It almost hurts me to see day after day friends of mine or just random people going into game retailers like GameStop to buy games. The reason I say this is because I have learned my lesson years ago about going to places like this, and the simple answer is that it is a complete scam. Everything in the store is overpriced and the trade-in values are obsered.

I would like to start off by giving some examples of why I believe this way. If you were to buy a new game (xbox or ps3 in this example) you are spending $60 before taxes, depending on where you live this could end up costing you 65-70 dollars maybe depending on your sales tax. Now, lets say you play it and after a while your just not feeling it any longer. If you go and trade it in the average trade in price for new popular games is $25-30 store credit, not to mention the 20% drop if you choose the cash. Okay so now they have your game and go back and sell it for $55 used. they sell it and now because of you they made 60 once and 55 the second time. 115 dollars over one game. Now giving the popularity of the game, like NEW SUPER MARIO BROS WII for example, the game value has not dropped in years. Making that the perfect situation to get all your money.

Even when the games go on sale they are nothing compared to small family owned game shops that are located around your area. If GameStop chooses to put games on sale they are minumum at best of if they do a black friday sale as they do every year the deals are decent but some what obsered. This year they posted memerable games like Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2 on sale for $15, now the games have been out for a long time and the uncharted series has been through a whole nother sequal before this price drop. So in essance the games should have been this price for a long time before this. My local resale shop was selling Uncharted 2 for $15 way before black friday even came around this year.

My next opinion is the fact that they carry no sellection of older games any more. The GameCube rack is the size of a small book shelf and the same for the PS2 rack. They don't even carry anything beyond that having stopped all GBA trade ins months ago. So when the store runs out of GBA games they are gone for good! WTH?! howa re you going to call your self a game store when you don't even carry the classics. Even the over priced Play N Trade carries old games, but the prices are just the same as GameStop.

Now time for the sollution: If you live anyware near a popular town or city there are so many game resale shops at hand. I mean why wouldn't there be? 91% of people under the age of 25 are gamers. 91%!!! Since that is the case there are resale shops all over selling games, anyware from family owned stores to names like Cash Converters and Disk Replay to name a fiew.

Plus if you find a family owned store like I have, they get to know you on a first name basis. They know your likes and dislikes on games and even could order games for you that they don't have in the store or simply just give you deals for helping the bussness out day in and day out. So what makes this so special? Well since these stores make a living and stay in bussness because of you, they have the power to lower the prices to popular demand in order to compete making it a perfect opprotunity for you to go in and make some deals. A lot of times when stores like these have a lot of the same game, the price goes down even more in order to keep up with the surplus.

If the only thing you have by you is a big names place, I would say at the least try out Amazon. Now don't get me wrong if I need a game or want one that my resale shops do not carry, then yes GameStop will most likely have it for the wide varriety they have, but do not get sucked into that mess. Try the target clearence section in the video game part of the store a lot of times good games are 75% off at times, as well as a Half Priced books as well. There are differnt possibilities out there just make sure you find the best deal!