Gamestop Eyeballs the Vintage Videogame Market

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

This begs the question: Why did Gamestop stop doing this in the first place? They have been phasing out obsolete games for years now. You can't even buy original Xbox games there anymore. We have services online and in physical retail (depending on your area) that fill this niche already.

I've noticed that too.

Thankfully there are those small stores that sell old games and consoles for cheap, and have done what Gamestop failed to do.

What sucks is those stores are hard to find and you have to really go looking for them.

While I agree searching for those small stores can be a pain in the ass for many, so long as the stores can stay open and in business I almost enjoy things the way they are. If there's a store out there to find, I enjoy the task of finding it, and the sheer elation I feel when I stumble across one completely by accident and wind up spending all my food money on obscure shit I can't really afford.
Some might see that as elitism, but I prefer to see it as a desire for adventure.

I've stumbled upon two in my area, and one is about an hour away from me.

It is an adventure and it's totally awesome when you find them, and I call them magical places because they've somehow managed to stay open, do fairly well, and have awesome stuff for less.

I don't see it as elitism since I think nostalgia is taking a major factor in that and I know I've never been snooty about finding such places. I tell friends about them and hope they visit.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

A small story that bothers me... GameStop bought out Rhino Games (dunno if it was just local to Florida or not but never saw one anywhere else), a week after I had decided to go back to the local one in Lakeland to buy the rest of the FF series for PSX hint books I didn't have.
The Rhino Games sign was still up but covered by a Gamestop banner, and when I went inside they didn't have the books.
GameStop had forced the store to rip up every one of those vintage books and toss em in the trash.
So, GameStop, where are you going to get this stuff now? You coulda had it sitting in a warehouse, or sold it off at auction... instead you destroyed a good number of those products (since I've found out that any store bought by GS that sold older stuff like that had the same mandate) where are you going to go? Only stores that sell that and won't sell out to you have it, and the EBay'ites aren't ever going to sell that stuff cheap to you.
Too little too late GS, you had your shot.

And damn shame too because I would have liked to have seen GameStop sell these items, vintage. I like owning older games, hell I bought a sealed FF7 Black Box game at a flea market 5 years ago for 2 bucks.
But that was luck.

 

[ScruffyMcBalls]

This begs the question: Why did Gamestop stop doing this in the first place? They have been phasing out obsolete games for years now. You can't even buy original Xbox games there anymore. We have services online and in physical retail (depending on your area) that fill this niche already.

I've noticed that too.

Thankfully there are those small stores that sell old games and consoles for cheap, and have done what Gamestop failed to do.

What sucks is those stores are hard to find and you have to really go looking for them.

While I agree searching for those small stores can be a pain in the ass for many, so long as the stores can stay open and in business I almost enjoy things the way they are. If there's a store out there to find, I enjoy the task of finding it, and the sheer elation I feel when I stumble across one completely by accident and wind up spending all my food money on obscure shit I can't really afford.
Some might see that as elitism, but I prefer to see it as a desire for adventure.

I've stumbled upon two in my area, and one is about an hour away from me.

It is an adventure and it's totally awesome when you find them, and I call them magical places because they've somehow managed to stay open, do fairly well, and have awesome stuff for less.

I don't see it as elitism since I think nostalgia is taking a major factor in that and I know I've never been snooty about finding such places. I tell friends about them and hope they visit.

I'm glad you agree, and yeah, the best part about the experience by far is sending friends to go to the store themselves and help support it.

 

[Lunar Templar]

uh huh ....

I'll go to ebay, or a little hole in the wall store of old stuff. if they wanted to get collector dollars then they should have never stop carrying the older stuff to begin with

as others have said, to late GS you had your chance

 

[Epona]

This is funny, because GameStop don't realize nobody wants them around no matter what they "become" and with their current management there's no way they can ever hope to "become" anything that already exists through a different service.

We have gog.com for this, and it's one of the very best, if not the ultimate, game service.

Wow, the point of collecting is lost on you isn't it?

BTW, Gamestop is wanted or they would be out of business by now.

Captcha: I refuse to type an ad slogan so I refresh the Captcha until I get something that isn't an ad. Dish just kept coming up.

 

[kaizen2468]

Man if people think buying a really rare, mint vintage game from another gamer is going to be expensive, wait til you try to buy a mint copy of mario rpg from somewhere like gamestop.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

This begs the question: Why did Gamestop stop doing this in the first place? They have been phasing out obsolete games for years now. You can't even buy original Xbox games there anymore. We have services online and in physical retail (depending on your area) that fill this niche already.

I've noticed that too.

Thankfully there are those small stores that sell old games and consoles for cheap, and have done what Gamestop failed to do.

What sucks is those stores are hard to find and you have to really go looking for them.

I also doubt many of these places exist outside of the US.

Not sure about the rest of the UK, but they're very commonplace here in Manchester. We don't have Gamestop, though.

