Pretty bad today when I look at what I got yesterday. Every place it was "Oh someone just bought our games". Arg!

Yard sale #1:

PS2 Legaia 2: Duel Saga - $1 (CIB)
PS2 Namco Museum 50th Anniversary - $1 (CIB)
PS2 Max Payne - $1 (CIB)
PS2 The Warriors - $1 (CIB)

Yard sale #2:

DS Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games - $5 (CIB)
GBA Crash Bandicoot Purple - $5
DS Kirby Super Star Ultra - $1 (no game )
DS Mario Kart - $1 (no game, but I needed the case and manual so..yay)

Yard sale #3:

PS2 Tetris Worlds - $2 (CIB, finally got it complete lol...after 3 copies)
PS2 Sonic Unleashed - $2 (no manual)
Xbox Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space - $2 (CIB)
Xbox Eggmania Eggstreme Madness - $2 (CIB)
Xbox Morrowind GOTY Edition - Free (no manual, I thought I should get the one with all the DLC lol)

Yard sale #4:

PS1 Tetris Plus - $0.50 (came in a PS2 Twisted Metal Head-On case with the TM manual..lol)

Yard sale #5:

Sega Genesis with power plug - $5 (no av cords/controllers or games)

Kinda shit right? I'm at least happy I finally got a Mario Kart case with manual and such. And the GBA game was one I wanted so meh..

Kinda shit?

Kinda want to move to Washington to go game hunting is what I think. You need more competition. I do not understand how you can find so many good games for so cheap so often. You got a $20 game for free and two $15 dollar games for $1. You even managed to score Max Payne, a completely worthless game, for a price that is still a good deal. I had to pay $4 for Max Payne after seeing it repeatedly for $5+ for years. I'm still looking for Warriors and yet to have seen it for less than $25, so yeah, not shit at all.

I only picked up Max Payne because I had the third one so I wanted to see if the series was any good.

And no I don't need more competition...for every find I get we stop at at least 10 sales that don't have games. Plus i'm into retro stuff not Xbox shit....PS2 I enjoy but give me a N64 game any day. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me they just sold their games, they don't have games, their kids are keeping their games, they're keeping their games or someone walks out holding a stack of shitty Xbox sports games for me to look at...I'd have enough to buy a CIB Earthbound by now.

You might think I get a lot...I don't. I might get more then most people but given the amount of resellers that I know beat me to sales...I don't get a lot compaired to them.

Sounds like someone needs a little attitude adjustment.

No. Don't start with this again, I'm fine, this is my thread, if you don't like my "attitude" don't comment on it, just ignore it. And we'll all get along fine and not have to deal with 3 pages of bullshit about people trying to "help" me and give me "advice". I'm going to a shrink for that, I don't need some random strangers that know jack about me and my situation to make comments about me.

Cool finds! Send a little of that luck and good fortune down toward Whidbey if ya don't mind Coming up dry around here lately.

Seems like you're finding a lot of good stuff lately. I live closer to the Oregon border of Washington and rarely find things. Our town is fairly small and there are two different "retro resale" shops here, and they're usually the first people at the garage sales/classified ads/thrift stores getting the good deals.

Grats! I'd have loved to find that copy of Beyond Oasis. Such a great game.

Where the hell is Whidbey lol..never even heard of it.

@ihavethatpma Well like with ^ both of you live in small cities. That's the only reason I could see why you guys don't get a lot of games. I live on the corner of two cities...fairly largish ones but not as big as Seattle. So we have a handful of thrift stores and pawn shops if I can't find yard sales. Always something to fall back on. Do what I did and think outside the box...go to comic shops or even baseball card places..you might turn up a game or two.

@cirellio I've never even heard about it, what kind of game is it? RPG, platformer, shoot em up or puzzle?

NW WA Whidbey Island, about 1.5 hours south of the border.

Lots of finds for you lately, I see. I've been looking for Legaia 2 and The Warriors.

So you're going into Seattle on June 4th? Want to potentially arrange a trade of some kind? My collection is in my signature, and I can list out some other odds & ends if you're so inclined.

Have you set up an online collection tracker other people can look at?

