*PLEASE note this is not a doom and gloom thread, just activity in my own town which is not a an overly large town, but is fairly well sized. (Lincoln, Ne)



So there has been a few stores in my hometown that have closed in the last month and I believe one more is to follow. One was a gamers; anyone not familiar with that store it sells old and new stuff, kind of a staple for the Midwest. The other was a store called game cycle that seemed to lean more towards older stuff, while selling new stuff.

It's the strangest thing. We have a pretty big University and plenty of local collectors around here, but we are seeing stores close recently. 3-4 months ago, Game Cycle moved into town, run by a gentleman in Kansas who was spreading sccross nebraska at a fairly quick pace. Sort of came out of the blue as it grew very quickly. About a month ago, the store had already closed its doors. Along with the other locations in Nebraska. I only went in a few times and really didn't get much of a chance to give it a shot either way as it vanished so quickly. It was across the street from one of the smaller colleges here and I suppose didn't do enough sales to make it. I spoke with the owner who said something to the effect that game stores are very niche and he was going to focus back on Kansas. That sucked for the community because variety and competition is almost always a positive thing for the consumer.

The second store that closed was Gamers, they closed one of the two locations in town, they have been here for as long as I can remember and unlike game cycle this came as no surprise. Gamers Is cool on the fact that they will give you prices on there website on how much they will buy things in for, but about 3-4 months ago they closed at least once location in Omaha, and stopped buying things in for cash but rather only for credit. Which I found to be a bit strange as for alot of University kids and people around my age usually buy there stuff from there and then sell it back at about 30% of what they paid for it for to markup. I expressed concerns in the local retro group and nobody thought anything of it. Needless to say they closed the location that had been opened for many years, like, when I was a kid I traded in Mario kart 64 and cash for Star wars podracing. (They were accross the street at the time).

I have my concerns about the 2nd gamers in town, I'm not sure if they are giving cash again but a quick glance at buy prices appears to show they no longer want to pay out for systems/games at a rate that you would potentially mind parting with things at.

We have a unique store in Lincoln called "The Game room", and the owner has told me that it's been a rougher summer then normal, but he knows how to cut costs and is pretty well respected in this town. We also have a few stores that don't focus on games but have them there, toy shops, pawn shops Goodwill, places like that. We also have GameStops but that's one store I don't shop at because it's pretty exclusive new stuff.

I'm a bit worried we are going to lose the other gamers and will only have one main option in town, the owner of which is a great guy but would totally suck having no local competition.

I'm sure things are coming into play I'm not aware of, but it's been kind of a deflation on retro locally. Which sucks.

The obvious answer is online buying, people not buying things at stores at a mark up but rather on the internet for lower cost. More then once I would go into gamers as well and see fake 64 and SNES carts. That's probably a training issue, but some years back when people started putting things onto a cart and selling them to gamers buy prices went way down to avoid risking buying a fake, purely speculation on my part. Strangely enough, the thing I thought that was aiding killing off the brick and mortar were local resellers selling and buying out of there house advertising as a "business", but that has quieted down and I'm not even sure if half the people doing that are even still trying to sell games. From what I'm told, the people doing this haven't been profitable in a while.

Omaha is still great for stores, there are several that have a unique charm to them and Everytime I'm in Omaha I love checking the stores there. They lost at least one gamers but they have fantastic hole in the wall type stotes, So it can't be all bad?

Is this sort of thing happening everywhere? Is it even worth a post? I'd like to know how other video game stores are doing in other towns as I'm hoping this has just been a bad summer for old games locally.

Again, I don't believe that the sky is falling or anything I'm just curious at the state of retro shops in other towns.

there was a thread a while back discussing how gamers was having serious management problems. sounds like they are running themselves into the ground. it's also kind of unique in that there are several locations vs a one off store. if it's bad management from the top down that's going to affect all the stores. the other guy sounds like he overextended and had to cut back when it caught up to him.

i think any well run store is going to be fine for the foreseeable future. a poorly run business might have been able to keep it together through the boom of a few years ago but they are going to be exposed now that things have leveled off.