 

[Fappy]

This begs the question: Why did Gamestop stop doing this in the first place? They have been phasing out obsolete games for years now. You can't even buy original Xbox games there anymore. We have services online and in physical retail (depending on your area) that fill this niche already.

I've noticed that too.

Thankfully there are those small stores that sell old games and consoles for cheap, and have done what Gamestop failed to do.

What sucks is those stores are hard to find and you have to really go looking for them.

I also doubt many of these places exist outside of the US.

Not sure about the rest of the UK, but they're very commonplace here in Manchester. We don't have Gamestop, though.

That's great! EB Games/Gamestop bought everyone out about a decade ago and gutted most of the non-franchise game retailers in the US, so you're very lucky if you live by one of those small bastions of retro gaming glory. Gamestop is so... bleh. You're not missing out by not having them in the UK

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I was under the impression that most gamers still prefer their solid copies of games, not digital downloads. Did I miss when that changed to the vast majority and I'm now considered a collector?

So...what type of old classic games are we talking about? Just about any last-gen game (or previous gen ones), or are we talking super rare ones like Suikoden II and stuff like that? Could be interesting. I always like seeing what the past looks like, and it's always fun to find that gem that someone else traded in.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Sooooooo, I could, in theory, get games like Popful Mail, The Legend of Vay, Secret of Evermore if they did this?

If so...awesome.

If not...Y U NO HAVE OLD GAMES XBOX AND PS3?!?!?!?!?!?!?

 

[mixadj]

Isn't this what Funcoland did before gamestop merged with them?

Now that you mention it... I remember being able to walk into Funcoland and buy N64 and some SNES cartridges out of the display cases half way into the PS2 cycle. The last game seller I was actually able to see old/niche equipment at was the local Rhino games. I don't know if Rhino was a chain or not, or if they were bought out by Gamestop, but when Rhino closed down a GS popped up in its place. So that is possibly two chains they merged with a while back that did that very same thing they are now trying to accomplish.

Eh gad, my writing and grammar sucks...

 

[Rednog]

Meh here's the problem, prices on ebay for older games can be somewhat high. Gamestop is walking into this thinking "hey we will pay you 1/3rd of that price so then we can turn around and charge more than the original asking price on ebay."
Seriously how do they think this will be viable in the long run? Ok sure they might have a back log sitting in some storage somewhere of maybe xbox/ps2/gamecube; but I highly doubt they've really sat on that much inventory of anything older. Even then I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of their inventory is the garbage that people didn't even want when it was released.

There's a reason why there are very few retro places and there is a reason that the ones that do exist are actually very small.

Seriously, who in the right mind is going to say hey I have this old game and I'm going to pawn it off for a messily $10 at a place like game stop, when I could probably make a solid $30 on ebay. It's essentially adding in a middleman into a system where a middle man isn't really needed.

 

[Baldr]

I know of a shop around here that sells vintage sealed in box games. Every gamer I know also knows about the shop, but they always have the same games. No one buys them. I would buy, but I'm more of a player than a collector and all they would do is gather dust. The thing about Ebay is that it can reach more potential customers.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I use steam, GoG and ebay to buy my games. I don't regret it. I bought Skyward Sword on ebay for $4o as apposed to $90 at EB games (Gamestop to you Americans)

I win.

 

[lacktheknack]

This is funny, because GameStop don't realize nobody wants them around no matter what they "become" and with their current management there's no way they can ever hope to "become" anything that already exists through a different service.

We have gog.com for this, and it's one of the very best, if not the ultimate, game service.

The one thing that Gamestop would have on them is that they offer physical copies.

...which totally isn't a selling point with about half their audience, considering that gog.com allows you to do that yourself.

 

[Ken_J]

I'm actually happy about this

 

[dragon60fe]

Aside from the download market, dosbox, etc (don't report me, I still don't know if dosbox is legit or not!)

Eh, more or less it is. I mean, Bethesda and 3DRealms recommend it for their old stuff, so why wouldn't it be, you know?

 

[Lee Quitt]

Too little too late for GS to think of this. Honestly with the downloadable versions of classics being commonplace, the shops that deal specifically in retro games (that DON'T overcharge), and the collections packs that get released, GS isn't going to make much money off this.

I assure you that they will, i work for a subsidiarity of GS, and we would make money doing this in Australia.

 

[afroebob]

Why would I buy a SNES game when I can just download it, put in on a flash drive and play it on my Wii? I mean its not like I'm taking money from a developer so why should I care if Gamestop can't get their greedy, evil paws on it?

 

[burningdragoon]

You guys confuse me sometimes. The article is entirely about GameStop wanting to cater to people who want to own original, physical copies. Saying "why would I buy physical if I can just download" means you aren't one of these people. That's fine, but don't be dumb and act like they don't exist.

Anyway, GameStop, cut it out. I'm not supposed to like you and this doesn't help that.