Just to put things a little in perspective for you, in May, you got the following good deals:

Goldeneye-$3.00 (Worth $11.00)
Tom and Jerry Fists of Furry-$3.00 (Worth $10.00)
Castlevania Circle of the Moon-$2.00 (Worth $10.00)
Fire Emblem Sacred Stones-$2.00 (Worth $22.00)
Lunar Silver Star Story Complete-$1.00 (Worth $55.00)
LOTR Battle for Middle Earth II-$5.00 (Worth $25.00)
Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep-$1.00 (Worth $13.00)
Gold N64 Controller-$10.00 (Worth $25.00)
Zelda OOT CIB-$2.00 (Worth $40.00)
Metal Gear Solid-$3.00 (Worth $10.00)
Heart of Darkness-$3.00 (Worth $15.00)
Mario Galaxy-$4.00 (Worth $12.00)
Paper Mario, Mario Advance 4, Gamecube and Gameboy Player w/Disc-$20.00 (Worth around $90.00)
The Thing, Starfox Adventures, Smash Bros Melee-$5.00 (Worth $60.00)
Classic NES Metroid-$1.00 (Worth $10.00)
DDR Mario Mix CIB-$3.00 (Worth $45.00)
Panzer Dragoon Orta-$1.00 (Worth $13.00)
Otogi 2-$1.00 (Worth $16.00)
Pikmin Disc Only-$1.00 (Worth $17.00)
Donkey Kong Country-$2.50 (Worth $14.00)
Mario Tennis-$2.50 (Worth $15.00)
Zelda OOT-$2.50 (Worth $20.00)
Donkey Kong Country Returns-$2.50 (Worth $16.00)
Wario Ware Smooth Moves-$2.50 (Worth $10.00)
Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow-$7.49 (Worth $20.00)
Genesis w/ Beyond Oasis, Sword of Vermillion, Star Trek, Sonic-$10.00 (Worth $40.00)
Awesome box of Master System Games-$15.00 (Worth $135.00)
Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles-$1.00 (Worth $8.00)
Doom-$3.00 (Worth $17.00)

You spent $120.00 on that group of items. Worth $794.00. And I only counted the very good deals, there were plenty of other games you spent $5.00 on worth $10.00, not amazing but solid prices.

Just something to keep in mind when you say you have it hard, many of us would KILL for a month like that. Half of that would be a very good month. You say 1 in 10 sales sometimes has games for you, that's good for me. If I have a morning where I hit 25 sales and I see games at 2 or 3, I'm thrilled. You're not going to find games at every other sale, no one does. Garage sales are worth it due to knowing if you hit enough, eventually you will find something. It isn't about finding a ton, its about all the worthless sales being worth it when you hit the good one. Its just how it works. Just trying to give you a little perspective, you do very well compared to most of us. If you want Retro stuff, get it. Buy the current stuff, sell it, and use that to buy retro. That's what most of us do. Sell half of that stuff you bought here and you can get a CIB Earthbound. Of course that would make you a reseller... but you know, that's how most of us who aren't wealthy manage to get our collections.

Comparing yourself to resellers is just a bit silly, the ones that do this for a living of course are going to have more time to put into it and get more. Getting what you do in your spare time is fantastic.

^^ Makes me wish I lived in Washington. I go to yard sales every weekend in Maryland and never, ever get this lucky. GG, congrats on your finds; you're doing alright.

Bing147 said it perfectly, specifically this, except I would like to add that if you're not down for selling, trade it! Sounds like you travel around enough that hitting up the post office now and then should be easy as well.  I'm interested in a ton of the "junk" you get as are others.

I just never liked trading. Because what do you do? I send 3 games, wait till you get them and check them over and then you send me whatever games we agreed on? Or do we just send them as soon as possible? And what if a game breaks or doesn't work...you'd have to send the traded games back to me, while I send you the broken/not working game.

It's easier to deal in money. I see the pros to trading, no money lost really...but I see more cons then pros.

Maybe if it was a local trade...maybe. And I'm talking in my city..not in Seattle so while I am interested in your stuff GREEN00, I don't think it's a good idea.

Also to what Bing was saying...I've figured theres two types of resellers, dirty money hungry bastards that don't give two shits about games, they just do it for cold hard cash and don't even bother cleaning up their games before the sell em. And then theres the resellers who do it to earn cash to fund their collection. I belong in that one. I sell the games I don't like or I have copies of on ebay to fund my collecting (actually more like pay my mom back because I borrowed so much from her ).

Plus most of the stuff you listed I'm keeping in my collection..I don't buy with reselling in mind, I buy what I want in my collection lol. Nine of those things you listed I'm going to sell because A. I all ready have a copy or B. I don't like the game (for instance Kingdom Heart, hate those games). That's why I'm in trouble, I keep almost everything I buy...I spend to much and make very little back. Also the buying current stuff to sell to get retro is a great idea...if your not a current gamer/collector like I am lol. At least now I can buy 360 games I don't like, test them and resell them. Before I just passed them up.