My local video game store just shut down July 31st. A lack of trade ins and buyers ultimately led to their decline. Personally, I never shopped there as their prices were often eBay or higher, but they had a lot of local fans.

Yeah I'd expect to see a lot more of this. I would think the larger stores with online presence will be fine, or stores that have been around a long time (before the boom) and know how to ebb and flow with the times. But anything small store that only focuses on games / consoles (no other electronics / diversity) that started within the last 4 or 5 years is probably really hurting this summer. Those are the ones I'd be most worried about.

It seems it would be really difficult to make it as a retro video game store. It is almost inherently a struggle, because for the MOST part, collectors just want to get the best quality-looking games for as cheap as possible. And because of the overhead costs and everything else a physical storefront has to keep up with, it is very difficult for them to compete with online prices.

My guess would be that, the only reason some of them have even been able to make it as long as they have, is that the owner (in many cases) probably hasn't been compensated well for their time, and is putting in a lot of sweat equity for free or at an extreme discount. I would wager some of them are making less than minimum wage when you consider the real time they are investing in the business.

That's not to say it can't work given the right area, the right planning, and product variety, but I think more and more it is just going to be extremely difficult.

I absolutely understand why some of them need to price games the way they do, and I don't really harbor any major resentment for that, but as a consumer, it's just hard to justify spending the same or more for a game. I think some people want to support the stores and are willing to do so, but a lot of people just want things as cheap as possible.

Unfortunately, I think the other area that some of these places struggle with, is customer service. I hate to say this, and I'm sure there are places out there that are just fantastic and have amazing, wonderful people, but I have personally experienced, well, just frankly mediocre to bad service at many of the places I've been to around me. And I don't just mean from a pricing standpoint. I mean just general customer service, friendliness, up-front honesty, etc. I would absolutely spend the same or more on a few games to support a really awesome place that had wonderful people, but unfortunately, at least around me, I don't feel like I really see that. When you are at a store and you hear the owner harassing one of their employees in front of customers, or talking a bunch of crap about a customer that just left (both of which I experienced relatively recently), it is hard to want to support those places.

Regardless, I do wish them well, and I know there are some good places out there with honest pricing and good service and dedication. I think it is a somewhat uphill battle for them, but I certainly wish them the best.

I think with the current state of the hobby it is going to be happening more and more.

Stores that opened more recently often struggle to get trade in business, as they don't have the rep or steady stream of regulars providing them with stock. Older, more established stores tend to fare better, but even they can be susceptible to business issues.

Omaha resident here. Loooong time Gamers customer with contacts who work there, and some who used to. for context I also managed a used game/dvd/cd store in town for 8 years.

The guy in charge of Gamer's is not a great businessman. Gamer's has made a lot of poor decisions over the years which have alienated regular customers as well as employees. As previously discussed in another thread, all of the Des Moines stores closed, and he more or less blamed anyone else for the failures of those stores except himself. He basically blamed the employees and the customers, etc. Now I heard that a Lincoln store has closed and that's a shame, but at least there still is one left, if I am correct.

I am not aware of an Omaha location that has closed. We have always had three locations, two which haven't moved, which are 72nd & Dodge area and 84th & Giles area, and one that has moved three times, which was originally at 144th & Center, then moved to 132nd & Center-ish, and is now at 122nd & Center-ish, a few buildings down from the Half Price Books. I am friendly with that store manager but the reality is that the business plan Gamers has is the reason their retail locations are closing. There was a Game Vault store that closed, which could be what you are thinking of, but that was unrelated to Gamers.

It is VERY rare that I can walk into a Gamers and find something I'd like to buy. Part of this is because my collection is already so massive, but the other part of this is their selection. They used to have cases filled with retro games, and now sometimes you can walk into a location and they have literally less than 30 NES games, less than 15 original Game Boy games, etc. However, they still get trade ins all the time. So what's the deal? Well, check out "GoGamers" on eBay.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/go.gamer...

That's a link to their sold listings. They sell dozens of items online every single day. Which is great for them, it's income for them. However, this means less product on the shelf in the physical locations. So, if I go 5 times in a row, and find nothing, I will go less frequently. So, other customers have the similar mindset, that means less people in the door. Less people in the door, means less money coming in.

