How is game hunting in your area?

[o.pwuaioc]

Sf bay area sucks. Just plain sucks. I don't bother with thrift stores anymore. There's a tiny handfull of retro game shops. Inventory don't change much. Flea markets are your best bet and its spotty at best.

Sadly if it wasant for flea bay my meager collection would be half it's size.

That's one thing I don't miss about living in SF. The retro community there is cool though, but slim pickins unless you want to go down to San Jose.

New York isn't terrible - there's a retro game store just a few blocks away from where I live, but it's very expensive. I need to hit up more flea markets, because I've found nothing in Goodwills here.

[j_factor]

Sf bay area sucks. Just plain sucks. I don't bother with thrift stores anymore. There's a tiny handfull of retro game shops. Inventory don't change much. Flea markets are your best bet and its spotty at best.

I have to agree with this assessment. It's been this way for a long time, too. Maybe more people around here are into classic games, and therefore there's more demand. Or maybe people are more savvy and never turn their stuff in to thrift stores etc. Seriously, thrift stores here NEVER have anything decent. Some of the used game shops have good stuff -- in particular, Phoenix Games in Concord and 4Jays in Antioch tend to have pretty decent selection -- but they never really have any deals. It's always priced to eBay or whatever. (In fairness, it's probably not too easy for them to acquire cheap stock.) Flea markets are the same, even when I find good games, they're usually the same price that I could get them off eBay for. Though sometimes you can haggle or they'll give you a discount for buying multiple. I've never ever had any luck with garage sales either. The one place I've had some decent finds is Half Price Books. But they're pretty limited. I haven't been impressed with Craigslist either, although I only check it from time to time.

[hellraiser]

That's one thing I don't miss about living in SF. The retro community there is cool though, but slim pickins unless you want to go down to San Jose.

What's in San Jose that I'm missing? I'm there often. They have two flea markets but last i went there was nothing to get excited about.

In regards to craigslist here, It's like a game itself ! You better check often and have quick reflexes!

[thegamezmaster]

I live in Central IL, and here it sucks eggs! No swap meets or flea markets and town wide garage sales blow chunks.

[SonicBoom]

Here in Utah it just plain sucks. I get all my games online.

I Feel bad. Online, You can get whatever you want but you will pay alot more than you should.

[SonicBoom]

As far as thrift store shopping goes, the Dallas/Fort Worth, TX area is pretty dry. I don't think I've found anything of interest in a while. Flea markets outside of the Metroplex are much better for me, although there's a good dedicated vendor out at Trader's Village flea market in Arlington. As far as brick-and-mortar stores go, it's a bonanza of retro gaming. There's several locations of Movie Trading Company stores, with plenty of games from the Atari 2600 onward. I love those stores, because they don't have any rarity lists for pre-NES games so they mostly get a blanket price of $1.99. And then there's "local" chains like FX Game Exchange (in Plano and McKinney) and Console Game Exchange (in Irving Mall, Stonebriar Mall in Frisco, and probably Collin Creek Mall in Plano). There's also a few Play N' Trade stores around, along with one or two independents.

Interesting enough, I Know alot about that area when it comes to game hunting because of a show online, The game chasers, They live around there and show them going around making deals. You should check them out.

[Jakethenub]

I live in Mid-Missouri and it kind of sucks here. There's one Good Will in Columbia I sometimes go to but the only thing I've ever found there that wasn't Genesis sports games were a few boxed NES games (Super Off-Road and Bayou Billy), and a few old PC games. There's a few game stores like Slackers but of course those places have ridiculous prices for most things. I'm thinking of going to a Flea Market near here though. Never been to one.

[Ryudo]

Very little. Of course Gamestop but I don't support them. Got a really great Play n Trade however. A new independent shop just opened up and hadn't has the chance to go yet. I also check out local thrift stores.

[Genjackson]

Now that I live in KY there's not too much. There's a CherryBomb Games in Radcliff, KY that has a great selection and negotiable prices. Across the road from it is Ol Buddies which has an even bigger selection, but might be closed now due to meth. The Bowling Green, KY flea market has some great booths. One booth has a huge selection, but knows what everything is worth. The other big one is ran by a guy who is the complete opposite (wanted 40 for a miracle piano CIB and 50 for a Sega 32x without any cords) ((Completely Confused on what everything is worth)) Rivergate, TN has a Game Trader that I miss. They have the best selection around. Every thing from NEO GEO to turbografx-16. One day I'll open a game store and blow these out of the water. One day. . .

[Steve W]

Any neat finds at the flea markets? I've always wanted to go to Trader's Village, but I'd hate to go all the way out there for nothing.

Also, GameChop in Carrollton and that little unnamed place (they had a Craigslist ad calling themselves 'Classic Game Store', but I'm not sure that's the name) in Grand Prairie are pretty okay. I just wish the Grand Prairie store wasn't in an area that looks super sketchy.