Oh also stopped at a thrift store today.

Thrift store:

Pink GBA - $8 (works but the screen has a few scratches)
GG Formula One - $3 (with plastic case)
GG NFL '95 - $3 (with plastic case)

With trading, as long as both are reliable people with strong feedback, usually you send at the same time. If someone is new, they send first. Everything should be tested to ensure there are no issues but if one arises you work it out. Maybe something is sent back, or someone sends something else, or a few dollars are thrown in. That is rare though

I agree some resellers are awful, but at the end of the day most of us who end up getting serious in this hobby end up being at least a bit of a reseller. Everyones situation is different but I will say, one of my favorite things is catching the bad ones slipping. There is a store I go to frequently where 90% of the games are 125% or more of ebay prices. But I got a complete beautiful Brave Fencer Musashi for 15.00 and a Gargoyle's Quest 2 for 14.00 this year. Even the bad ones make mistakes and you can get deals.

Keep in mind too, the longer you collect the more games you have, the more frequently you'll get duplicates. When you first start you need everything. Once you have 50 N64 games though, the average lot will have a few dups. I'm at the point where if I go hunting, I can usually find enough to sell to cover what I spend. Of course that usually just goes to buy more, haha. Most of my truly rare and expensive stuff has been bought from reselling, very few of those were found in the wild. A few were, but not a lot. I also collect current stuff but keep in mind, most current stuff will drop in time, most old stuff won't by much. I only buy current stuff if its a great deal or if it is uncommon and starting to go up in price.

Its pretty tough finding much over here on the East side of Washington in Spokane!

GirlGamer55, we can probably arrange a meetup in your neck of the woods if that's what you'd prefer.

It's totally possible you have stuff you're indifferent to keeping that I actually want, and I'm willing to trade stuff I don't have dupes of if I'm getting something I want in exchange.

So, are you interested and is there some way I can view what you have?

Possibly interested. And no, I'm still catalogging my stuff offline, I haven't updated my online thing for half a year at least so it wouldn't be at all helpful. Why don't you PM me and tell me what systems your interested in getting stuff for and what type of games your wanting. I have a small pile of good items waiting to be listed on ebay but I can use them to trade.

Well today was...interesting. I hit 4 game stores and 2 thrift stores. The price difference on some games was...kinda amazing. I also asked about Earthbound..no one had a copy looks like ebay will be getting my business..the most expensive copy would have been $230..yeah, the least expensive one would have been $140 or less (the guy said it depends on how much they pay for it).

I also asked about a few other items and no one had them. I wanted to buy a Master System to test those games..no one had them. I also wanted to buy the Mario Paint mouse, again no one had one. Weird I go for the shit no one has lol. Anyways tomorrow I'll post all my finds..I know I got screwed on most if not all of the games...but that's game stores for you. Hopefully I'll be able to save a few Washington gamers from making the same mistake...just avoid all game stores, even the ones that say their less then everyone else..ha.

The price difference between the game stores compared to the thrift stores was amazing? Or between the game stores?

Also, you can't get "screwed" on games if you know you are being screwed. If you choose to pay prices for something, because you can't wait to find it for cheaper, that's called a decision, not being screwed.

Between game stores. Thrift stores are bargin bins compaired to game stores..not even the same level.

Oh yeah you can get screwed. I figured I was paying maybe a buck or two more then ebay prices...when I got home I looked some prices up on ebay...I'm getting screwed over by 5-10 bucks. On almost every game...that adds up. So yeah you can get screwed if you know your being screwed.

I got all the games together, now I get to have fun remembering what I paid for them. I'll also add some personal insight to the stores.

Pink Gorilla (UW location):

Let me start out by saying idk how the fuck these guys stay in business. Their prices are the worst I've ever seen..worse then Game Lobster. I get that their the "import" store. They don't just sell imports though. Let me give you an example. I bought Lady Sia for the GBA there for $8. Down the street (not even kidding..one block down) was Al's, they had two copies of Lady Sia...in a bargin bin...for $3. Less then half. A more extreme example. Mega Man 3 they wanted $70, Monster Gaming in Burien wanted $20. Please explain how the fuck they stay open with that shit? And their selection was crap.

GBC Tomb Raider Curse of the Sword - $6
GBA Lady Sia - $8
DS Lost in Blue - $11

Got screwed out of $6.

Kirby with sword plush - $5
Walking dead vinyl figure - ? (didn't even get Daryl )
Legend of Zelda mini figure - ? (got kid Link with slingshot from OoT)

Al's Games and Music (UW location):

I've been there before and they have ok prices...but still screw you on the price of some games. Out of all of the stores I think they screw you the least. Good selection, but not a lot of retro stuff at this location.

