Last time we looked at weekend locations. This time let’s look at day-to-day retail locations – places you can sneak off to during working hours to look for retro-games to play later on. Or perhaps you can make an effort to check these out while in another town on a trip.
Thrift Stores
Location: Thrift Stores (Goodwill, Salvation Army, Value Village, etc).
Phase Relevant: All
You’re likely to find: Completely random games, accessories
The good: For the stores that give money to the poor and needy, you’re giving back to your community and picking up items for your collection at the same time. That’s great for everyone. Plus you may be able to pick up interesting or rare items at a significant discount – it’s all luck of the draw what you’ll find and what the price will be. There’s some controversy about stores charging ebay prices for games that were donated among the community. All I’ll say is that if it’s a good deal, buy it. Otherwise leave it. You shouldn’t pay too much for a game here out of charity. If you want to give, find a local charity (like donating food to a shelter) and give to that.
A word of caution: The use of thrift stores has changed somewhat in the past few years. There’s been sort of a ‘ebayization’ of Goodwill (meaning they no longer sell games at a great discount like they once did). There are three strategies that these stores have deployed that are detrimental to collecting.
First, they put games that mostly have nothing in common into bulk lots and auction them off (simultaneously alienating people collecting a particular series or titles as well as the value shoppers – leading to lack of interest and the end no-one’s really happy with the result).
Second, they look up games on video game pricing sites (which usually just look at amazon and ebay for pricing models). There are two ways to look at this. If this really is a charity (meaning an organization where the money goes where it’s needed), it’s good that they’re trying to stretch the value of the item donated to give the maximum amount to the needy. But of course, thrift shoppers are out and about trying to snag deals – so this is less of an incentive. Plus items perceived as over-priced will remain on shelves. Fortunately I’ve seen that these organizations will, over time, lower the price. So if you see something that’s too much, it might pay to keep checking in and see if it’s went down.
Lastly, Goodwill opened up electronics stores (called The Grid) where everything’s been priced at retail (meaning high ebay at least). Not only does this take out of the fun of the hunt, but it assures you’re not going to get a good deal unless they’ve screwed up the pricing. You’d be better off to support your local shops to support the retro-gaming culture. Some Goodwill stores also charge on PC games by the disc and after you add $1.50 per disc, the old CD-based games get too pricey.
Despite the problems, for some reason the public really likes giving to Goodwill and they’re receiving the bulk of thrift store items (at least in the areas I’ve seen). So even though it’s not all roses, go ahead and hit them up – especially the local ones. You’re going to want to check every week – as there’s no pattern to when good stuff comes in.
(something’s up when a thrift store looks like this)
Other scenes like Salvation Army, Value Village, and church-ran thrift stores can house some true surprises. But be prepared to ask and search around diligently as they’re often organized poorly or not at all. If you’re into hardware, these are the places where you can pick up some true gems – such as Trinitron monitors, rare controllers, old collectible PC’s, and even RGB monitors (used as studio or medical equipment). Plus if you’re into repairing or refurbishing units, you’re going to want to look through the power cables and through the junk bin for junk wires and hardware.
General Tips: Check all the game cases before you buy them (people steal games or switch the cases). Check the CD rack for PlayStation games as well as the DVDs for PS2, etc. Check the board games section to find old PC games. If you see a console in the showcase, check around the store for the controllers and cables. It’s very annoying, but the employees sometimes decide to split up consoles like PlayStation 2 in this manner. Ask if you can plug in electronics before you buy them (unless you’re experienced, you’re not going to want to buy some console that won’t even power on then have to return it). Some stores don’t give cash refunds either, so make sure you understand the return policy before buying. While people do donate perfectly good items, often there’s something wrong with the item. It’s better to know that up front than have to get a return (if possible) later.
Retail Stores
Location: Malls, Retail Store Chains (i.e. Target, Toys R’ Us, Family Dollar, Roses, Big Lots)
You’ll likely find: Retail sealed games from the current and previous generation.
Phase Relevant: All (but only for newer consoles really)
Strategy: Sales, sales, sales. That’s why you’re going to want to check these out. When a new system comes out, these stores rush to move old games out of stock as well as poorly-selling newer titles. You can get some outstanding deals. I’ve seen 80% off sales on Wii U games at Target recently. And discount stores like Big Lots often have buy two get one free sales on the lackluster games (even though they usually have really bad game selection). And a lot of these stores have coupons that you can find online (or through having a frequent buyer card). You can take advantage of those to pick up something to trade someone else or something you’ve been looking for.