So, I don't know. Maybe they make up for the less people in the doors with the eBay money. But, they are closing stores, so I'm not sure that's totally working. Every time I go to the stores I see something cool on these shelves in the back behind the counter. I might ask how much it is, but they say "Oh, we can't sell you that, it's listed on eBay".

And yes, for the last few years, their trade credit has been garbage, I would never take anything there to trade. And yes, they stopped giving cash for stuff briefly, I'm not sure if that is still going on but no matter which way they spin it that only means one thing: they don't have cash to give out.

For Omaha, has a few options for used video games:

Gamestop - It's the same as everywhere.

CD Tradepost - I used to work here and unfortunately the trade in program has been bungled so badly that they never get good product anymore because they refuse to pay decent money for it. I remember a few weeks before I left in 2015 when we wants to pay someone $6 cash or $9 store credit for a Smash Bros on N64 and then sell it for $35+. Ridiculous. They moved the low traffic Oakview store after years to a new spot, and it looks great! It's way nicer and fancier than all the other old stores which look so drab inside. BUT.... it has the same old tired dead stock inside from 12 years ago. CDs that no employee ever should have taken in the first place, that no customer would ever buy. Overpriced DVDs and PS2/XBox games that you can get for cheaper literally anywhere else in town. I never go there anymore because I can never find anything worth buying.

Gamers - Already discussed.

Imaginarium - This store is an antique store who does have some video games, but it's small portion of the store and you won't find any gems here.

Half Price Books - Most here know the deal. Every once in a while I will find something decent, but it is not that often. Luckily, other things they sell interest me so it's easy to check the small game section each time I go.

Ben's Game Zone - This is one of two stores worth checking out anymore in my opinion. Ben is a genuinely nice guy and he actually gets good stuff traded in. He genuinely cares about collectors and what they are trying to find. His prices are mostly right in like with eBay, but the selection typically makes up for that. For example, if you take, say, Sega Saturn. Gamer's will have zero or 1 game in stock. Ben has probably between 50-75 at any given time. Good store, worth checking out.

Pop Culture Exchange - This is the other store worth checking out, and my personal favorite. They specialize in retro/current toys, collectibles, and video games. The owners are very nice people and have hooked me up with a deal on things on multiple occasions. They have also appealed to the collector in me, for example, they had no problem splitting boxes, manuals and carts up to sell me just the boxes for a ton of N64 games, helping me complete my CIB set. I can't imagine another store taking the time to do that for me. It was awesome. If you visit Omaha this is a MUST visit store in my opinion.

When I go out to look, I go to Half Price Books, then the Gamers right next to it, but I ONLY go there because it's right next to Half Price Books. If it was not within a minute's walking distance, I wouldn't even bother. Then I will go to Ben's and Pop Culture Exchange. I almost never go to the other Gamer's, any of the CD Tradeposts, and the Imaginarium is downtown so it's a huge pain to get to.

Not sure what spurred me to type all this up but I hope I've provided some insight. In summary, I believe Gamers is failing due to poor management and counter-intuitive business practices. I don't think they would outright close, but I could see them going back down to the original one location at 72nd and Dodge, and basically only keeping that open so that they have a source to get things that they can sell on eBay.

Our entire (massive) state has 5 stores. You guys have been spoiled.

A store here in Niagara Falls called The Basement recently shut down. They had been in business for 6 years and just moved into a larger store front.

My store has survived almost 6 years now. We had 3 other stores in the area that have all closed down. We still see a lot of good trade ins and sales, while they aren't how they we're a few years ago they are still enough to provide me and several of my employees a livable wage. Our surviving competition has several stores within 10-15 mins of each other and still seems to thrive but their trade in model is different than ours and we probably pay higher rent having a great location across from the University. Stores like mine are destination locations so having multiple in one area didn't ever make sense to me. I'd be competing with myself , dividing my customers not adding to it and increasing overhead. I have 2 more years on our lease and I know we will survive it but I'm growing tired of retail in general and might persue new goals. We will see where the market is in 2020.

