I created a blog to write about music. Today, I would like to rant about used video game stores. Money is tight, but I want to get Pete Yorn tickets. What did I decide to do? Sell some old video games that I don't play anymore. I will never in my life walk into a Game Stop again, and besides, I was trying to sell SNES games.
Let's first go back a few years, and let me explain my hatred towards Gamestop. When I was in a kid in the early 90's there was a store called Funcoland. It was the first used video game store of my knowlege. From what I remember, the store was great! It had tons of stations to try out any video game that you wanted. I remember the new games being over priced, but the used games seemed to be fair. I was into Sega Genesis at the time.
I got into N64 and PS2 later on, but I always had a love for the old NES which I never owned. When I was in high school/early college, I bought an old NES for about 20 bucks or so. This was around the late 90's/early 00's when Funcoland seemed to be phasing out the NES. They were selling systems and games, but they weren't too interested in buying unless you had some rare game like Zelda with the gold cartridge. They were selling games for dirt cheap and I had a blast playing NES with my friends. The employees at Funcoland weren't as nice as they were when I was 11 and they would give me wierd looks when I would come up to the counter with a stack of NES games.
Then one day Funcoland turned into Gamestop...
I still went into the store, but my interest gradually turned into hatred.
Scenerio 1.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
This game was huge! I decided to get the game the day it came out. All stores were sold out...except for Gamestop...only if you bought the players guide with it. That would cost you another 20 bucks. They told me I should have reserved a copy at there store.
Scenerio 2.
The PS2 was still a hot item, but I was losing interest in videogames. I decided to sell it while I could still make a buck off of it. I took great care of my PS2 and games. Never had a problem with it...until I brought it into Gamestop. For some mysterious reason, when they tested it there, the screen was distorted. I was shocked! He told me he would give me 20 bucks to take it off my hands. I left and sold it at Pawn America for a decent price. They didn't even check to see if it worked.
Scenerio 3.
The wii was still hard to get after the 2nd Christmas season that it was out. My sister-in-law wanted one for her son. My wife called Gamestop and they told here there was a good chance there would be a wii shipment at 12:00. I went there and the guy treated me as if I should have known there would be no chance for a wii. I explained that my wife called and he acted like I was a complete idiot.
Now I came to accept that there will always be video game snobs. There are record store snobs, video rental snobs, and so on. But these are usually at independantly owned stores. I don't see too many snobs at the check out at Best Buy or Sam Goody (When there was one).
Flash forward to 3 years ago. Gamestop wasn't selling used NES games anymore. This brought in a new market. I first saw an old school video game store at the Edina Mall. I was in heaven. The clerk seemed cool and there were tons of great games for NES, SNES, etc. Last year, I saw tons of small island stores in malls that sold used old school games.
I decided to go to the Mall of America and sell my copy of Chrono Trigger at this place called
Hi-Score. I know it's a great game, but I don't have the time to play it, and I figured I could get at least 20 for it. Ebay was too much of a hassle, so I went to
Hi-Score.
He put the game in this machine that played NES and SNES games, but it wasn't a real SNES. I have seen these emulators for sale before. He put the game in and...all of the data was erased!!!! I had 3 saved games on it, and when he put it in his little machine, they were all wiped out. He asked me if I could save a game so that he could tell that the saved battery feature still worked. It would have taken me 30 minutes to find a saved point and I had my daughter with me. There was no way I had the time. Plus, his machine could have ruined my save feature if I tried to sell it elsewhere. He offerd me 20 bucks, but would have given me 35 if I could have saved it. I took the money. He had another copy of Chrono Trigger at his store for 99 dollars!! I could find it on ebay for 25-30.
Now this is the second time I went to a used video game store where a game of mine hasn't worked. Does anyone know if they have something that makes games appear defective? Please let me know! My guess is that most of the games people bring in are stolen and don't care what money they get for them.
I found some videos of an ex-Game Stop employee that tells about how crappy it is to work there and how they treat their customers, but there has to be someone that knows if they mess with your games. See his videos
here. They are quite amusing.
Anyways, that's my rant. I should have gone to Discland, but I figured this Hi-Score place would give me more since they sell it for more. Discland in Bloomington has always been good to me and their clerks are cool.
.jpg)