Recently even Walmart has started carrying used games. They even take trade-ins to stock the used games. This is being used to draw some customers away from GameStop and get people into the store, but it can work in favor of the collector. Be sure to check out the used games section in electronics. You might find some great games at decent deals.
General Tips: Target and Toys R’ Us have had good deals on games when buying a new handheld or around Black Friday sales. So be sure the check sales papers (often you can find the one for your local store online in downloadable format).
Gaming Store Chains
Location: Chain Game Stores (i.e. GameStop) – there used to be a lot more of these like Funcoland, Electronics Boutique, Babbages, etc.
You’ll likely find: New and used games from current generations.
Phase Relevant: All (but only for newer consoles really)
Strategy: So believe it or not, these stores can have some good deals and it pays to check them out when they’re having sales. The best time to pick up games for a console is in the following year after the newer generation comes out. That’s been true of many previous console generations at GameStop. While there might not be an immediate sale of the last generation at launch, there’s usually one sometime in that year – ranging from a percentage discount, to a buy-two-get-one-free sale, to a buy-one-get one-free-sale.
Just be aware that you might take a copy of a game to the counter and employees try and swap it with a generic copy and tell you the other one was a display copy. I’ve been stuck in this situation when buying quite a few games to get the discount. Usually if you’re polite and firm, you will get things your way, but that’s just part of the experience you may encounter.
Also on these buy-one-get-one-free sales, make sure you’re on top of things. For example, I’ve picked up two $2 games and two $5 – which should have resulted in a $7 sale – only to be told that it was $10 because they’d given me the two $2 games instead of pairing it up correctly. (I believe GameStop’s system will automatically do things the fair way) If you find a store that does this, feel free to buy two games at a time until you’re done. Sometimes the employees will hint that you should do this when you’re buying $30 games (remember they’re gamers too).
Sometimes these companies buy the rights to reproduce titles that were originally rare. For example, previously GameStop acquired the rights to reprint Wii Xenogear Chronicles and PS2 Fatal Frame games. The price prior to the reproduction copies being distributed was high due to scarcity. Instead of pricing at retail, GameStop charged the market price (much to the chagrin of gamers). While this corrected over time, a lot of people overpaid for these titles – not realizing they were buying a reproduction copy instead of the original release. While the upside of this was more availability of the game for everyone, be sure to do your homework on such strangely-priced games.
General Tips: Avoid pre-orders unless the extras are truly worth it – even on games you anticipate being rare (such as Atlus RPGs, often with short print-runs). You might be thinking you’re going to get a sealed copy on launch day. In reality, sometimes your copy has already been opened, shared between employees, and you may be told it’s not in yet at launch. I’m not saying all chain stores are like this, but I’ve certainly heard enough about this sort of thing to make me avoid pre-ordering at all costs. Also, often the extras (such as soundtracks, special cases, boxes, etc) can just be bought for cheap on eBay after the fact.
Decide if you’re going to be regularly buying used games and if the math works out, get a discount card (which shops like GameStop charge you for). And if you’re like me, you’re buying games you might not play for years; so that 1-year warranty they offer is usually not going to be worth the money.
Be sure to check out the used game accessories. I’ve found some true deals – like $20 controllers priced at $5 or spare cables. One time I found a GameStop that had Game Boy Players for GameCube with discs for $10 each (and this was back when they went for $25-35 each).
Used Bookstores
Location: Used Book Stores / Record Stores
Phase Relevant: All (probably more useful at the odds-and-ends time though)
You’ll likely find: Lots of books (of course), but maybe, just maybe a selection of vintage games as well (especially PC games).
Strategy: This is really the same as thrift stores in that you’re trying to find random games. Because the games are often traded or donated to the store, you never know what you’re going to run into. The condition of games will likely be better than those found at trade lots and thrift stores, but the games will also be higher priced. If the games are in bins, they’re probably just bulk rate and the ones in showcases have likely been priced online. This is fine – as you can likely still find a great deal. There are several places like this in my local area and one in particular sort of serves as the community thrift store in a university area. They’re interested in the quick-flip, so you can often snag some good deals in the stores.
General Tips: Check if they have a frequent buyer program. One local bookstore gives $10 coupons per $100 spent. That’s kind of like a 10%-off coupon if you find enough games to make it worth your while.
Well that wraps up this week’s installment. Check in next time as we go over some remaining places to find retro-games.