People Will Like You If You're Too Stingy, Steve (Game Deals thread)

[JWiley_12]

Specialised video game stores have almost completely disappeared in my country. The pop and mom store is entirely a thing from the past. There is one chain of stores still (called Game Mania), and they've been in quite a bit of financial trouble, even went bankrupt and rebooted recently. They're typically incredibly overpriced, and the only reason I ever go there is for store exclusive LEs or CEs.

Other than that you have to get your games in either supermarkets, or in video game departments of multimedia or toy stores.

But in general I hardly ever buy games in brick and mortar stores anymore, mostly because they charge way too much. The majority (80%) of my gaming purchases I import from UK online stores which are way cheaper.

So, yeah, that makes me wonder too how in the US that type of specialised game store can survive still. Here in Europe in the cities most stores (including said video game stores) are even within walking distance from people's homes, yet they don't buy there anymore. In the US I assume many people have to drive quite a bit to even get to the store.

[ramzastrife]

They don't survive everywhere in the US. Some cities or areas have enough interest that some stores survive, but not all of them. With close to 2 million people in the city and surrounding cities, there are 4 mom and pop shops. The 2 closest to me suck (extremely overpriced and/or shitty selection), there is one up north about 30 miles that is paired with a comic book/TCG shop that is actually pretty good, and there is 1 south about 45 minutes that I have never actually gone to. I know when I visited a friend of mine in Orange County/Los Angeles area a couple of years ago, there were a ton of them. I only was able to make it to 2 of them, and they were ok. Then again that area is probably 6 million+?

[Gypsy]

So, yeah, that makes me wonder too how in the US that type of specialised game store can survive still. Here in Europe in the cities most stores (including said video game stores) are even within walking distance from people's homes, yet they don't buy there anymore. In the US I assume many people have to drive quite a bit to even get to the store.

They survive because video game popularity is at an all-time high so they get a huge volume of used sales. That's the majority of Gamestop's business and why they will fight digital hard. That said Gamestop has had to scale back a bit and close quite a few locations, so it's not all rainbows and sunshine. The problem with one of the locations I was talking about is that it's in a dead mall. No one goes to the mall (from what I've seen, and it's not like I go there often since it's quite far over 40 miles) so it just makes me wonder. I'm guessing a really good portion of their business comes from selling games after they go up in price, since they stick around at that location for awhile and then disappear. I don't know if they get credit for shipping their stock to other stores to sell, but clearly that location hangs around somehow.

As for local entities it depends on the local market like Ramza said. Within 25 miles of me (I'm in a rural area located between two cities) there are 6 completely local stores and 4 regional chain stores and then two Gamestops (one in each city, one city used to have two locations literally less than a mile apart but the mall location finally closed). I think it helps that both are college towns with one of them being a major state university. I've talked to a couple of the owners before and a fair amount of their business will be college kids that will buy 2-3 consoles and a big pile of games around when school starts up. Then when they leave for the summer they trade it all back in. Basically a long term expensive rental. I think this number of stores is about what can be supported by this area. 4 stores closed down within the last 3 years and all the current stores were running at that time so there was a point with 14 game stores that were not Gamestop. From what I've been able to gather 2 of these closings were buyout situations by other stores basically wanting to get rid of competition.

I will say, none of these stores are great for true collectible games. Ie htf stuff like Turbo, SCD, Saturn etc...but that's pretty much to be expected at this point. The store I go to most I know the owner and am able to negotiate prices and trade-in rates, but his rates are pretty fair anyway, as high as 50% for store credit on easy to move games. There are a couple stores here that are as low as 10%... Overall it's a pretty healthy local market.

[JWiley_12]

We might not have that large of a 2nd hand market. The chain of game stores I mentioned, Game Mania, also offers a lot of 2nd hand games, but really only from last gen consoles, I think, or maybe 2 generations ago, but certainly nothing older than that.

I'm thinking those 2nd hand sales are actually keeping them alive too, because typically they offer very little cash for 2nd hand games, and resell them at what would almost be RRP for a new game in the States.

Anyway, I'm assuming it's a cultural thing, because I live in one of the most densely populated areas (889 people per square mile) in Europe. Only DC, Rhode Island, Puerto Rico and New Jersey have higher numbers in the USA (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lation_density). So there should be a real market for that type of stores if people would actually be interested in buying there.

My own town is a university town as well, one of the biggest of its sort in the country. And like I said: no dedicated game store, except for a local Game Mania which isn't even located in town. The last real shop closed down about 5 years ago, I think.

As for the 2nd hand market: at times you do find games at flea markets, but it's typically PS2 shovelware (Buzz!, SingStar). Most of that market seems to have moved to eBay or local variants of eBay.

Edit: so in conclusion, I don't think it would be possible to make a YT show like for example "The Game Chasers" over here. :-)

[Gypsy]

To clarify Gamestop only likes to go one gen back as well. Everywhere else here goes back to Atari though.

