Good to know, I guess I better go check their stock for any games I missed on the system.

Gamestop still has the balls to sell Fire Emblem:Path of Radiance used at $25. Pikmin 2 for $40.

It's because they didn't sell well, rarity drives up prices. The CHEAPEST price Amazon has Pikmin 2 for is $45 for a used copy. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is $38 and up on Amazon. So if anything, GameStop saves you money on those two games compared to Amazon. Right now, the lowest auction on eBay for Pikmin 2 is $59.98

It's not GameStop, it's the general market.

I'm surprised they were still taking trades. I just assumed they stopped years ago. Weird.

Maybe I'll see what they have. There are like 2 or 3 GCN games I still want, namely Paper Mario.

I knew this was coming for a while now. Especially with the Wii U coming out near the end of this year. But I already traded all my GameCube stuff in last summer. I also won't be surprised to see a GameCude eShop-like area to download for the Wii U eventually. So this shouldn't be the last we ever hear of GameCude games.

Unless some hacker in his garage finds a way to play Gamecube discs on his Wii U.  ;D

It would not be worth the effort, if possible at all. It would pretty much be like trying to get Dreamcast discs to work on a Xbox 360 (for example). If you are thinking stuff like DVD's on a Wii, that's because the Wii was designed to play DVDs (but Nintendo just never enabled it). The Wii U will not be designed to support GameCube discs., so you would have to figure out a way for the system to hold the disc, program the system to read the discs, etc.

I doubt actually running the software would be that hard, since the Wii U is backward compatible with the Wii, and the Wii is just a suped up GameCube in terms of hardware. It takes a special kind of optical drive to read both the standard size discs and GC size discs, though, and I doubt Nintendo used that kind since they weren't going for BC. If they could figure out a way to do the controls for it, which would probably be pretty tough in its own right, I could see whatever homebrew community there is for Wii U supporting it through USB loaders, though.

Meh, I'm keeping my impressive GCN collection, and accessories.

51 titles strong.

Thhat was a sarcastic remark to Nintendo leaving something out of ther console only for some average Joe to put it back in.

Well i have a good amount of Gamecube games, i don't think i need any more i've got pretty much every Big Blockbuster on that Sistem, the only ones i can think of that i'm missing are Luigi's Mansion and Paper Mario.

The Gamecube is one of my top 3 consoles of all time.  I loved it.  May not of had as many games as the PS2, but it had some of the best games of the generation.  I have a good collection and I wouldn't consider trading them in just to repurchase them in digital form at a later date.

I saw Thousand year door for $200 at Gametraders.

I think I still have my copy (some of my GCN games were stolen a couple of years ago). Good game, but I would never pay $200 for a game (unless the game came with a real woman to give me a BJ everytime I played it, LOL).

That's still too much. Just lower your standards and you can get that for free. Hey, you didn't say she had to be attractive.

Hey, fat chicks need lovin' too.

But they gotta pay.

But finding one without STD's to give them on demand is a little harder. LOL. Giggity

I wonder if GameStop will discount their remaining GameCube inventory, or just sell them at their current prices till they are gone?

I heard this a week or two ago, and I actually thought it happened years ago but it was just that only certain stores stopped accepting GameCube stuff. Now it's a chain-wide thing. I'll be on the lookout for clearance sales; I hear that GameStop is actually selling their remaining GBA games at 50-70% off but it isn't advertised, so that might happen here.

I think it's funny how now that GameStop stops accepting GameCube, they call it "officially collectable."

I was in the local Gamestop a few days ago looking at their selection of Gamecube games.  It was pretty sad, pretty much just a mix of shovelware crap and good games that were priced way too high.

But then you'd need to return it on account of your Wii being too small and therefore incompatible with that accessory.

The other thing you'll notice after April 2nd is not all Gamestops will carry Gamecube games.  Stores that don't sell many games are going to be shipping their stock to stores that do.  As far as slashing the prices, we'll have to see.

Pretty sure this happened in Canada a year ago.


GameCube titles were largely moved to stores where they sell, and heavily marked down to try and clear out as much inventory as possible. There was a month or so that you could dig through bins of games with prices ranging from $1-$5 that included pretty much everything the GameCube had to offer... but of course the popular/good ones got picked over pretty quickly and that was assuming you were close to one of the "destination" stores to begin with.


I'm not sure if there was an actual "no trade-ins" policy or not... but the writing was clearly on the wall. Honestly I'm surprised that GameStop in the US bothered to accept GameCube titles for this long. Surely there would've been better returns for people to sell direct instead of getting pennies in trade credit there?

