Idiots that don't understand video game values

[Spark Dino]

"Dear customers,

First off, let me say that I understand the frusteration of buying a game new for $40 and having the game store offer you $6 for it. However, please understand that game stores are in business to make money and it is not a "rip off" if they pay you $6 for a game and then price it at $15 in the store. Why? Because they pay for the building, the employees, and finally, they have no guarantee that anyone will ever buy your game. Also, just like cars, music, and dvds, almost all video games lose value over time. Sorry bud, thats just the way that economics works.

Don't like it? Please feel free to sell it on craigslist or ebay. You will probably get more money that way. Trading it to us is convienent and we will give you cash money right now. Just don't roll your eyes or call me a crook when I offer you $0.75 for Madden 2002 for ps2. Guess what champ, that game sells for like $1.99 online so I'm offering you a pretty good price. Don't want to sell me your precious copy of Madden 2002? I could care less. It isn't a valuable game to me, and the other customers are not bashing down the doors to buy your four year old football game."

Sorry, I just had to get that rant out of me . A kid just came in today with "Oni" for ps2. This game sells for $2.99 online at ebgames.com so I give the kid $1. He looks at me with pure contempt and disgust and says "THANKS!" in a loud sarcastic tone as he slams the game on the counter and takes his money. I wanted to show him my computer monitor with the $2.99 retail price, but instead I just shrugged my shoulders and watched him stomp out.

[0oAmericanGirl]

Wow, nowhere around me gives you cash only game credit.

[MystyGlyttyr]

The game stores I frequent offer credit or cash, but you get more credit than you do cash. Usually, I take the cash, but I recently bought The Sims 2 for my Playstation and was quite disappointed when I realized that the Playstation version doesn't allow the Sims to breed. And I wanted very much to make Sims wrestlers and breed them and see what I got. (I'm nerdy.) So I'll probably trade it in and take my $4 credit so I can buy the Sonic anthology for $10 or something like that...

Now if I can just bring myself to part with my X-Men games, too, I could get it for free. *siiiiiigh*

[CrazedClerk]

Spark, I think you might work for the same company I do.

I see this alll the time, people just don't understand that an item loses AT LEAST half its value the minute it leaves the store.

Also older sports games are the LEAST valuable games out there. I have people come in with stacks of 2002 and 2003 EA games and wonder why they only get $1/pop.

I wish I was able to pay a little more for quality though. The trade values are preset in our computer. It's sad that I have to give the same credit to someone who brings up a worn but functioning version of the game as I do someone who brings in a mint version.

Most pawn shops will give you cash for games.

I take delight in people who come in to trade, balk at our "ridiculously low" value for the games, then later come back to trade anyway because they couldn't get any more somewhere else. HA! Take that buddy.

[Becks]

Oh, I wish Mike hadn't sold his old Nintendo. I want to go trolling for a 50 cent copy of Bubble Bobble.

[LostMyMind]

Oh, I wish Mike hadn't sold his old Nintendo.

If you're talking about the original Nintendo, you can still buy em brand new (about $20) (mine died so I bought a replacement).

[Becks]

If you're talking about the original Nintendo

Uh...the one that usually came with Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros., and if you were lucky, the gun to use for DH...

[Mark Healey]

"Dear customers,

First off, let me say that I understand the frusteration of buying a game new for $40 and having the game store offer you $6 for it. However, please understand that game stores are in business to make money and it is not a "rip off" if they pay you $6 for a game and then price it at $15 in the store. Why? Because they pay for the building, the employees, and finally, they have no guarantee that anyone will ever buy your game. Also, just like cars, music, and dvds, almost all video games lose value over time. Sorry bud, thats just the way that economics works.

I'm surprised you pay as much as you do. That's pretty much the same math that used book business uses. I would have guessed that you would have to pay and charged even less with platform obsolescence issues. A 50 year old book is just as readible as a new one.

[Imogene]

Uh...the one that usually came with Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros., and if you were lucky, the gun to use for DH...

That was a package deal, if I'm not mistaken, but yes, that would be an NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) Just wait, though, I hear the Nintendo Wii is going to have a new version of Duckhunt for the first time since they originally released the game.

[Ryu]

ugh
i admit i get REALLY MAD about textbooks prices and how little you get for them used but not at the employees, at the companies who put out a new edition every year or two
paying 200 bucks to get 10 or 20 back infuriates me so i understand how they feel, in a way, but never ever take it out on someone with no control over the situation

[Lace Neil Singer]

I've still got old Megadrive games stashed away... my ancient Megadrive eventually died of old age a year ago. I can't be arsed to go and trade the games tho... especially as I'd be lucky to get more than 1p per game. I did love playing with my Megadrive tho... ahhhh, Bubble Bobble, Mega Bomberman, Megalomania, Micro Machines, Theme Park... how I miss them.

[Kiwi]

Ryu you dont always need the brand new edition, sometimes all they have is a couple of pages different

buy second hand textbooks (online or at your universities textbook store) and then get a new edition from your university library and photocopy the pages that are different

It will usually state in the "revision" section at the start WHAT IS DIFFERENT about that issue compared with the other edition (usually its one or two sections that have been expanded or re-written) no need to get an entirely new book just for one chapter...

The only textbooks I brought new were ones I knew I would continue to use outside of school.

My Chinese history professor sole his "China since 1911" book at $50 and I found it on amazon for $9

[Lace Neil Singer]

I also had Streetfighter2, Mortal Kombat and Streets of Rage, plus 2 Sonic games and Columns. Maybe I'd get 10p for the lot?

I gave my old books from GCSE English to Oxfam; someone would have picked up a goldmine as every book had my scribbles in them, serious note taking.

[Ryu]

kiwi the only problem is i go to the a small school, used books arent always available and whe nthey are they go fast
their also still expensive from the bookstore
the library doesnt have many textbooks or if they do their always being used
this semester im going to try to get em all online but itsa challenge due to some places having absurdly long shipping times

[AFpheonix]

Ryu: Then surely there's a classmate who'd let you borrow their new edition for an hour to copy the edited sections?


I always would advertise my old books on the school network: I could sell them for more than the bookstore would offer me, and the purchaser could get them for less than the bookstore would then charge for them.