Man, my local game shop just keeps getting worse...

[drunkninja]

It's a Vintage Stock store, for anybody familiar with the chain.

Seriously, when they first opened, they were freakin' fantastic. Good classic game selection, and they had a majority of their games on the shelves with only the real rare stuff behind the counter (like Chrono Trigger and such). But as of late, the store has gotten more and more "chain"-like. Prices suddenly inexplicably rise on games that were half of their current price a week ago (you can see this if you happen to find a cartridge they haven't marked up), and trade-in values have gone WAY downhill (big surprise there). Then today, I see they've replaced their tidy and out of the way price stickers (typical yard sale style) with huge yellow stickers with the price in huge text and a bar code. Not a big deal....except that they saw it fit to place them RIGHT ON TOP OF THE CARTRIDGE LABELS. Yeah, so much for that mint condition cartridge, eh? I hope that stuff is easy to remove... Which brings me to one last complaint: as far as sale value is concerned, they don't even care about the condition of the cartridge. Last time I was there, there were two copies of Mega Man X, one in near mint condition, the other, torn, dirty, and written on all over. The price for both? $10. I mean, WTF? I know for a fact that they didn't BUY those cartridges for the same price...

Oh, and this isn't related to gaming, but they outright sell Taiwanese pirated anime DVDs, game OSTs (I'm talking Alion, EverAnime, and the like), and such for full price. Stupid. (Not to mention illegal)

I know, I know, this is probably a pointless rant, but seriously, this store is such a shadow of it's former self and it just sucks, especially since it's basically the only place in town that has a large selection of classic used games.

[Malon_Forever]

^ Atleast you have classic gaming store near you. The closest thing I got is GameCrazy...


I hate when game stores put the sticker on the label of the game. I remember trying to buy used N64 games a while back, and all of them had stickers on the labels...

[Clownzilla]

Our Vintage Stock in Springfield, MO does the same thing. Price stickers right across the front of the label. One of my favorite OMG moments at the store was when they had Return Fire for PS1 in the "clearance bin". I believe that is was around $15 which was nice but the funny part was that they ended up cutting the long box manual in two so it would fit in a smaller case. That made me sick (they did that with all their long box manuals).

[Tupin]

Most of the classic game stores around here are local chains that keep the prices reasonable or mom and pop stores that have a better selection but more expensive games.

There's also a national chain that is locally owned (Play N Trade) and its competition is a local chain. (Slacker's)

To compare, I bought Ms. Pac-Man for the NES for $4 at Play N Trade and I saw it for sale at the mom and pop store for $17. Of course, they have to compete.

[swlovinist]

While I have AWSOME indie stores in Portland(Billy Galaxy, Game Trader, Game Wizards), There isnt crap in my home town(45 minutes away from Portland). I would take a crappy local game store over Gamestop or Gamecrazy anyday.

[Malon_Forever]

There use to be a local classic game store in Buffalo called Game Station, but was closed one day I went there.

[Therealqtip]

I remember when game crazy sold classic games, I knew I shoulda bought that metal gear for NES...oh and Twin Snakes for the Gamecube, guess how much? yea 8-13 dollars, god that coulda been a 40 dollar profit or better, something to add to my collection. That's where I got my boxed dreamcast for only 20 dollars (not sure if it came with styrofoam but still has the plastic you put the wires.) Ah good times

I blame Rock Band and guitar hero for taking up way to much space in stores.

[sirhansirhan]

I blame Rock Band and guitar hero for taking up way to much space in stores.

I like that theory.

[Therealqtip]

I like that theory.

It's actually is EGM's theory in their August 08 issue hehe, they had an article of it so yea it's the truth I mean I finally saw how big a damn Rock Band box is, you can't fit much with that in the way.

[Wraith Storm]

It's a Vintage Stock store, for anybody familiar with the chain.