N64 Clay Fighter 63 1/3 - $15
Wii Tenchu Shadow Assassins - $3 (CIB)
Wii Rayman Raving Rabbids - $8 (CIB)
Wii Muramasa: The Demon Blade - $20 (CIB)
PSP Pixel Junk Monsters Deluxe - $2 (CIB)
PSP Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake - $5 (CIB)
GBA D&D Eye of the Beholder - $3

Got screwed out of $11. But I saved $11. So I broke even? Like I said..they seem to screw you the least.

GC Mic - $5

Goodwill (UW location):

Might as well tell you about the thrift stores. This one is the smallest Goodwill I've ever been to, but they have games. I've lucked out and found some retro stuff here. But they mostly have PS2/Xbox and up era games. The prices are more then most Goodwills as well, maybe because of location? They do have some consoles/controllers but again..price so I never buy them.

NES Mickey Mousecapade - $6 (Only grabbed it because I thought it was an unusual game and maybe worth more)
PS2 Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex - $6 (CIB)

Got screwed out of $3. But saved $4, so I ended up saving a buck in the end.

Game Gurus (Aurora location):

Bad prices, but lots of games.

NES Kirby's Adventure - $25
SNES Jurassic Park - $9
N64 Mischief Makers - $20 (label damage)
GBC Kirby Tilt n Tumble - $17
Genesis Sonic Spinball - $10
Genesis Sonic 3D Blast - $8 (label damage)
Genesis Altered Beast - $13 (CIB)
Wii Trauma Team - $20 (CIB)

Got screwed out of $48!! Obviously the worst one yet. DO NOT GO HERE.

Monster Gaming (Burien location):

Cramped spaces, not at all helpful staff (he'd rather talk with the geeks hanging out playing magic then a paying customer), but lots of games. Nothing is priced so be willing to wait while he looks up prices on the computer...yeah.

NES Back to the Future - $5
NES To The Earth - $5
NES Back to the Future II & III - $10
NES Scheherazade - $10
N64 Bio Freaks - $5 (marker)
N64 Blast Corps - $5
N64 Forsaken 64 - $5 (branded, sticker residue)
DS Duke Nukem Critical Mass - $10 (CIB)
DS Tenchu Dark Secret - $10 (CIB)
DS Theresia - $10 (CIB)

Got screwed out of $10. But saved $6, so I got screwed out of $4?

Value Village:

Be willing to wait a while for someone to come open the case where the games are. Even if you ask someone to do it, they'll call someone to do it but they never come so I ended up having to track someone down ffs...idiots.

GBA Van Helsing - $5
GBA Sega Smashpack - $5
PSP Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory - $4
PSP Manhunt 2 - $4
Genesis Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine - $5
Genesis Street Fighter II Special Champion Edition - $5 (thought it might be unusual or something)
Xbox Reservoir Dogs - $8 (CIB)
360 Perfect Dark Zero - $8 (CIB)
PS2 Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne - $8 (CIB)

Got screwed out of $15. But saved $5, so only got screwed out of $10?

All together I lost $68 more going to these local places and "supporting" them then I would have going on ebay. I got a few deals but I could have bought a stack of games with the money I lost. This is the shit that makes me wonder how they're staying open. Oh funny thing from the guy running Monster Gaming. Well you all know my feelings on Super Smash Games right? Turns out they are just as bad as I thought..maybe worse. The owner of Monster Gaming told me at the last Sakura Con, the owner from SSG bought a bunch of his games, went to his booth and remarked the prices at 2x or more the original price. So please mobiusclimber, try defending that. Your not the lowest priced store around, your using some backstabbing ways to earn more money. I hope at least one Washington gamer reads this and avoids you like the plague you are.

In the end no retro store is cheap. I know that. But some manage to surprise you still with a few cheap finds like Al's. That's why I like them, I don't go there for rare games, I just go to pick up a few ok games at good prices.

On the bright side, you only lost $20 if you eliminate Game Gurus. I went there when I was last in town and it was disappointing. Good prices for board games at least (which is something I am into).

I really don't understand how you can use the word "screwed" so incorrectly though. So hyperbolic. "Losing $2 vs. eBay price!!" is not getting screwed. Someone stealing your credit card information is getting screwed.

The only trend that can be shown from your opinions on local stores is that again, you shouldn't even bother going to them. If you seem to be able to get the same prices on eBay (not sure if you're including shipping costs?), just never buy games locally, since it seems you won't come out ahead. It seems like the better route.