Originally posted by: Kelekin
I'm always pretty amazed when people are surprised by prices of some stores, and being upset when they use ebay pricing. I think people who use B-I-N as pricing are ridiculous, but using completed auctions (or really, looking through VGPC recent auctions) is a fair pricing metric. Most people on NintendoAge don't price much lower than stores, to be honest. On top of that - how much do you think it takes to make a living? I know some store owners down there who pay $25 to sell a game for $30. That is a terrible profit margin. If they drop that game to $25 for you, they make no money. Sure, there are terrible stores, I agree, but I don't know that you are thinking about the business side of it and understanding that they are trying to make a living. With the amount of stores in Washington, it's hard for me to believe this is a very 'lucrative' industry. Anyway, people in the United States never realize how good they have it when it comes to retro gaming. I live in a city of 1.6 million people and we have one video game store that is horribly over-priced. Our cost of living is significantly higher, our cost of groceries are significantly higher, our rent is significantly higher, and we don't make that much more money. So boohoo.
I was on a road trip recently down there and went to most of the Seattle stores. I like Another Castle in Edmonds, but their Lynnwood store is terrible and over-priced. Apparently the Edmonds store is switching over to Lynnwood's atrocious pricing system soon. The store owner prices some games like "$20.50" and "$20.99" and "$21.00". How many different ways do you need to put the cents on the game? Their prices were all over the place, too.
Pink Gorilla is a store I enjoy, though not for the prices. Just the sheer fact of how many imports they have, their marketing, etc. They do it right. Except that piddly mall location. I hear that used to be an amazing location? But I went in there and they had basically nothing.
The worst store I've been to in Washington so far was 1UP Games in Yakima. The guy's store is practically just a storage unit, games littered -everywhere-, and while he is nice enough to want to test the games before he sells them to you, it took over an hour and we had been driving for 11 hours and we told him we wanted to leave and we were sure they were fine and we wouldn't be making the trip back to return them no matter what anyway.
I haven't been to Bill's store in Tacoma, but I know he's a nice and accomodating person (regardless of his staff) and used to bring in the coolest imports. I'm sure instead of just telling him how terrible his store is, he'd want to make it up to you (as is good customer service). Never be afraid to complain to a manager unless the manager is the one at fault...haha.
I wish you luck with all your game hunting GirlGamer55. This thread reads kind of...negatively, you shouldn't need to reason out why you make purchases and just be happy that you had something you want and didn't otherwise have. Because trust me...better to be in Seattle, than in Canada! (imagine how much worse it is for Europeans)
The worst store I've been to so far is Game Lobster in Federal Way. Messy, packed to the brim with stuff, you can't move in there and everything is above ebay price...I was checking prices there on my moms cell phone. Everything is 5-10 bucks more then the highest price on ebay.
Also I've found that a lot of NA sellers are better priced then even ebay. They work with you to strike deals if you get a few games or whatever. I've saved a lot of money buying off of NA then I would if I went to ebay or...to that guys store.
