find myself in Target too often and usually buy DVDs and clothes from there. Game Stop & EB Games are the places I go for reserves and occasial deals (B2G1F) and the Best Buy generally sucks but is the best source for anime. Circuit City has the best deals on new games, sometimes beating other places by $20 or more. Ex. getting Haunting Ground for $9.98 3 months ago while it's still $30 at GS & EBG. I also recently got Bust-A-Move (PSP) $10 new, can't beat that anywhere around here, even used.


Then lastely is eBay, the place I get my bundle deals on Saturn and games just not found around here or incredibly rare. There's not much I can elaborate on with them since nearly everyone has familiarized themselves with it and other online sites like Amazon.

[Slate]

Yard sales, Goodwills, Flea Markets, Thrift shops.

Although it isn't always there and sometimes it's overpriced, I find amazing deals. In two seperate deals I got 115 NES Games, 8 N64 games, 9 SNES Games (Some wich I sold locally for $2.50 each) And a sega genesis, And the total price was $32, Now $22.

I'm not kidding, The deals are out there.

[Octane06]

The main way that I get my games is through garage sales. I do visit thrift stores as well, but I never seem to get lucky at them. Gamecrazy is no help now: I've bought all the games I want for them, and they never get anything new. I also really haven't visited too many flea markets; maybe I'll start trying those more.

[DKTheArcadeRat]

I'm lucky.

1 hour north of me is this place (some of you might have heard of it):

Digital Press Videogames. (www.digitpress.com/store)

And, 1 hour south of me is this place:

Next Level VideoGames. (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93033)

You really can't beat that for a one-two punch!

I am at Next Level literally every week, doing some work, and getting some games, lol.

And if I had a car, I would go up to the DP Store for NAVA and such, but I can't cause It would take too long on my moped, its 2 hours by car tho.

Other than those 2, I've had excellent luck at Goodwill, and moderate success at flea markets.

Dave

[s1lence]

Discland- 35W & 98th St, Bloomington. Impressive selection of most classic systems. Also sells music, T-shirts, accessories, etc. I'd go there first.



There's a guy named Lance up in Stacy that sells (a bit pricey) Atari systems/games/access thru his website: www.atarisales.com



I've not heard of Discland, I'll have to check that out. That most be "newer" cause it wasn't there when I worked at the Ford dealership thats right there.

Lance is a good guy. I had him fix a dead Atari computer and 2600 a while back.

[BydoEmpire]

Mostly Flea World in Sanford, FL and eBay. I've really cut down my ebaying this last year, though. I also check out the Goodwill stores when I can, but haven't found much good there. I don't really go often enough.

[gruzniak]

In my experiences Goodwill is where the best deals can be found. If someone ever donated say a Chrono Trigger they'd slap a $1.99 sticker on it, and put it with the other SNES games, and not think anything more of it. Sure it may only last a day or two (if even!) but great deals can be had at goodwill.

[Tron 2.0]

Ebay or japangamestock.com for my import needs on old systems.

[Lozza]

Luna Video Games In San Diego, Craigslist Or Ebay

I'm in Sad Diego! I never knew about Luna video games... will def be checking it out.

I normally look in second hand/thrift stores & ebay.

[Eternal Champion]

The "at" in your question is superfluous.

Anyway, Ebay. I don't have time to hunt around. I paid too much for FFIII SNES a few years ago, but the hell with it.

[Tommy]

I'm in Sad Diego! I never knew about Luna video games... will def be checking it out.

I normally look in second hand/thrift stores & ebay.

The store is really cool. I like it alot, I am going tomorrow to look around.

[Overbite]

ebay is the only place I can get old games. it sucks :(

[tonyvortex]

Disc Replay in Indy, fleamarkets, goodwill
ha nice,i work at the one in merrillville and it helps me with finding lots of stuff.

[Mattiekrome]

The most recent purchase I made was for a mess of NES games right here on DP, but other than that its been several months since I picked anything up. I used to frequent the thrifts, but its too hard/much trouble to find anything worth while there now. The local Gamecrazy used to have a great selection of older NES/GEN/DC/PS1 games (when it first opened about 2 years ago) but since then it looks like it has just been picked through with no additional stock added. The EB games the next town over used to have a pretty good selection of retro as well, but they no longer carry anything pre PS2 (very small seleciton of PS1 games). Back before they sold off all of their retro inventory, they had the 75% off sale. I ended up getting a pile of good NES games (Tysons Punch Out, Metroid, Bubble Bobble, Mega Man, etc) but also left ALOT behind. It wasn't until I got home until it really sank in that I just picked up 10-15 mint NES games for pennies on the dollar, so I decided the next day I would go back and buy out all the NES games (except for SMB/DH), but when I got there a dealer had already picked up EVERYTHING NES. :frustrated:

[incubus421]

Well I moved up to New York just a couple months ago and the only place I've had time to locate and go to so far has been GameCrazy...their 3 classic games for $10 can work out fantastic sometimes.
But they're are garage sales around here all the time...I just never find the time to go to some.

[DreamTR]

fuyu wrote:

" I hate e-bay as it's full of auction snipers, re-sellers, and jackass sellers. It's getting more and more difficult to get the games I want these days for anything close to reasonable."

Well, what do you think local game stores are? They resell as well, what are you supposed to expect with business overhead? Everyone wants something in what they deem "reasonable" in their own eyes, but no one's going to sell it to you at that price and make a buck.

cyberfluxor:about Video Game Heaven in VA selling Sega Saturns for $40 after buying them for $20, I fail to see how that is an issue if they are a retailer/reseller. It's not like the price is out of control or anything. I've sold tons of items to VGH in the past, mostly for newer systems, and the owner is not supposed to know everything about every game on the planet, it's very hard these days, and getting a Mario RPG for $9 is a great deal there, so I don't see why you dislike the place. If you had a better example (like paying high for SNES systems and selling them triple their value or something) then I could see why you would be upset.