That's true for all games though.

Not always. GameStop often runs promotions that can net you decent returns. I traded two used Layton DS games for $50 credit just this weekend, which is more than I paid for them.


But when it comes to "normal" trades I agree with you - if you aren't taking advantage of a promotion, or if the games you want to trade don't fit certain criteria, then you're probably getting taken to the cleaners.

In general, the most you get for any game in trade-in credit for a game is half of what they charge for a new copy (i.e. get $30 credit for a $60 game). Promotional deals can increase this, as does getting the game cheaper somewhere else first.

I think it's funny that I picked the losing horse in last gen's race but as a result now own numerous rare games that are in high demand.  All this fuss over Pikmin 2 and I just walked into the store on release day and bought it a normal price merely because I wanted it, never thinking it would become some holy grail title in the future.

The morale of the story - pick the loser.  Someday you can be the guy with all the rare TurboGrafx-16, Sega Saturn and Gamecube games because you picked a good system that no one bothered with at the time.

You can still get Gamecube stuff on amazon, ebay, garage sales, flea markets, etc. So what if Gamestop lived up to their name and stopped? No one should be giving Gamestop any business anyway, because of how they screw people over.

GameStop as a whole isn't bad, they are like any company in that some employees are good and some are bad.

eBay is hit or miss. You could get crap quality, get ripped off, etc. Garage sales usually don't have advertising, so you have to just randomly be driving by and most of the time they don't have games anyways. Flea markets are also hit and miss. Amazon is not really great for older games, I actually pointed out on the last page that for the 2 GameCube games listed, Amazon is more expensive than GameStop. You can't even say it's free shipping or tax or whatever since older games are usually sold by third parties rather than Amazon. You may not like GameStop, but they are a good source to buy games, especially for the average consumer.

When it comes to buying used games I'm sure they are fine, but I would never buy "new" games from them because their definition of new is very different from mine.

As for buying used games on Amazon, maybe they might cost more (it depends), but at least you are helping the little guy. Amazon collects a commission, but most of it goes directly to the seller. Compare that to Gamestop where they only give someone maybe 1/10th of what their game is worth and then when you buy that used game 90% of it is just pure profit for Gamestop. Maybe it ends up a better deal for you as a buyer, but someone had gotten ripped off in the process.

Plus some sellers do offer free shipping, and usually even if they charge shipping its usually like $3.99 and that's about the price of a gallon of gas these days. Driving to Gamestop and back isn't free.

But I agree with you on ebay. A few years ago I bought Super Mario Galaxy on ebay and it ended up being a counterfeit copy. I got a full refund though, and I reported the seller to both ebay and to Nintendo. My mistake was it was a new seller so I was taking a risk. You can avoid that by checking out the feedback before you buy. If someone has been around for awhile and if their feedback rating is 98% or above its probably not going to be a problem to buy from them.

Only if you get lucky and find a GameStop with them in stock. They aren't available online and very likely most stores won't have them. In those cases, GameStop doesn't represent the "market price," they represent whatever the price was before they went out of stock.

You know, I'm no fan of GameStop, but I can't help but wonder if you know how business works.

Primarily, if I source something for $1 and sell it for $10, my profit isn't 90%.

Also, not sure I completely jive with your figure of GameStop only giving 10%.  Just looked up Mass Effect 3 - they're giving $23 (before any bonus).  I don't think ME3 is worth $230.

A quick look on eBay has auctions for Madden 09 for the 360 ending at 99 cents.  Saw a few penny auctions that didn't even have bids.  Meanwhile, GameStop gives 25 cents (before bonus).

The one and only time I traded anything to Gamestop was about 10 years ago when I took my NES collection in and I remember they gave me a mere 3 cents for Super Mario Bros. and then they put it on the shelf and priced it at $3.00 so that's no less than a hundred times the trade in value. I know better now, but I felt like an idiot and I am embarrassed to admit it. To make up for that I now try to talk people out of trading their games in to Gamestop whenever possible so they don't make the same mistakes I did.

But you are right about newer high demand games like ME3. I'm sure the trade in value for games like that is more reasonable. It just depends on the game.

Man, I can't wait until everyone's wish comes true and then there is no dedicated national chain of gaming stores. That'll be awesome! If I want to go into a b&m store, I'll have to go to smaller chains or mom-and-pop stores that overprice everything! Yay! Or Best Buy/Target where their supply is way inferior to GameStop's.

