I hate all videogame shops!

Mind giving me some directions? I might be in the vicinity this summer ;-)
(I'd also like to meet up for a few rounds of gaming of course, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have)

 

The last time I tried trading in controllers was to my local EB games when I tried to sell them some of my unopened Dreamcast controllers (I have 21 still unopened). But even though they sell them used for about $8 they would only give me 50 cents per unopened one (a 1600% markup is BS no matter how you look at it).

Game Informer has some nice articles, but every time I read one of their mags I find dozens of mistakes (specificly when it comes to the history of the industry).

Definitly true. I've found things at flea markets before which if I said I had seen no one would believe me (seriously, even here I would be called a liar some of its so rare).

 

I FUCKING HATE GAMESTOP. EBgames is a little bit better....but still....fucking grjlkfjhk. For one, they've done a good job at fueling the game idiocity truck, so now we have tons of jackass kids running around calling themselves hardcore gamers because they have Halo 2. I also hate game informer, they used to be good though.........im sure everyone knows what im talking about when i say gamestop has fucked up some of the whole game economy. And jesus old games with no boxes shouldnt cost that damn much. I tried to get my female friend Super Mario All-Stars and NOPE its 40 BUCKS. Plus I tripped over an xbox rug in electronics botique once and knocked over a dreamcast display rack (which had maybe 4 things on it) and they kicked me out.......

 

Yeah, that's rubbish. You can get the All-Stars/World cart for like $5-10 shipped on ebay. And yes, it's because of these idiots that people can ask for and typically get $30-50 for a piss-yellow SNES system with some common as dirt games.

 

The closest thing we have to an independant gaming store is "Phatboy Video Games". It's a small chain that have a few stores located throughout the state (maybe others). The guy who runs the place is a jerk, but my other option is EB Games. At least the manager there is friendly, despite the fact that he constantly bugs me about trading in my games.

 

Hey, welcome to Holland, it's always been like that here :-( Only things that are easier and cheaper here than in the US are marihuana and CD-i stuff...

 

You guys have better quality stuff than we do, too. Then again, I'm no expert at the stuff, so as long as it "does the job" it's good for me.

One of the things I like about collecting for PC is that most game shops have no idea about the value of most PC games. I've flaunted my "Daggerfall for $3" story on every message board I know of. I also picked up Dungeon Keeper for $1.49 the other day. It's not nearly as rare, but $1.49 for any good game isn't too shabby.

 

You probably need the first to enjoy the second.

Down here it's pretty much the same. There's GamePlanet which sucks ass, only carries "new" stuff and sells games for up to 75 dollars. They used to take your games and then started giving you nothing for them. This is the only place that doesn't sell pirated goods. They, however, have gotten this ill-conceived new habit of NOT selling you consoles without forced "pack in" games. To buy a DS, you have to get it for 300 dollars, because it comes with "Sprung" and some driving game, for 55 dollars each, and there's no buying only the console. Gamecube? Yeah, but you'll have to take Luigi's Mansion with it.


Then there's the black market. In Guadalajara, there's San Juan (or Libertad), the Baratillo, the Tianguis del Sol and Medrano.
There's a GamePlanet right in front of San Juan, that we used to make fun of... thing is, people in San Juan have become VERY arrogant. Illiteracy and arrogance make for arbitrariety and simple customer abuse. They no longer take EVEN new games or they give you like 5 dollars for them. They stopped carrying dreamcast hadrware. RPGs are hard to get because they "don't sell". It's like GamePlanet, only illegal. They've gone corporate. Pirate, but corporate. Sometimes, you find better deals in the GamePlanet in front. Sad.
Even sadder if you remember they were THE game authority in the 90s. You could get anything and everything, for cheap, copy or original. It was paradise.

WHICH leaves you with the Baratillo, which used to be all about cheap, used, and trades... BUT it's now invaded with the same abuse. So on the east end of it, and the west end of it, there are cheap, used games (like a fully equipped Intellivision with boxed games I got for 7 dollars), but you can find tables with 50 dollar Snes games, and clerks that treat you like shit. Good luck finding any new games, also - but I've gotten good deals on used originals. If you're looking for famiclone stuff, this is the place. Now it's pretty weak in that respect, but there used to be "shops" strictly dedicated to famiclone.