To be quite frank, I am glad we have a game store out in Los Angeles like this.

Check out www.gamedude.com

Look at their buyback prices on the majority of their games. WHo else is going to give you those values on classic and current generation titles? (Sans 2600) They give you higher rates than almost ANYONE in the country, especially with EB/GS buyback value being close to nothing.

There are some other places out here that sell classic items, but they do rely on the higher Game Dude price list on most of their inventory, which ends up sitting in their stores forever.

All we really have left are Game World Exchange, Game Dude, Game Force, A & J Games, Gameplay, and Games For LEss.

[ice1605]

I go to a store called Trading Zone (Columbus, OH). The prices are on the high end (toward eBay), however, the selection tends to be pretty good, and there isn't another alternative.

[l_lamb]

Since there's no good local store other than the chains, I do my shopping in Austin at Gamefellas and a new shop I found this weekend called Game Over Videogames. Gamefellas has a much larger selection of PSone era and newer and sells a lot of new stuff, but doesn't have as much of the classics. They also don't sort anything and have cartridges stacked so you have to ask someone to pull them all out to browse. And they have to write out the invoice on a carbon form, which takes a long time when you buy a lot of games.

Game Over (http://www.gameovervideogames.com (http://www.gameovervideogames.com/)) carries a large amount of older games and has everything in alphabetical order by system so it's easy to see what's what. They also carry more of the licensed merchandise like shirts, stuffed animals, and promo items. And they have all of their inventory computerized so checkout is fast.

Both are reasonable with their prices, but the service was much better at Game Over.

[ubersaurus]

Outside of ebay?

flea market. Sometimes something good shows up in a thrift or pawn or yard sale. Small businesses are good too-I found a load of classic games at a store about a half hour from me last weekend.

Go Buzz Bombers!

[TheWesker]

There's a few local places.

I mainly shop at CD World. They get a ton of NES, SNES and other random stuff in all the time. It's usual for me to walk out of there with 5 or so games.

Their prices are mainly fair, but can sometimes be ridiculous. (Zelda 1 and 2 $20 each!?)

[Sailorneorune]

My local stomping grounds (Henderson, KY/Evansville, IN) have a few game stores worth mentioning...

first: Book Broker, Evansville - no website, sorry - one ugly-ass building crammed with awesomeness. It's mostly there for comics and cards, but I'm mostly there for the games and anime. Found quite a few deals there ($15 Lunar SSSC, cheap DC fighters, half price DS Wifi adapter, and a decent start on Fullmetal Alchemist and Macross), and highly recommended to any southern IN/western KY DPers. Just save some for me.

Next on da list: Book & Music Exchange - Henderson/Evansville/Owensboro - only ONE of 'em has Sega ANYTHING. Raided the Sega-having Diamond Ave. store lately and got some nice deals, especially with the holiday sale (Legend of Black Heaven box: $20, Shining Force CD: $5 (FLUKE! traded to the guy who sent me PDS), complete Vectorman: part of Genny BOGO sale). Home of the two FF NES copies with a $10 price difference.

And finally, McVans Video Games - the only bastards with a website: www.mcvans.com (http://www.mcvans.com). Browse and laugh.
Anything popular could probably be found cheaper on ebay. ^^;

Got Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance, Astal, and a couple of Sega CD RAM carts cheap though. Very hit-and-miss.

Three words: $35 NGPC games. O_O

If I can't find it here, I hit up the 3 trading sites I roam: CAG, GameTZ, and here. Last resort is ebay, because I'm sick of being sniped while I'm at work.

[Muscelli]

gaming message boards like this one usually have a message board devoted to buying/selling/trading which is where I aquire a huge chunk of my games from. I also buy off of ebay once in a while, and ill find something at a store once in a blue moon

[bangtango]

In Maine, I visit a Video Game Exchange store in Augusta. As far as I know, this is some sort of chain. They sell things at market price.

I also visit a shop a little closer to home called Coley's, which primarily sells games for the Nintendo, Sega, X-Box and Playstation consoles. They operate like a pawn shop and charge the same amount for each game on a system, no matter what type of game it is.

Near my work is a place called Video Game Network, which also sells stuff for the Nintendo, Sega, X-Box and Playstation consoles. Their prices are reasonable. This is a mom-and-pop store, not a chain, but I am sure there could be a dozen places across the U.S. called Video Game Network.

Aside from that, I stop off at Goodwill stores, Movie Gallery/Hollywood Video stores, Salvation Army stores, pawn shops and the like. There are a couple of EB Games locations I could drive to, but they are too far away for my liking and not worth my time.

[rcgamer]

Ebay.

[flyingducky]

Ebay, flea markets, and thrift stores

[dracula]

gamedude in north hollywood, ebay and occasionally at gamecrazy but they are almost completely phasing those out now.

[dracula]

Last resort is ebay, because I'm sick of being sniped while I'm at work.


use sniping software like auctionstealer.com If you use less than 4 snipes per week, it is totally free. I almost never buy anything on ebay, but when i do, i use sniping software because i dont even own a computer(use work or library comp)

[T2KFreeker]

Interresting that I see a few Gamedude quotes in there. I used to work there a long time ago. Funny.

I am getting sick of ebay as things are really getting crazy there these days. I have my people there that I use regularly, but other than that, it is really getting out of hand.

[DreamTR]

Game Dude has everything, period. They have things you would not explect a game store to have, and they have PLENTY of everything on top of it. I love that place!