Seriously, when they first opened, they were freakin' fantastic. Good classic game selection, and they had a majority of their games on the shelves with only the real rare stuff behind the counter (like Chrono Trigger and such). But as of late, the store has gotten more and more "chain"-like. Prices suddenly inexplicably rise on games that were half of their current price a week ago (you can see this if you happen to find a cartridge they haven't marked up), and trade-in values have gone WAY downhill (big surprise there). Then today, I see they've replaced their tidy and out of the way price stickers (typical yard sale style) with huge yellow stickers with the price in huge text and a bar code. Not a big deal....except that they saw it fit to place them RIGHT ON TOP OF THE CARTRIDGE LABELS. Yeah, so much for that mint condition cartridge, eh? I hope that stuff is easy to remove... Which brings me to one last complaint: as far as sale value is concerned, they don't even care about the condition of the cartridge. Last time I was there, there were two copies of Mega Man X, one in near mint condition, the other, torn, dirty, and written on all over. The price for both? $10. I mean, WTF? I know for a fact that they didn't BUY those cartridges for the same price...

Oh, and this isn't related to gaming, but they outright sell Taiwanese pirated anime DVDs, game OSTs (I'm talking Alion, EverAnime, and the like), and such for full price. Stupid. (Not to mention illegal)

I know, I know, this is probably a pointless rant, but seriously, this store is such a shadow of it's former self and it just sucks, especially since it's basically the only place in town that has a large selection of classic used games.

This sums up EXACTLY how I feel about Vintage Stock.

They used to be a VERY VERY good store but as you said, have become more chain like and have just been going downhill since. The ones here in the Tulsa area have actually started keeping the game disc in the case and then shrink wrapping it. So now you can no longer open the case first and inspect the condition of the instructions or anything.

Their prices have skyrocketed and I honestly think that they back most of their prices against Ebay. I have seen many changes at the store over the years that has lead me to believe this. .. which SUCKS. I love Ebay but it has destroied a thing called "Local market Value".

The ONLY decent place that I have found around the Tulsa area is still Game X change. They have their problems too, but they much better then the Vintage and Gamestop.

[Kitsune Sniper]

At least you still have game stores.

Down here, I had three choices, but now it's down to two:

* Gamestop (and we all know how we feel about Gamestop)
* Chinese / Korean stores which sell super common PS1 games for $35 and rare PS2/GC games for $70

The locally owned Tavio's Games apparently closed down sometime this month - I was on my way to the flea market when I noticed the place had a "For Rent" sign on it. The prices WERE higher than retail but they were on par with eBay's prices (after shipping costs). I was sad to see the guy go. I haven't even seen his booth at the flea market lately...

[dao2]

All I got is fuckign gamestop 2 in the same mall too...

[drunkninja]

Our Vintage Stock in Springfield, MO does the same thing. Price stickers right across the front of the label. One of my favorite OMG moments at the store was when they had Return Fire for PS1 in the "clearance bin". I believe that is was around $15 which was nice but the funny part was that they ended up cutting the long box manual in two so it would fit in a smaller case. That made me sick (they did that with all their long box manuals).

Heh, this is actually the one I was talking about. I live about 25 miles north of Springfield. I saw this today in the store on Kansas, I assume the Glenstone store has done the same...*sigh* I miss the good ol' days of Caveman (before Vintage Stock completely took over).

And Wraith: I totally forgot about GameXChange, there's a couple in my area too. I'll have to remember them, they used to be THE place before Vintage Stock and Gamestop came along, and I just kinda forgot about them...

[Steve W]

Around here, Vintage Stock ended up buying out the Movie Trading Company store locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. They've been bringing in a few classic games, and thankfully, they don't seem to realize what they've got. They do tend to mark up a few NES games that they think might be worth something, but stuff like loose Atari 2600 cartridges are all $1.99. I've bought a few fairly rare games there (Rescue Terra I!) for those prices. Although I don't understand why they charge $9.99 for loose Colecovision carts, which are all dirt commons. They have some odd pricing ideas there. But I manage to score good stuff there, so I don't mind.

[Clownzilla]

Heh, this is actually the one I was talking about. I live about 25 miles north of Springfield. I saw this today in the store on Kansas, I assume the Glenstone store has done the same...*sigh* I miss the good ol' days of Caveman (before Vintage Stock completely took over).

And Wraith: I totally forgot about GameXChange, there's a couple in my area too. I'll have to remember them, they used to be THE place before Vintage Stock and Gamestop came along, and I just kinda forgot about them...

