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Thread: Play 'N Trade stores?

  1. #141
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    Both of the ones around here have closed, their face book page is still being updated but theres still seems to be some lacking

    https://www.facebook.com/pntcorp

    their wiki page seems to state 116 stores operated, I highly doubt that's the case though
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_N_Trade

    I remember them having problems not long ago, it wouldn't surprise me if its half that now

    some interesting info from 2012:
    http://www.entrepreneur.com/franchis.../328989-0.html

    franchise fee $30k every 5 years (5 year franchise term) shitty in house inventory and not a lot of tools provided to run the place, I can see why they close after 5 years
    Last edited by Niku-Sama; 01-03-2015 at 02:52 AM.

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    There are very few left around NJ/NYC. The corporate website www.playntrade.com is down. Like Bloodreign said it's really about ownership/management, like any small business. The one's I've seen did little more than tournaments though. They didn't get enough traffic to stock their shelves with used games, so there was often little there. But if you wanted to make your own game store, just put your own name on it. No reason to franchise with them.

    One nearest me, which closed, did have a decent used selection, but they also had a ridiculous abundance of scratched discs, and their POS system was a disaster. I was shocked one day to find a great stack of Gamecube and PS2 and PS1 games at pretty low prices. Prime titles like Zelda, Resident Evil, etc. I got home, and nearly every single disc was heavily scratched, and often froze. I did not want to take the chance, so I brought all of them back, and asked if they could be resurfaced? The owner or whoever was too cheap to get their disc resurfacing machine fixed. The guys working there said the machine had been either broken or out of supplies for weeks. So I returned all of them, which sucked because I had gotten Wind Waker and Metal Gear Solid for Gamecube for like $12 each!

    The last time I went there, the cashier messed something up, and was unable to undo it on their register. They had their whole staff there that day, and nobody could fix it. Their support hotline was a waste, because it put them in queue forever. The Point of Sale software had to be from the 90's Funcoland. I work in that realm on the support side, I was stunned they were still using such crap. After waiting there for over an HOUR, I finally decided to call my credit card company and have the charge disputed/stopped. As horrible as Gamestop can be, at least you know what you get when you step into there.
    Last edited by Greg2600; 01-03-2015 at 01:04 PM.
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    I remember the one location that was in San Diego was shut down as I was told a year or so ago. Good riddance too as the management were incomprehensibly bad businessmen and idiots. Their idea of sustaining the store amounted to creating large digital databases of customers who had want lists and any of the games people wanted came in they'd go down the list and give them first dibs. Ultimately if you didn't get on a waiting list and wait for months/years for an item it would never hit the store shelves for the public. I went in every few months or so when I went down south when I lived there and after seeing nothing but super commons, licensed filler, and sports trash I asked and was told about that and asked if I wanted on the list (which I didn't.) I never went back.

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    I really liked the two Play n Trade's we had around here but they both disapeared a few yews ago. Their stock wasn't great but they had good prices and I always managed to find sonething worth buying when I stopped in.

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    There used to be three not far from me. The first one just never got it's shit together. The manager was nice, the one staffer was nice, but the store was always a mess. No shelves up, empty display cases, shipping boxes everything. For months. The second one was run by a really pushy guy, which drove people away. He sold it to someone else, who moved it a few blocks away, making the third store. That one was good, but it had a lot of wasted space. It's still there, just not called Play 'N Trade anymore.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tanooki View Post
    I remember the one location that was in San Diego was shut down as I was told a year or so ago. Good riddance too as the management were incomprehensibly bad businessmen and idiots. Their idea of sustaining the store amounted to creating large digital databases of customers who had want lists and any of the games people wanted came in they'd go down the list and give them first dibs. Ultimately if you didn't get on a waiting list and wait for months/years for an item it would never hit the store shelves for the public. I went in every few months or so when I went down south when I lived there and after seeing nothing but super commons, licensed filler, and sports trash I asked and was told about that and asked if I wanted on the list (which I didn't.) I never went back.
    ! That kind of crap is what mom and pop video rental stores did back in the 80's, before the chain stores. You'd put your name on a list of videos, and maybe 2 months later your turn would come up.
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    Quote Originally Posted by JSoup View Post
    It's still there, just not called Play 'N Trade anymore.
    There was a Play N' Trade in my sister's town of Monroe, Louisiana for years, and apparently they couldn't keep up with corporate's yearly sales increases and rising license fees, so they were forced to drop them and go indie, turning into Game Mechanix (now two locations). I like hitting that place when I go through town, they don't often have what I'm looking for but they're always nice. I had bought an Atari 2600 at a thrift store with no joysticks, so I went there to see if they had any. They had two, badly abused with the rubber joystick covers missing. He didn't think they were worth selling, so he gave them to me. That was cool of him.

    There were at one time four in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, they've all vanished. It didn't help that all but one was in a decent high traffic location, they all seemed to be in odd little nooks and crannies in strip malls that they could afford to rent rather than someplace high profile. There actually used to be a few little indie shops here and there, they've all died off. The GameXchange chain tends to be a cheaper license and they also more often than not open up in small towns rather than big cities. That company must be run pretty well, because it's very rare that a GameXchange store closes.

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    What was the process of licensing the Play N Trade name? There was only one ever near me and it closed years ago. I remember it though. Pretty well maintained, he rearranged the store a lot, it had decent prices...don't know why it went under.

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

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

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  11. #150
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    There was a Play N Trade in Naples FL circa 2008. no idea what became of it. very clean store, nice layout, fair prices

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

    So, what's happened to the corporation? Do store owners have to license the name any more? I was only able to talk to the assistant manager at the Lafayette store, I don't really know anything about what's left of the company. When the owner of that location opened up a second store, it had a Play N' Trade sign on the building, so I would imagine he'd have to get that from somewhere, some corporate entity that's still sort-of in charge. Anybody know what's going on with them? Are there any other locations still open?
    Yeah, Jeff opened up the Carencro one recently, I have yet to get a chance to visit that one as I visited the Lafayette one often enough till I started buying a ton of imports, something they rarely get at either location. I do follow both of their Facebook pages, but they never really seem to post whatever goodies someone might trade in (unlike the Texas Game Over stores, I follow all of them, they are always posting goodies they have). One of these days I'll visit the Carencro location, one of these day. The only other 2 locations I knew of were New Iberia, and Prairieville, both looooong closed down. The New Iberia store had a lot of stuff, but the guy was an asshole about prices, so I only made 3-4 trips there. The one in Prairieville I made one trip to, the guys were so excited I spent so much, and came from so far, they GAVE me a free model 1 Genesis that I wanted to buy. A week after I paid a visit, they shut down.
    Last edited by Bloodreign; 02-11-2020 at 03:33 AM.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


    The last several years I've gotten SFC games off of Ebay, and not the usual expensive suspects, but some pretty decent and fun games instead that aren't costly (the Go Go Ackman trilogy for example).
    Last edited by Bloodreign; 02-23-2020 at 11:58 PM.

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    Interesting that there's any left. At the end of the day, the stores are only as good as the owner of the franchises. If you put the right effort and care into the store, it can succeed.
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    From my experience franchised game stores are pretty crap, the only exception was Game Crazy but they anchored them selves to hollywood video when the time was good for both video rentals and decent selections of used games before the collector market was a thing.

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

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