[Aristides]

Specialised video game stores have almost completely disappeared in my country. The pop and mom store is entirely a thing from the past. There is one chain of stores still (called Game Mania), and they've been in quite a bit of financial trouble, even went bankrupt and rebooted recently. They're typically incredibly overpriced, and the only reason I ever go there is for store exclusive LEs or CEs.

Other than that you have to get your games in either supermarkets, or in video game departments of multimedia or toy stores.

But in general I hardly ever buy games in brick and mortar stores anymore, mostly because they charge way too much. The majority (80%) of my gaming purchases I import from UK online stores which are way cheaper.

So, yeah, that makes me wonder too how in the US that type of specialised game store can survive still. Here in Europe in the cities most stores (including said video game stores) are even within walking distance from people's homes, yet they don't buy there anymore. In the US I assume many people have to drive quite a bit to even get to the store.

Interesting, never heard of games being sold in supermarkets 0-0

Well here in Puerto Rico things are very different from the locations mentioned so far. Brick and Mortar is king for some reason, people tend to shop online less (maybe because the retardation of online retailers towards PR?) as a result there are over 40 gamestop locations in such a tiny island. There are no other competing local game stores (play n' trade was here for a while but closed down fast, not sure if any location still survives) however there are some retro game stores (though I have yet to visit one X_X). Every single mall and most shopping centers has at least 1 GS (some can have up to 3, maybe 4), they seem gluttonously wealthy too... <_<. All in all it's really much like Starbucks in New York lol. Personally I prefer to buy online, I dislike GS policy and well... giving money to them at all.

[Gypsy]

Interesting, never heard of games being sold in supermarkets 0-0

Well here in Puerto Rico things are very different from the locations mentioned so far. Brick and Mortar is king for some reason, people tend to shop online less (maybe because the retardation of online retailers towards PR?) as a result there are over 40 gamestop locations in such a tiny island. There are no other competing local game stores (play n' trade was here for a while but closed down fast, not sure if any location still survives) however there are some retro game stores (though I have yet to visit one X_X). Every single mall and most shopping centers has at least 1 GS (some can have up to 3, maybe 4), they seem gluttonously wealthy too... <_<. All in all it's really much like Starbucks in New York lol. Personally I prefer to buy online, I dislike GS policy and well... giving money to them at all.

This has to be a factor. Lol. That is an insane saturation of Gamestops though.

As far as games in supermarkets go, iirc Meijer would have video games, but only really popular stuff. I don't live where that store is right now, so I haven't been to one in awhile.

[KrownKlown]

Oh I meant to post this, I will do it later. When my dad picked up my child of light, it was from a gamestop like chain and it came with a brochure/pamphlet. I wanted to post it here to show how bad European prices are. The PS4 is about 600 USD, while a standard PS4 game is 85 USD. Even older games and systems are pretty expensive.

But regarding local stores, its hard to know if you live in a big city like LA or Houston or Dallas or NY. The cities are too big, and local shops don't advertise. So I might have some around and not know about them. But non gamestop or Frys, we have around here Game Over - which has all systems, imports, osts, Game Plus - the same as Game Over but no imports, and then places like Movie Exchange or HPBs which take in what they get and sell what they get - so you could find imports but its YMMVs.

[Aristides]

This has to be a factor. Lol. That is an insane saturation of Gamestops though.

As far as games in supermarkets go, iirc Meijer would have video games, but only really popular stuff. I don't live where that store is right now, so I haven't been to one in awhile.

Yeah I can't imagine people wanting to pay for overpriced and delayed shipping when you can just drive ten minutes, take a train or walk across the street from college. I do because the stuff I usually buy is either not available or I prefer my games sealed and not opened and sold as new. But... if stuff I want comes out and there's no drawback to getting it there I'm forced take the cheaper route XD.

[JWiley_12]

As The Gypsy said the games that are offered in local smaller supermarkets are your typical movie tie-in games or other crappy stuff. But in the largest supermarkets there is often a really decent offering of games here, and sometimes you can get great deals on them too. I remember feeling a bit gutted seeing Dragon Quest VIII for €10 at such a supermarket, when I had paid €20 for it a few weeks earlier.

So I do go there once in a while to check out the prices.

But other than that British online stores are the way to go for me. They are way cheaper, and shipping to here is either free or mounts up to a few euros. On average I would say it takes under a week (usually a day or 2) to get my games, which is acceptable given the price difference.

Just to give you an idea of that difference: if I would want to buy the regular edition of Mario Kart 8 right now, the cheapest I could find it in brick and mortar stores here is around €54.95. (That is US$74. Taxes are included.) Meanwhile in UK online stores the cheapest price yesterday was £27.99, which is US$47.6.