Unfortunately, they both are the same. The Glenstone store doesn't have their shrink wrap machine.........yet. I agree with you on Caveman being a much better store. They would treat me right and have good customer friendly business practices. Vintage Stock is FAR from that reality

[Sergeant Sega]

I wish we would have some vintage gaming stores here in Norway, but alas, the last we had got bought up by Game. That chain of stores was called Spiderman, and they got some inflated prices, but the prices are like that in all of Norway anywho, I was just happy to visit a different consept store.

Now we're stuck with Gamestop / EB Games as well as Game and of course the chain I work in, Spaceworld.

[emceelokey]

All I got is fuckign gamestop 2 in the same mall too...

You live in Daly City?
Serramonte mall is the same way.

It seems like the malls that had an EB Games and a Gamestop tend to keep both stores open.

As for the op's original rant. I live in Vegas and within about a 3 block radius there's 2 Gamestops, a Game Crazy, a place called Game Rapair, and a place called Game Over. There used to be a place called Game World and they closed down early last year. Unfortunately out of all of those shops, I would probably prefer GameCrazy over any of them. Game World used to pretty much be like that vintage Stock store you mentioned and it pretty much ended the same wat VS has seemed to evolved to. Towards the end they had the BOOTLEG ASS games that they were trying to pass of as official and charge the ebay prices for them. I remember they had a bootleg version of Intelligent Qube for Playstation and not only was it bootlegged but they tried to sell it as an import version with their photocopied cover of the Japanese version. They were trying to sell that for $50 and this was in like '04. It just totally didn't make sense because the only reason people cared about that game was because it was hard to find the American version... so they make a bootleg version of the Japanese version?! Not only that but they were selling NES emulator compliations for the Dreamcast for $30 and stuff like that.

You really make me want to rant about that store. But basically all of the Indy stores abide by eBay prices now. Game Over just opened up late '07 and the first time I went in there I, first off sawsomeone working there from Game Repair that is a total dick, but I checked some of their stuff out and they had a "new" as in Gamestop type of new (opened) pool game for the PSP. I think it was like Detroit Hustle or something like that and they were asking for $30 for that when you can go to Best Buy or Walmart and pick that game up NEW for $10 and then I saw an import version of Soul Calibur 2 for GAme CUbe and they were asking for $35 for that when you can get an official U.S. version for less than 10.

I would love to have a great indy store but it's pretty much highly unlikely that one will be able to have both a great selection with decent prices nowadays. eBay and online retailing have pretty much made those placed endangered species.

[Sergeant Sega]

It seems like the malls that had an EB Games and a Gamestop tend to keep both stores open.

The same has happened in Norway, but not with EB Games / Gamestop. Gamestop bought up Free Record Shop in Norway, and chose to have both the new "Free Record Shop Gamestop" and the orignal Gamestop (or EB Games in some places still) open.

I don't understand why, because they have to pay twice the rent, twice the personell cost and compete with themselves to get the same customers. Makes no sense... So in the shoppingcentre I work in, we now have Spaceworld (my store), EB Games, Gamestop, Platekompaniet (huge record, video and games store) and Lefdal (kind of like Best Buy only smaller). Pretty good to be a gamer in that shoppingcentre (atleast if you want games for this generation)

[Battlehork]

I have about eight gamestops within 15 minutes (two were EB, two were Rhino) and a store called "Game Force" which some time ago basically stopped selling new videogames and started selling mod chips, bootlegs and cellphones.

[maxlords]

Most indy stores HAVE to price at eBay or higher, otherwise people with no jobs come in, buy up their stock, eBay it, and don't trade anything in. All of the sudden the store has squat for stock and no one goes there. I've seen that happen to more than a few stores.

Now that's a worst case scenario of course. But it happens. I know several indy store owners who price up their rarer games just to keep em on the shelf long enough for people to want to come back to look for rarities. At this point, I rarely buy retail and trade for most of my stuff at one of the VERY few indy stores that gives good credit. I pay him back by bringing him ALL of my trade stock....and a lot of it is good stuff. I get most of my new games dirt cheap this way. Credit is a sucker's game anymore most places though and people know it. To be cost effecdtive, most places have to give almost no credit for anything and price it up like crazy. Welcome to a recession/depression economy.