Golly gee, I hope you guys all get your way so I buy a used copy of Advance Wars: Dual Strike for $20+ at Game Trader instead of the $8 or so it is at GameStop! That'll be the best!

I love you.

If Gamestop for some reason went out of business another chain would emerge to fill their niche. Its just like how Mammals took over after the dinosaurs went extinct. As long as Dinosaurs were alive they kept the mammals down and prevented them from ever realizing their true potential and evolving to humans, so I know the dinosaurs going extinct might seem like a bad thing, but the fact is we wouldn't be here today if they hadn't.

And I think that's how it is with the Mom and Pop video game stores. As long as Gamestop exists they will struggle, but with Gamestop's extinction they would flourish and we would see a more competitive market place instead of the stagnant repressive monopoly we have now.

The reason those mom and pop stores have to charge as much as they do is because they are struggling just to exist. They don't have the volume of customers that Gamestop does, so they have to charge more by necessity. Its not because they are being greedy. They either do that or they go under. But if the Gamestop monopoly were gone they would see more business, and the competition between them should result in lower prices and it would be a better thing for consumers because we would have more choice.

Would it really change anything, though? Something tells me that prices wouldn't go down just because GameStop went away. They'd still be competing with online stores. Just because GameStop goes away doesn't mean they still wouldn't struggle to exist. Nearly every small chain/mom&pop store I go severely price gauges. The only one I've ever really liked is Digital Press, and that's primarily because Digital Press is the best video game store ever (thank them for older system price guides, all the retro games at PAX, etc.).

We'd probably just see a mad scramble for the top if GameStop went away, and then another company would swoop in and buy all the smaller chains - just like what happened with GameStop.

I'd rather have the devil that I know. I have no major issues with GameStop, and the issues I do have (opened new games, occasionally steep used prices) are easy to work around (don't buy opened new games, game their system by buying a used game and return it in a week). I like getting my subscription to Game Informer, my paltry discounts, and the rewards system that I've used to get $10 off coupons with mild regularity.

Maybe if people spent less time blindly hating on GameStop and more time seeing how they can benefit their game playing/buying using GameStop, we'd all be happier. I don't think there is another store where you can "rent" a used game for a week for free. If you hate them, do that. I know it really pisses off managers.

That's possible, but I think there would a respite of at least a few years before that would happen again (if it did). Before Gamestop rose to the monopoly it is today I can remember going to the local mall and there would be a Babbages, a KB Toys, and an Electronics Boutique. Now all of those are gone and instead there is just a Gamestop and that's it.

Monopolies are always a bad thing no matter what industry you're talking about. Its not just about prices. There's also the matter of innovation and choice. Without competition there is little incentive for a company to innovate. I don't think any of us would be happy if say Microsoft became a monopoly and pushed Nintendo and Sony out of business. But that's exactly what Gamestop has done with Babbages and EB Games, and who knows how many small mom and pop stores over the years. Now when we go to a mall the only video game retailer will probably be a Gamestop, but 10 years ago there might have been three or more. Now its just one. You either put up with their business practices (such as selling opened games as new) or go without entirely. Yes, there is the online retailers like Amazon, but it would be nice to be able to go to a mall and compare prices between several retailers.

Then go back to the '80s/'90s when malls were more relevant. Deal with the fact that online retailers have made the shopping mall less important. I miss when I could go to a mall and look at other things than a cursory electronics store and clothes. Hell, I'm glad I can usually find a GameStop in a mall, because outside of clothes, there is nothing for me at most malls. That's not GameStop's fault, that's the marketplace's fault.


Also, GameStop DOES compete with Amazon, Best Buy, etc. And their used market is competing with...well...Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, etc. It might not be something that is exactly what they are, but you can still compare prices, just not between two nearly identical video game specialty stores.

I'm very lucky in that there is a local chain in my area called Willow Video Games that just beats the pants off of Gamestop.  As a result I never go into Gamestop.  Willow has better prices for both new and used games (no $3 off for the used version bullshit unless the game is going new for like $10) and doesn't bug you about pre-ordering at all.  And they carry used stuff for ALL videogame systems as far back as Atari.  Most of my SNES collection was purchased from them.

It would have no effect on me whatsoever if Gamestop went under but most places are not so lucky to have a local competitor like I do.  Instead of Gamestop going under I would prefer if they just had better competition.  Though part of what makes Willow work is that it's locally owned and only has three locations.  A large nationwide chain like Gamestop is just going to have a certain disconnected corporate approach.

Of course someday videogames are going fully digitally distributed.  It might not be for 10 years or more but someday it will happen and then Gamestop is finished.  Videogame stores will be like used record stores dealing with very vintage selection and targetting a more niche hobbyist market.

