Many cities have at least one game store that is local to that one city or maybe two cities but every city has a gamestop on each block lol. I know people who refuse to shop at gamestop due to shady business practices and trade-in ripoffs but I wanna know which do you prefer and what do you like or hate about either. Personally, I prefer local "Mom and Pop" game stores because the few I've been to don't rip you off, they dont overcharge and they have everything from Atari 2600 to PS4 and sometimes if you are a frequent shopper you could eventually form a relationship with the employees and the owner and may even start getting good deals once in a while just for supporting them.

I have been to plenty of these mom and pop stores and most of the ones I have seen are much worse. Some charge so much more and do in fact give much less. There's two in my area that back before I had ID, didn't need ID to trade in, and I still refused to go there because they wouldn't give more than $1 for a game.You need to be really lucky to find the kind of store that you are talking about.

I must say I like both. Game Stop, is always up to date, and usually give you a good deal. Mom and Pop shops, I have noticed, deal in retro games, a lot do both, but the retro games make it for me. I find that the Local stores also, give you a bit more in credit, while Game Stops seem to stick it to you on trade ins. I feel both make a good balance.

zanderlex : that is true for many, it reminds of the time i went to one that was selling Halo 4 for $70 after a month of its release and they had all these gba games for $30 and charging $80 for the pokemon games. Unfortunately when retro games seem to have gotten more attention and people have been interested in picking these games up, most mom and pop stores (at least the ones I've been to recently) have bumped up the prices to make a good profit.

There's some places here right now that have 3DS games for like $80, and it's insane, the systems all have an insane price tag as well.

Droog : many mom and pop shops suffer due to the big juggernaut known as gamestop. I think if mom and pop shops start getting more business they could lower the prices on retro games.

First of all, I've never traded anything in because I'm a collector. If I buy, and I'm not looking to keep, I try to sell it myself. So I really have no opinion on the trade in thing. The only thing I ever went to Game Stop or Game Crazy for was to buy ps2 controllers and clearance bin ps2 games. As far as anything else goes, I avoid them like the plague. Unfortunately, there are no locally owned game shops either. All I have to pick from are pawn shops. For this reason, I do most of my game shopping by bidding on eBay lots, and I've gotten a couple really nice deals that way. Far better than you could ever find at any game shop.

No such thing as a local game shops. There is only GAME and CeX exchange shop so there is little choice which is why I am buying more games online.

m0ssb3rg935 : Well, trading in games does give you cash, and depending on where you sell it, trading it to a Gamestop might be the best way actually. Imagine if you sell a game on eBay, sure you might get more money, but in terms of money, there's a 15% fee to sell an item, plus there's shipping fees, which you have to pay out of your own pocket. Then you have the fact that you have to wait for your item to sell, which could take weeks longer than if you just traded it inm

zanderlex : When ever taxes or gas prices go up, you notice a raise in price on just about everything else, right? When something gets more expensive to make, people pass the extra cost along to the customer. Add a base 15% to the initial price to compensate for listing fees and add shipping costs. As far as waiting on an item to sell goes, I'm a VERY patient person. I have a general idea of how much my stuff is worth, and I'm not going to short change myself just out of convenience. I'd rather make a decent bit later than a little now.

I'm not for or against GameStop, but I use GameXchange mostly, well that and shop on Amazon. However, while I like mom and pop shops because they're underdogs and I always pull for the little guy, I don't like doing business with them. I've only seen one around here and they overpriced a lot of things and had an extremely limited selection (understandable). I think what they did was buy games off of Amazon or eBay and sell them at marked up prices. I bought two games from them and no more, as they tried to charge me $45 for a game that goes for $29 on average. I understand charging more since they're smaller and all, but that was just outrageous.

I also would like to add that it's a shame that people talk about how we should support these kinds of stores then blast national retailers who are making money by doing good business. Yes, the big guys give you $2 for a $15 game, but these guys aren't just collectors or whatever like us, they can't pay full value, they have to pay for wages and account for how long it will take them to sell that game, whereas mom and pop are their own employees and they still pay you $3 at best for the game. Honestly the little shop is the one cheating the most in those cases, though again, it's understandable. I'm just saying it seems hypocritical to me.

It really depends on what the local store is like. My local game store likes to price slightly more than gamestop on lots of their stuff, and I like gamestop's trade in reward system. So I generally shop at gamestop.

Being a collector, I really don't like GameStop that much at all. Some of the used games, specifically the Nintendo games go for insane prices. For example a loose DS game from 8-10 years ago can be about $35. Also the condition of the used games are usually not too great and the stickers they use are a huge annoyance to get off. In short I'd only go to GameStop for the newest or newer games that come out, not pre-owned or older stuff.

Now there is a mom and pop store located in a small town near me. Two infact, they're called Cybertron Games and they're pretty cool. The first store is the most worn down, but it has some really friendly employees there. It's the type of store you would expect to come from a small town. Their selection is varied from 2600 games to PS4 games and they have well known classics to obscure stuff I never even heard about. Prices are reasonable, but the quality and condition of the games could definitely be better. Apparently they've opened up a new store in another area that's quite a bit away from me, but it looks a whole lot nicer and more professional and they have an even larger selection of games in great condition as it seems. I'll stick to getting my older games online for the modt part, but I'll also pay a visit to Cybertron once in a while.

While I'm not exactly a huge fan of GameStop and I can list reasons why but I have to agree with what said by people earlier in this thread. While nowadays I find any video game specific stores that's not gamestop hard to come by (we used to have GAME as well but they closed down) when I have I typically always take a look if I have the time. Really the vast majority of times they charge even more than GameStop does and due to often being quite small if anything offers less security in terms of the condition of the game and such than a big recognized chain like GameStop does. There's probably exceptions to that, as in local game stores that actually charge reasonable prices but if there are any in my in city they're likely very far away from where I live since I can't remember seeing any.

Really unless you're a person who likes showcasing a big collection of games on your shelf there's not much reason to not go digital anymore, not just for PC gamers but console gamers as well. Games are from my experience typically cheaper online and they're a lot more easily available, the one bad thing about used to be that it takes up more space on the console but since PS4 games and XB1 games are now essentially installed on the console the first time you put in the disc that isn't really the case anymore since the disc essentially just acts like a key to access the game thus really just being more of a hassle.

Personally I've come to prefer buying my games from non gaming stores if I can find them there. Mostly because while their selection is very limited to the most major releases or old obscure games they're typically a lot cheaper and in better condition since I've noticed GameStop can treat the game cases kind of carelessly and as a bonus in my particular case don't ask me about my age...  Hey stop looking at me like that Zlinqx needs to play GTA 5 and Witcher 3 too <.< >.>

Gamestop is HORRIBLE and rips you off on trade-ins. I rather shop small business video game shops, or if not, I buy my games on Amazon. Not only do they give you more for your trade ins, games are usually cheaper on Amazon than they are at Gamestop.

TristanTehGamer1 : Would you be as so kind as to define "shady business practices" and "trade-in ripoffs" for me, please?

I mean, if everyone agreed with you, Gamestop would be out of business.  More than enough people find value in it that the place exists in cities all over the U.S. and more.

What are you specifically talking about?

Every company has to make money somehow if you trade things for a high price or sell stuff cheap how are you supposed to make a profit? Think about it from the perspective of the owner don't forget. Although I have to agree about whoever said that in the 'small' game stores you can get to know the people whereas with huge companies all their job are belong to serving others and nothing else.