I've found some pretty good stuff at the local flea markets. Bought a boxed Milton Bradley Expansion system for the TI-99/4A Home Computer (it's rumored that there might only be around 300 of these in existence) and a Myriad 6-in-1 NES cart that's the only thing I've ever sold on eBay since I don't collect Nintendo games and systems. I also bought two boxed VictorMaxx Stuntmaster VR helmets for SNES/Genesis for $2 each, and 3DO controllers and SNES-to-3DO pad adapters for 25¢ each there also. Last year at a flea market over an hour away from the city I bought three Commavid Atari 2600 games for a few bucks each - I'd rarely ever seen any of that company's titles before, then to find three at once was fantastic. At a different market I bought a boxed Atari XEGS and a heap of early '80s electronic handhelds.

GameChop in Carrollton is okay, I've stopped there a couple of times but haven't bought anything since they tend to favor modern systems and most of their retro stuff is Nintendo based. And I hate that store in Grand Prairie. Selling old Atari 2600 consoles with a dozen commons for $100? You've got to be kidding me. It's a grungy little place that I've got problems with. They had some European Dreamcast games that I wanted, Headhunter and Evil Twin (both unreleased in the US). They didn't have a price on it, so in front of me they went onto eBay and tried to look up how much to charge me for them. But they couldn't find any copies, since they were looking on US eBay and they're British games. After a while they told me that they couldn't sell them to me. What? Just put a price on them, idiots! I mentioned to 98PaceCar that they had a whole bunch of Japanese DC imports, so he went there and bought something like 20 pristine games from them, $45 for the pile. Because the game's titles were in Japanese, and therefore they couldn't look them up on eBay to price gouge him. So he got away with a steal. I went back months later hoping they'd gotten prices on those UK games, and they did the exact same thing... look them up on eBay and then refuse to sell them to me. So screw that place, I won't be going back.

[snkryo]

In Chicago there is too much competion out there game hunting.

[Retronick]

The Northern Virginia area has a few shops of interest for retro gaming. We are actually the homebase for estarland.com! You can actually go into their distribution center and buy things directly from the rack. If you live here, you NEED TO GO THERE!

There's also a bunch of great thrift shops, Goodwills and pawnshops (especially in Manassas), that you can often find good steals in. My favorite place to look, but not necessarily "buy"? Either one of these flea markets in Central Virginia:

http://www.retronick.com/2011/04/goo...edition-day-1/

http://www.retronick.com/2011/04/goo...edition-day-2/

The Bellwood Flea Market in Reston is absolutely SWARMING with classic gaming apparel that's just hanging out in the dirt, waiting to be bought. Savvy damned flea market employees though, those bastard charge the same amount you find the stuff on ebay for. A guy in the "Dirt Mall" on the other hand, sold me that Fortress Maximus for $20. Life is a funny thing.

[Razo00]

I'm from Jersey as well. I do 99% of my shopping online ebay, amazon, forums. I got lucky once and found a guy in my town selling neo mvs games. Picked up Street Hoop and Baseball Stars 2 for 10 each. And they weren't boots either. Thats about it. Most people now are hip to what certain games cost so they just sell it online.

[redknight802]

Id say its somewhat good. I find about 75% of my finds at goodwill and about 15% at monthly garage sales inside a rec center. 5% goes to a retro store in my town, 5% at pawn shops

[Colorado Rockies]

I've never even been to a garage sale/estate sale or flea market in La Jolla.

100% of my 4000+ CIB games have been purchased from ebay/amazon

[Shulamana]

Had a chance to check out the local thrift today, they had a box with a PlayStation, 2 controllers, and 10-12 sports/racing games along with a Resident Evil Director's Cut. They had the whole box as a lot priced at $75.

Normally they price games like that at $1-3 each, and I would have considered buying a few of the titles at that price, don't know why they decided to toss it all together and then mark up the price 200% above FMV.

Will be another 2-4 weeks before I get a chance to run up there again.

[Aswald]

In a word:

Bleah.

[o.pwuaioc]

What's in San Jose that I'm missing? I'm there often. They have two flea markets but last i went there was nothing to get excited about.

In regards to craigslist here, It's like a game itself ! You better check often and have quick reflexes!

GameWorld is what I heard, there are a few others. Phoenix World in Concord, 4Jay's in Antioch. I missed out on them while I was there, regrettably.

[disorderlyvision]

It is pretty hit or miss around me. There are several thrift stores and pawn shops. occasionally they have some retro games but mostly picked through stuff. I have came across some good deals though. In the last month I picked up Winning Post for the Saturn for $2, Panzer Dragoon II Zwei for $2, Castlevania for the Genesis for $8 Conker's Bad Fur Day for $7. So, if you check regularly you can come across some stuff but it doesn't happen real often.

[mylifewithsega]

Not much going on in my neck of the woods. Do most of my shopping online. However, whenever I visit Jersey, I go to Next Level Videogames. It's in the southern part, roughly 20 minutes from Philly. Everything from Atari to Wii. Carries imports. I bought a CIB Japanese Saturn there for $80. There's another shop that's near by, but I can't for the life of me remember the name. Nice selection, and decent prices.