Let me get this straight... you traded in a 12 year old, 4 generation old game and you're upset that they gave you crap for it and *maybe* sold it for crap?  You don't know they sold it for $3.  You don't know if, perhaps, they paid to ship it from store to store, trying to sell it, maybe selling it online, maybe selling it with discounts (what is it ther members get 15% off?).  You don't know if they've still got your copy sitting in a warehouse somewhere.  Meanwhile, they had to pay employees to process your game, reprice it everytime there was a price change, pack it and ship it to other stores - not to mention have the shelf space taken up by some 12 year old game from four generations ago that no one cares about...

...which is why I picked a three year old sports title for the second example...

I think I've been in a GameStop twice in the last year or so: just recently when picking up Crush 3D (which I preordered through the in-store pickup feature on their web site, which I have to say works really well; no more going to the store just to plunk down $5 for something coming out months later), and before that almost exactly a year ago for the 3DS midnight launch.

I don't have any huge complaints with them; the people at the one I go to are usually at least somewhat knowledgeable, and I've never run into anyone particularly awful. They have some business practices that bother me in principle, but don't usually affect me personally. If I didn't buy basically everything outside of food and drinks on Amazon I'd have no problem going to GameStop on a more regular basis. I'll say one thing; I've never gotten any StreetPasses while shopping on Amazon. :)

This was about 10 years ago, so it wasn't 4 generations old at the time. I don't know they sold it for $3 but I do know I came back some time later and it was on the shelf for $3.00. Maybe it wasn't the same exact copy, but it probably was.

In 2002 it still would be 3 generations old (and the game would have been 17 years old: 1985-2002). I never bothered trading in sports games or older games where I got almost nothing for them because it's not really worth it. And GameStop wasn't exactly making much profit from it, $2.97 max (and that is before adding in any costs in stocking it).

My bad, three generations old...
NES-SNES-N64-GCN (2002).

So you went back "some time" later and they still hadn't sold a $3 game?  A Mario title at that?

And you think they made out like bandits on this deal?

Whoops.  For some reason, I read that post (on my cell, at work) as Super Mario Bros. 3...

So, CG... they gave you a crap price for a 17 year old game that virtually came packed in EVERY SINGLE SYSTEM... and had two superior releases by this time... And they're the devil.

My point wasn't the crap price, it was that they were selling it a hundred times more than what the trade in value was. I know it was a common pack in game, so I didn't expect it to be extremely valuable. I was just giving that an example because when I said they give a person only 1/10th what they charge it for you made it out like I was exaggerating, but often times that really is the case, and in some cases like this its only 1/100th. I'm not saying that's typical, but it happens sometimes.

A) Which is it?  Often, not typical or sometimes?

B) 10 year old extreme example isn't very relevant today.

C) You originally said 1/10th of what the game "is worth" - now it's 1/10th of what they charge for it?  Very different things, these are.

D) Again, even with your example, we don't know how much they charged for it... or if it even sold.  We know what they priced it at as soon as it was returned to the shelf and that's it.

E) I gave two current day extreme examples based off their current trade-in prices (without bonus) and neither one of them hits the 1/10th based on going eBay prices or current GameStop sell prices (Madden 09 is currently priced at $1.99.)

F) Let's look at Madden 09 again.  Twenty five cents.  But, right now, you can get 50% bonus on all trade ins.  Also, an extra 10% if you're a rewards member.  This bumps your TIV up to 35 cents.  I can buy it online and use a Rewards card (if I had one) and get 10% off.  Then, use coupon code CAG16 for another 16% off - $1.47.  So, they make $1.12 on a three year old game that they had to pay an employee to process when someone traded it in, process it when they had to send it to whatever warehouse their online site uses, process it when it arrives at that warehouse and process it when it ships out.  And this is all based off current trade in values.  How many copies of Madden 09 do you think GameStop has?  Probably a ton.  How many of these copies that they currently have in stock do you think were traded in before 10 came out?  Before 11 came out?  Before 12 came out?  What was the trade-in values then?

I have no way of knowing.  But before bonus, here's the current TIVs for the most recent Maddens for the 360:
10 - $1.00.  47 cents profit.
11 - $5.00.  $3.26 LOSS.
12 - $21.00.  $19.53 LOSS.

