Hmmm, I feel I should chime in here. While I'm only a mere walk from the Midwest Gaming Expo when it's going on (just West of Milwaukee), there's not really squat for game stores here. We've got several mega Media Exchanges that sell games for the usual at or above online prices, ex: 5 copies of FF7 in their case for $70 a piece, $30 Mario Karts, etc.. basically the places college kids go to buy 'old school N64's, man'.
Oconomowoc has a store (not sure if I should name it? If you live in the area you'll know) that just plain sucks. It's about half DVDs, half games, but the shelves are loaded with nothing more than dozens of SNES and Genesis sports titles, and innumerable copies of Mario/ Duck Hunt and other crap. This place really sums up the terrible side of some old game stores.
One afternoon I was looking in their glass case up front, thinking it odd how they NEVER get any good games in, when I see a giant stack of games on the floor: Klonoa, the Suikodens, sealed Saga Frontiers, etc. I asked if I could see them and the girl said sure and put the stack on the case. After excitedly looking through all of them, I asked her for the prices, and she told me 'Oh, they're NOT FOR SALE, but I could get their Ebay name and buy them on there'. I was flabergasted, and naturally left, but I decided to go back the next day and see if someone else with any sense was working. Sure enough the owner was, and he told me the same thing. I asked him what advantage I had over any other item on Ebay and he said 'well, I guess you could save on shipping.' Then I asked him for a reason that I should ever revisit his store and he just shrugged. What a crock. Now WHILE I'm standing in there, 3 hipster kids come in with a copy of FF7 and tell the guy they need beer money. He offers them $5 for it, and they say sure. Well, I told them I would give them $6. The owner got furious and threw us all out, and I've never been back. I did get the $6 FF7 and they got their beer. I think.
The most ironic part is that THAT SAME NIGHT 3 kids broke into his store and stole a few hundred worth of cash. I had an idea of the suspects. But I digress. I know that a game store has to survive somehow and that Ebay is a part of many businesses, but the problem here is that 1- there is no reason to physically go INTO the store, 2 - the store is set up and displayed very poorly regardless of his stock, and 3 - the owner was just a prick with NO customer service skills whatsoever, and didn't care if he lost a potential customer.
The sad part is that for every place that's run like Digital Press is (and I would LOVE to have a place like that by me, don't get me wrong) you have 5 places like this, that instead of having any reverence or love for the hobby itself only want to make a quick buck.