I randomly went by the local media store last night and stopped in to see if they had anything decent and I was happily surprised! They're under new management so prices are no longer flat on retro stuff, but they're decently pegged to current listings (or less) so stock is better too. Plus employees aren't just picking the place over anymore leaving nothing for actual customers, so I found things I wanted!
Is it the Vintage Stock chain? Is it just your local store or all of their stores under new management?!
My local store got bought out by Vintage Stock maybe 3-4 months ago I think. It's a mixed blessing honestly. Long ago when nobody cared about video games I was able to get amazing deals at that store on older stuff, and that held until about maybe 2011 or so. Pre-2011 the gaming "boom" wasn't really that big I think, so I could get games super cheap all the time.
My wife and I would go frequently and spend $20 or something and come home with a bundle of games to mess around with, it created a huge backlog for us, but it was cheaper than going to the movies and just as much fun if not more so. We really stocked up a lot on PS1/2 games and got some "steals" compared to modern prices, stuff like Haunting Ground for $3, Rule of Rose for about $15 and many more. Never grabbed the .hack games because I didn't really enjoy the anime and I guess maybe that was a mistake but oh well.
Oh, and all their "retro" stuff was flat price of $5 for NES and $8 for SNES and N64. GB/C games were $2 and GBA games were $4 (no Sega though). Oh the pickings were great and we had a blast every weekend, even got to know some of the gaming staff pretty well.
Anyway, around 2011 they got rid of the dedicated gaming room area with checkout, fired or laid of a lot of good employees I liked (I know several that also just left) and made it less approachable. After a couple months we also noticed there was really nothing good showing up anymore and we stopped going as frequently. I discovered later though a local Facebook group that a reseller's wife worked there and was basically buying all the "underpriced" retro games before they hit the floor, making it even less worthwhile to go.
I stopped going for several years until that 4 months or so ago when I randomly stopped by "just for shits and giggles" and was surprised how much better stock was. Prices are a bit higher since they're pegged to retail/ebay, but I don't mind that much since now they actually have stuff in stock, plus employees are prevented from buying things until they've been out for like a week.
Overall I'm pretty happy with the direction they're going now, my only knock would be their trade in values. I brought in like $50 in various comics one day and they offered me $4 for the whole thing.
