If I could go back in time I would have bought out my local Funcolands of all their SNES obscurities/rarities... and never traded in my SNES collection there way back when.

Hindsight is 20/20 though!

As an aside: I knew all the stores as I'm in the North Eastern US myself. Used to have a Bradless, Kay Bee, Caldor and a Little Brown (similar style store) all in my immediate area... now all gone.

I say the same thing of Funcoland. While I never gave them anything, how I wish I bought every single thing they had to offer. The place was SO cheap and had SO much, and there were DOZENS in my area within 100 miles!

Best was where I got my Sega Game Gear and few Nintendo games. We had one in MD. Loved going to the electronic department.

Man, Caldor...the one stop for not only games but school supplies and clothes.
Might I suggest Kiddie City too. I couldn't find a good picture but I remember the store with the same design. They had the Kangaroo as their mascot. Remember getting Legos and a few Nintendo games since they were sometimes cheaper than Toys R Us.

Child World! I forgot about that one. I remember they had a $9.99 sale on NES games with some good titles in the ad. Convinced my parents to drive me there and they had only things like Taboo and Hunt for Red October left. Ahh memories...

we will be talking about best buy like this in a few years. cool thread here. i miss funcoland.

No love for Egghead Software?

Dude, the Kiddie City was across the highway from the Best that you're talking about, IIRC.
I bought so many Atari Games there, and there was a TRU near there where I got a rad StarCom vehicle after learning how to tie my shoes.  I remember playing the PlayChoice 10 there while waiting for my parents to check out.

Sweet thread, I wish I could remember these store but I was born in the late 90s. I do remember circuit city however . My local one was replaced by a college.

Surprising this one isn't mentioned:


Play Co toys. They ate it shortly after Final Fantasy III SNES popped out. I only remember it because Square loved to heavily overcharge on their SNES games vs the normal ($50) and I wasn't as a kid on an allowance going to drop $70 on it, but when Play Co failed they had like a 40% off sale and I recall getting it for a little over $40. They always had a really nice pile of cases with a solid selection to pick from and many kiosks to try stuff on too.

Yep, that's the one on route 40 (now its a storage unit place). I got Mortal Kombat and Cool Spot for the Game Gear at that Best.

I got Mortal Kombat at the Best too! Crazy, I also am pretty sure I got a handful of Mega Man games for the Gameboy there. I remember the death knell for Best was the BJ's that opened right next to it.

This is where my parents got my Deluxe Set from. It sported the price tag up till about 15 years ago. It fell off somewhere never to be seen from again. I still don't understand why they left it on there. My mom never left the tags on anything. I don't ever remember going in a Zayres so I always wondered about it. $249.99 seemed like a lot back in the mid 80's.

Man, I remember AMES and Caldor. I got my first NES from there (well, my mom bought it for me and my brother for Christmas, but we'd go there often to buy new games).

When I was in high school, Electronics Boutique, Software Etc., and Funcoland were where we'd always end up. Watching Mall Rats is like a blast straight into the 90's with the way malls used to be.

I have fond memories of funcoland too. But the reality is we are remembering a time only a few years after the release of the SNES. So of course they had NES, SNES, and N64 games. If you fast forward to the present maybe--MAYBE--they'd be better than other chain stores and still offer Gamecube games in addition to the Wii and Wii U games.

But Funcoland was better primarily because of the era it existed, not because it had a fundamentally different business model than present day Gamestop.

Hell yes! Watching Mallrats on VHS makes me so nostalgic...I love sharing these pictures and seeing the joy it brings
Here was the mall in Lake Grove, NY back in March 1997 (and a few of them were more updated shots in 1998, like the T-Shirt store)














Those were the days....I'd go back in a heartbeat if I could.

Good old KB toys, loved going in there as a kid like you wouldn't imagine.
Was really sad to see them all close down, nothing as bad as watching Funcoland close though.

We had a Video Game Exchange in Severna Park that I went to, it was before Funcoland was around. Carts had a sticker on them (Orange, green, blue, yellow etc) to tell how much they were. I remember getting Dragon Warrior IV new from them there.

As for Funcoland, I worked there from Dreamcast Launch til a little after PS2 launch and WISH I would have bought half the games I accepted as trade in.

As an ex-Funcoland employee maybe you can answer the question we all have - did anyone ever trade in a Stadium Events for $26?

Or do you ever remember seeing one in stock at all?

I didn't remember seeing it while I was working there, and a few of my other friends who have been bitten by the retro bug also don't remember seeing it.  One claims he saw a Little Samson being turned in, and I know I saw some Flintstones 2 and Bonk's Adventures.

Wow! I didn't know the wiz was a real store!!

Wow, shows you how far things have fallen, huh? In my area, there's only a handful of places that carry classic games, let alone any other things that are of interest to me. LameSchlock (GameStop) can only hold my interest for oh-so long. Not sure how many of you are familiar with Worthington, MN, but their local mall used to be thriving as far as small town malls go. Nowadays, it's more or less a vegetable. And Mall of America? Let's just say it's little more than a tourist trap to me. And yes, Mall Arcades are kind of on life support, aren't they? You've really gotta wonder how much better or worse things will become in the coming years...

I guess I forgot to post...

I remember the Service Merchandise and Solo Serve back in the Westgate Mall in the late 90's they were always overpriced.

I am sad that I was only inside a Funcoland once I think it was a $30 game I had my eye on at the time probably for the SNES.

I believe the only surviving video game stores from the 90's in Austin other than Gamestop is the local Gamefellas chain

I remember getting some of my NES games at Kay-Bee Toys. Also, we had a Woolworth's in town that had a huge World of Nintendo section, with service center and everything. Pretty sure that's where my Game Boy came from.

Those were the days...

Haha how ironic from someone with a George Castanza icon. Here is a further back shot of the store



Some locations had the full fledged "Nobody Beats The Wiz!" and others like this one were simply dubbed "The Wiz"
Similar store to Circuit City, Best Buy, Service Merchandise, Lechmere, any of those types.