Video Games, Movies, Comics, & Pop Culture

Aug 9, 2017

After Let’s Play Game Expo, my friend Phil (@terranceharken) still had the itch to hunt for some games. He wasn’t able to return to the convention on Sunday, so his haul was lighter and he was just really wanting to try and find some new gems. We’ve been friends since grade school and we normally hang out and check out an anime or play games once a week, but he wanted to go hunting this week instead.

As I determined this was “his” hunt, I volunteered him to drive and we headed out.

Since he works nights and I work days, it puts limited time on the options for game hunting and poses serious challenges for the idea of doing game hunt videos at flea markets and garage sales. Truth be told, I’ve long thought we’d not have much luck game hunting on a weeknight since our options are limited, but we’ve had some luck in the past.

I suggested with the limited time we had, we hit pawn shops this time, so we headed off.

First Stop – Goodwill

Goodwill has become extremely hit or miss and I rarely find anything of value. Occasionally they’ll get a good bundle in, but they typically put those in auction either online or in store now. It’s still worth stopping in and checking their games and CDs for the off chance something worthwhile got mis-sorted. We came across a very good condition Guitar Hero II guitar with strap and game case/manual (no disc) still in the box. For a couple bucks, I took it.

Second Stop – First Cash Pawn

I’ve had good luck with this pawn shop chain, finding Wii U games for $5-$10 when they were still worth $30 and coming across some PS3 and Wii games for good value in the past. This stop was severely lacking in games, but they had a $10 Wii U Pro controller. I’ve been wanting one for a while, so I grabbed that in a heartbeat! So far, Phil’s hunt was proving fruitful for me, but not so much luck for him.

Third Stop – Entertainmart

Found in Arlington, TX, this location was featured in the first episode of The Game Chasers. The location has drastically shrunk since it first opened. It closed off its separate game area and brought it into the main area of floor space. It’s since been dwindling the games and everything was marked down or even ½ off when we were there. The music section was a fraction of what it once was. It feels like the place is going out of business.

I talked to one of the employees and it turns out I was right. Sort of. They’re not going out of business, but they’re shifting their focus of what they want to offer. For video games, that means current and previous gen, not older stuff. They’ll still do movies and music as well, and they’re planning to move to a smaller location next year. Personally, I think they’re making the wrong move focusing on current & previous gen games. Plus, they’re moving closer to the Arlington area mall, which puts them in direct location competition with a GameStop inside and outside the mall.  I don’t expect we’ll find any good deals there in the future.

Fourth Stop – Cash America

Another Cash America stop, but this one had quite a few things. Phil went ahead and got Final Fantasy XII Collector’s edition steelbook. I found 11 games for $1 each. I’ll rarely pass on a $1 game. Adding the FFXII to my stack, I got the whole bundle at $5 the total, bringing Phil’s game down to about the sweet spot to pick it up.

Fifth Stop – Game Over Games

I’ve been to Game Over outside Austin, TX before and I didn’t find much I was willing to buy. Most of their games seem terribly overpriced. I found a few Atari games at this location that I needed, but they came out way higher than what I’d pay on eBay. Most PS2 and Xbox games seemed to hover around $20, even when they’re $10 on eBay. I understand stores having some mark up for overhead, but double the price of an Ebay purchase seems really high.

However, I’ve seen others comment that their more common games are overpriced, which are what the casual buyer is more likely to look for and buy without concern, while their rarer games tend to be priced fairly or even at reasonably good deals. This allows collectors to hit their store for the rarities while the store is supported by non-collectors just looking for old games to play. I guess that makes some sense, but it doesn’t keep me coming back in.

Despite my opinion, Phil found a number of games he was looking for, including Sonic 2 on Master System, and some Game Gear titles, for reasonable prices and finally made this hunting trip worth his time.

Final Stop – Movie Trading Company

We mostly went into Movie Trading Company expecting to find nothing because their prices are typically $5 higher than eBay averages, but we were hoping to find something we needed/wanted just to get a bag for all the games in the car outside. We had a couple of stacks and no bag, so hopefully we’d find something.

We looked. We searched. We hunted. We didn’t find anything.

As we were calling it quits, we checked their case one last time and found Grandia Xtreme for a fair price, about $7 under online average. It was complete and on my list, so I bought it to get us a bag. As we were checking out, though, I spotted a Mario statue. It turned out to be a DS holder I’d had been interested in the past. His hat was damaged, the bill of the cap broken off but still able to hold in place. They had it marked at $20 but with the damage, they offered to do ½ off, so I went ahead and took it as well.

Overall, not a bad haul for a day I expected to be fairly empty. Just goes to show, you really don’t know what you’ll find or where. It’s all a matter of going out and looking.