Medrano, I never go to because it's far, but my friend (who we call "Freak") says it's still pretty cool, if much more expensive than in the past.

And the Tianguis del Sol... that's really near my house and I've found good dreamcast pirates there (Your only choice unless you wanted to pay 70 dollars for "Pen Pen Tri-Icelon" in Gameplanet... not that they carry Dreamcast anymore), but like all flea-market type places, it's unstable. They used to get all the new stuff for all systems first, back in the dreamcast era (98 to like 2002). I got Final Fantasy IX there three or four days of distance from the official release, in 2000.

San Juan is actually the biggest market in Latin America (you can get everything from live animals to vegetables to leather goods, to genuine jewlery and fragrances, to pirated videogames and smuggled electronics). The Baratillo is a flea market about 20 blocks in size, lenghtwise - mostly stolen or used goods, but it also has a little bit of all. The Tianguis del Sol and Medrano are small versions of this.


OOh, and I was forgetting.
NEVER EVER EVER eat in San Juan. There's many restaurants in the second floor (yes, a multi-floor market) that WILL kill you. I have a strong mexican stomach and I can still not even survive smelling some of the stuff there. I worked accross the street from there for like 5 years, and if there's one thing I learned, it was this. (there's an area four blocks wide filled with Bridal Shops in front of SJD. Yes, I was a clerk in a Bridal Shop in my teens)

Having breakfast at the Tianguis del Sol or at the Baratillo is, for the most cases, Xerdo Approved :smt023

 

Don't let my talk of this store drag you too far out of your way, but if you do find yourself in the region, be sure to ask me about it. They have a pretty wide selection for just about every system ever released in the US. That's pretty amazing considering I never see Sega CD or TG16 or Lynx or NGPC or Saturn, etc games anywhere else.

 

Fabrizo and Pikon, what part of Florida do you guys live in?

 

Daggerfall is valuable? I have a sealed copy still lying around somewhere that I picked up for 50 cents at a flea market. How much do you think I could get for it?

Fort Lauderdale.

 

That's awesome....the PC game i've been looking for for a long time is Quake, Quake 2, and Duke Nukem 3D...tommorow im gunna see if ebgames has them for cheapo.

 

:smt082
Some fine hash goes a long way, but I would recommend a cocktail of methadon, MDMA and reactor fluid for optimal dulling of sensory recoil ;-)

 

Hey Blur. I'm in Columbus, is this store anywhere near there? I'd like to check it out sometime if it's worth the trip.

 

Nah, I'm in Columbus too. It's down south towards Cincinatti...practically in Kentucky. I only go while I'm at school. But if by chance you're there, it's called Game Swap, and it's in the Tri County Mall in Springdale.

Edit: Wow, another Ohioan...I never thought I'd see the day.

 

lol- true that. i actually picked up a boxed daggerfall for free a few years ago when i bought a bunch of closeout stuff from a shop here that was going under. i had about 15 games (they were .99 to $4 each, marked down and dusty), and as i was being rung up, one of the clerks walks over and asks if i wanted to go through a pile of stuff they were going to throw out. normally, i'd look at someone asking me to go through trash like they were nuts, but as i squinted around his shoulder, i thought i saw a familiar-loooking game or three in the stack of boxes and cases with one big guy on one end of the pile slowly poring over each box checking the condition.

so i paid for my stuff, moseyed on over and yup, they were going to TOSS an opened but excellent condition daggerfall along with all their returned pc stuff and some other damaged items. on the other end of the pile, this toad of a guy's eyes almost fell out of their sockets when i stood up after 30 seconds with an opened system shock 2, an anvil of dawn with a manual and a cracked case, and a sealed lords of midnight in a beat up box from the stack. he walks up to the manager and starts whining about how it wasn't fair that i went and took some of the games he was looking for and how he was there first, and the guy i spoke to pointed to the four bags of stuff i actually bought and said something like, well YOU always come in here looking for bargains- this guy spends money. of course, the guy followed me out and offered a whole "up to five dollars" for daggerfall, and i'm trying not to laugh all the way down the block to the subway. idiot.

 

Sealed with box usually fetches around $100, give or take. Used with box usually goes for above $50-60, and used without box (no manual or anything) greatly varies between $25-60. These are just loose prices I've noticed on eBay, though.

 

Games I've never played worth money...yet the fantastic Return to Zork is still valueless! :smt022