The Video Game Critic

velcrozombie wrote:

Sut wrote:I'm probably part of the problem with this, I normally buy games online or a supermarket.

This is me to some extent. I wanted to buy The Wonderful 101 last week and, instead of just going to Target or Walmart, I went to Gamestop. While I'm not a biggest fan of the chain, I figured I should try to give some business to an actual game store rather than an all-in-one (especially since I felt guilty for not buying my Wii U from them in the first place). I went in and, after not finding the game on the shelf, asked an employee if they had any copies. The employee (who was nice and just doing his job) told me that the game was becoming "rare" and "hard-to-find", and that they might be able to order it for me and ship it to my house...in a week. I thanked him, left, and went to Wal-Mart, where they had a stack of copies of the "rare" game. Dammit, Gamestop! You had one job!

Gamestop likes to scalp people on supposedly "rare" items. Fire Emblem: Awakening briefly went up in price after release when (unsubstantiated) rumors got out about undersupply. They artificially restricted supply of Xenoblade to make it expensive and hiked the price of gamecube controller adapters for Wii U when Nintendo stopped shipping briefly.

Yeah it feels like the next-gen systems have less games then the last gen systems did at this time in their lifespans.

Though the games still do look pretty good, I finally broke down and bought an Xbox One from Amazon using some money I got for my birthday, the thing that sent me over the edge was hearing the details of COD Black Ops III, that game sounded so amazing that there was no way in hell I was going to miss out on it.

I mostly buy new releases from Gamestop as it's very close to where I work, so it's very convenient for me to go there after my shift is over, also I usually have plenty of older games to trade towards them for store credit, so it ends up being cheaper then if I had bought the game online, plus their Power-Up Rewards program has also saved me quite a bit, I think the store design is pretty neat myself, I don't remember game stores like Funcoland looking dramatically different.

Also a little tip in case you're wondering if your local Gamestop has a game, there's a section on their website where you can enter your zipcode and see which stores closest to you have whatever particular game you're looking for.

I've never heard of Gamestop "scalping" anyone on supposedly "rare" items(except for Xenoblade Chronicles, which was an exclusive to them anyways)

I won't step getting games even when they go all-digital.

I was thinking, if someone told like 18 years ago the way things would be today I'd laugh in their face. Back then there were isles of games, hundreds. And they all had good production values and had big budgets. And now there's no games anymore, and the cost of a game is like $50 million, because it has to be so realistic with vast expanses. The whole industry sucks *****.

And the only genre (besides sports games) that would remotely appeal to me or my friends would be the FPS genre. But that genre has gotten to the point where the people that play them are different than back when I was a kid. Now it's only guys that like Techno or Magic the Gathering and there's a whole segment of people that don't play them anymore. That probably don't even play video games anymore. At least I still play the old stuff.

The AAA-fication of video gaming has sucked all the oxygen out of the market for all but a few of the games with the most lavish production values in general. Many of the games in years past that would have been on the shelf can only be found download only, possibly even PC only.

I hold retailers equally responsible for the lack of flourishing physical copies.

If Game Stop didn't sell used as new, if Block Buster did not inflate prices for 10+ year old games, and if Wal-Mart wasn't a consumer black hole we'd be in a much better place with physical media. Hell, early last generation we've only had to worry about used being sold as new.

Amazon and Ebay have taken business away from brick and mortar. I can't remember the last time I bought a new game from a store.

I always buy new releases from Gamestop over Amazon cause there I can trade in older games for store credit, that way I never have to pay full price for a new release(can't remember the last time I paid full price for a new game).

Vexer6 wrote:I always buy new releases from Gamestop over Amazon cause there I can trade in older games for store credit, that way I never have to pay full price for a new release(can't remember the last time I paid full price for a new game).

In my experience though, Gamestop's rates for trade-ins are the worst in the industry. You can go to Best Buy and generally get 20-50% more for your used games. One time I was able to trade in Call of Duty Ghosts months after release for $40 credit!

Tron wrote:I was just at Target & wasn't impressed w/ the selection. I still don't even want a PS4 or Xbone. The one game I'd really like to buy is download only; that being the Resident Evil Remaster. I think the logical conclusion is indeed that downloads are affecting retail space. This generation is so unappealing to me.

You should definitely get the REmaster! It's so good. It's available for PS3 as well so there's no need to get a PS4.