A lot more people are in the hobby now and people aren't trading in whole collections as often. That definitely hurts stores like mine and our competitors. It's also very easy to trade your games on FB market places, here on NA and plenty of other places and get more value for your games than trading it to a store. We offer a convenience for people looking to dump large piece of their collections with little to no hassle and it keeps us going.

Here's a recent write up on my shop about who I am, what we are, where we are going   https://clture.org/save-point-vid...

I feel as though this thread should be from 5 years ago.

Tough for (any) brick and mortar store to stay in business, now a days. Have to be really smart, in the right place, and expand your business offerings.

Better off just going with an online presence only and run it out of your house, no rent to pay. People want the cheapest they can get. I never buy tapes in person, even new ones. Just facebook collectors groups or amazon. I think majority of the local tape sellers will be gone in the next 10 years regardless of location .

Bingo!  I figured that out early on so I left the brick and mortar scene early enough to succeed online.
 

I wish I could have owned my stores in the era before digital gaming. I can't begin to imagine how much stock would come in and get pushed out. Everyone would be playing Xbox/Gamecube/PS2/Gameboy Advance... ah man. Now, so many people would rather download 40 games on iPad for a few bucks than to spend $40 on one game. It's sad, and it's really gone downhill in the last few years. I'm struggling to keep the lights on, but fortunately my "rare" shelf keeps me in business to a degree during the non-Christmas/tax months. This is the shelf of random new/sealed items, or other rare things I typically can't move in the store so I sit on them until I need some extra money. When that well runs dry (probably in another year unless if someone else trades in a nice collection) then I'll probably have to consolidate my two stores into one, and go from there.

But how do you get stock then? I can't even buy large lots on eBay anymore of desirable stuff (NES, SN, N64) because they literally go for as much as I'd sell each game for individually.

Its much much much harder to get inventory cheaply, but you just have to grind for it.  I rarely go looking for games anymore, and I hardly list on ebay right now just because of lack of time, and how tired I always am with all of these adult duties.

I learned from some very successful business owners that all said that you need to be reinventing yourself all the time to remain successful.  Everything becomes stagnant at one point.

The reason that they sell on ebay is because they dont have to pay taxes on those sales.

 

Of course they do. Whether or not they actually do is another story, but you absolutely have to pay taxes on online sales.

That's not the only reason. There are a declining number of people coming into their stores. Something for a collector, lets say a copy of Worms Aramageddon, might sit in their shop for a while until the right person walks in. Meanwhile, if you put it on eBay for the right price it can sell within 24 hours. So there are other advantages to it as well.

I'd be curious to know if they actually pay those taxes or not. I also find it kind of moot because if the game is $10 plus tax in the store they charge the tax and pay it, but if it's 10 online with no tax, they don't pay it, so either way its the samr $10 in their pocket. Well, depending. It's interesting to consider.

We're not doing too well. Nobody seems to be buying things as of late. We're working on a website so that way we can at least make online sales as everyone now-a-days would rather stay at home and buy stuff than go out to support their local businesses.

There hasnt been a legit games store in the bay area in 10 years.

No way in hell they could afford the rent around here.

I think they are talking about the seller paying *income* taxes on profit for the business. Dra600n was just pointing out that the income is taxable income and reportable, whether it is sold online, in a store, or out of a garage. Now, compliance is probably pretty low with online sales, as a lot of people skirt the rules unless they get a 1099, but it's all taxable income .

Exactly.  Selling games is the easy part.  The hard part is finding inventory at reasonable prices so you can sell and earn the profits.  Making a sustainable living wage by being an online only reseller without a storefront is very hard today.  Unless you are a "big box" store like DKOldies, JJGames or LukieGames that have built their supply chains and get a lot sold to them direct through their websites.  For the Joe Schmoe starting out he can't compete with that. 

Not paying taxes was the goal of moving their sales online.  I worked at their corporate office when Ryno came up with the plan.  He cant tell you the difference between SMB DH and Panic Restaurant as far as collecting and value go.