So, again, you can't just go by the price they slap on it when they throw it back on the shelf.  That assumes that the game sells immediately at that price.  Chances are, it doesn't (unless it's a hot game, which, as we already established, they give you much, much more for).  If it is that easy to resell, then you should do it yourself.  Take your $1.99 copy of Madden 09 and list it on eBay.  Subtract your listing fees, PayPal fees and your time involved (let's say, ten minutes listing, dealing with the buyer, shipping, etc (all hoping you're not scammed at some point) ten minutes at minimum wage, that's $1.20 you could have made flipping burgers instead of reselling your game)...  Assuming your game sells (again, looking at all the eBay auctions that didn't get a single bid with bidding starting at 99 cents or less, good luck), how much profit did you make vs. just selling it at GameStop when you're in there buying a game anyway (if you're the type of person that sells to GameStop, you're likely the type of person that buys from them).

Look, I'm no GS fan myself... but there's plenty of reasons to hate on them.  The price they give you for trade ins is hardly one of them.  And crying about the price they gave you for some 17 year old pack-in game ten years ago is plain ridiculous at this point.

(Bolding added by me.)


I suspect the reason people are arguing has more to do with the bolded statement above than the actual numbers.


You made a choice to sell the game, you accepted the lowball price they offered, and then you felt bad afterwards.  Don't assume that all transactions go the same way though - most people never stop to look back and really don't care. If you want to encourage people to avoid your mistake then give them fair information about all options (including GameStop) so that they can make an informed decision instead of blindly telling them to avoid trading at one location.


As for specific examples, you can pull all kinds out to support either side. Some GameStop trades are good, some are terrible. Many Wii games right now are nearly worthless if you try to trade them in but still sell for (or at least are priced at) a considerably higher amount.  All part of supply and demand.

Often for 1/10th and sometimes (rarely) for the 1/100th.

I don't have any first hand experience with what the trade in situation is at Gamestop these days. All I have is the anecdotal second hand information, but that does seem to match my experience from a long time ago which tells me little has really changed since then.

Also, I wonder what the trade in value for Wii Sports or Wii Play is. I would expect that would be extremely poor. Maybe not as bad as the 3 cents for the SMB cart, but still.

Either way its far less than the trade in credit. That's all I'm arguing. A person could  put their games on ebay and get much more out of them. Would they get the full value of what the market value of the game is? Probably not when you factor in the commission and other expenses, but its far better than Gamestop giving them let's say $5 for a game that can be sold on ebay for $50 or whatever.

And on that same note, the game could have been shipped to another store or warehouse where it eventually got listed for even more than $3.00. Maybe it got ramped up to $10, like you said who knows?

Even if 1/10th is a slight exaggeration, the point is still valid. A 25 cent trade in game being priced for $2 is 8 times more than the trade in value. So the trade in is only 1/8th instead of 1/10th. Its not exactly the same, but its not far off either.

I understand what you're saying with the rewards and all that. Like I said, I'm only going on anecdotal information because I haven't been there in so long. Maybe if you jump through all their hoops and sign up for all that stuff they nag you about maybe it really isn't such a rip off, but on the surface that's how it appears. Maybe that is something Gamestop could work on improving.

"Jump through hoops"


Me: Hey, I've got some stuff to trade.  Are any of these games worth $8 or more?
GameStop  Employee:  Um, let me check.  ...  Yep. Those three are, that one isn't.
Me: Great, I'll trade two of them for $50 in credit and pick up Mario Party 9.  I'll just hold onto the others for now.  Thanks!


You can even do the first two steps over the phone.


Worried about getting a copy that is already open?  The hoop looks something like this:


Me: Hey, do you have any of these still sealed?
GameStop Employee: Nope. / Yes, there are behind the counter.
Me: Oh well. I'll keep looking. / Great, I'll take one!




Complain all you want about GameStop being evil, but if you are a smart shopper then it doesn't matter what their policies are. Take advantage of the deals, ignore the crap. It's really that easy.

Ah.

Wii Sports is getting $3, while Wii Sports Resort is getting $9.  Selling for $17.99 and $34.99 each.

Now-a-days, they'd probably just reject something as opposed to giving three cents for it.

If your time means nothing to you, then, perhaps, you're right.

Example, please?

You're right, we don't know.  So you've got a chip on your shoulder against GS based on knowing nothing?

1/8th of the price that the game will likely never sell for...

Of all the things I want GameStop to spend time improving, their trade in values isn't really one of them.
Also, to sign up for a rewards card, it's like $10 and you give them your name and mailing address (for the free magazine subscription).  If that's a hassle for you, good luck selling your stuff on eBay.  Hint: you have to give your name and mailing address to both eBay and PayPal, among many, many other hoops.