Gaming, as I’m sure you are all aware, is a costly business. The buying of the consoles is not cheap, then the games that go with them and in many cases these days, the extra peripherals needed to get maximum enjoyment out of the games. You can go to many places to buy games, but out of all the various vendors, do any of them actually offer genuine value for money? I’m going to take you through what I have seen in the last week and let you decide for yourself.
Firstly, don’t judge me too much, but I was looking to trade in Ninja Gaiden 2 for (ahem) Kung Fu Panda, some staff did give me a strange look but I don’t really care. In Gamestation Kung Fu is up at £40 and Ninja 2 has just been reduced to £30, trade in price for Ninja 2 was £14. I do believe you could actually see the stars coming out my head, a quick exit to the door was in hand. Next on to Game who are also selling Kung Fu at £40 but Ninja 2 is also at £40, trade in for Ninja 2, £18. Incidentally, both stores are selling Ninja 2 pre-owned for over £30. So feeling a bit ripped-off I visited two of my local Independent games stores. Both are in the Lovely town of Hamilton, where there are several games shops in a very small space so competition is high. Games Centre has been around for many years and is the kind of shop where, if you look hard enough you can find a lost gem of a game and, as much as the staff may at times be distracted by hangers on, they are always knowledgeable and helpful, anyways no Kung Fu when I looked but Ninja 2 was £25 trade in, getting better. Next up was Grainger Games, the new kid on the block. Not strictly as Independent as others (they have several stores in the North of England) but their prices are hard to beat, on this day Kung Fu at £38 and £25 trade in for Ninja 2, deal done!
It has always puzzled me how the small independent stores can offer such great value, but are often overlooked in favour of the big names. It’s hard to shop in Game and Gamestation when a few minutes away you are guaranteed to get a better deal. Many years ago, during my brief foray into PSPing, I had four quite recent 360 games to trade in, as always I shopped around first. Once again the excellent Games Centre came up trumps by giving me a trade in price of £45 more than anywhere else, you really can’t beat that. Of course the whole phenomenon of trading in games isn’t really that old, well here in Scotland anyway, it has only come about in the last 17 years. Ok, some may think that’s ages but it doesn’t feel like it to me! Let me explain, once again, in Hamilton circa 1991 a shop opened up called Solid Gold Games Exchange (nice snappy title) this was around the time of the Mega Drive and SNES. It was the first shop we had seen that sold imports and most importantly of all, did trade ins’. We could now afford to get more games, more regularly because back then the trade in prices were awesome, sometimes only a fiver needed to change hands. Indeed, back in the day Game had some of the best trade in prices out, but sadly a big monster called greed came and that soon stopped.
So, let us support our local independent stores (if you have them) they do offer good value, most of the time a greater knowledge of the product and sometimes a free badge:) If we all boycott the big ones they will eventually see the errors of their ways and revert to giving us the great deals that the indys’ do!
AYE RIGHT!
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