Play N Trade. Thoughts, comments, negative/positive stories.

MHYoshimitzu

I'm going to come right out and say it: I didn't even know these things existed until yesterday. But when I was killing time waiting for a movie at a local mall, I happened into one of these stores and was blown away at what they were selling. NES, Master System, Game Gear, Genesis, SNES, N64, PS1: it was all there.

I only had a few minutes to browse before the movie, but it seemed like a pretty solid place. They were even selling these off-brand NES/SNES and MS/Genesis hybrid systems that played both kinds of carts, one of which they were using to put Mega Man 1 on a big LCD TV.

A cursory search on Google shows that their company has flooded the first couple pages with "franchise opportunities," and I didn't really find any articles on these guys. Are they legit? What are your experiences with them?

cloudeagle

They're not legit in the least.

NailbunnyPD

Is it a stand in the walkway through the mall? Those stands are shady. A while back Nintendo was closing them down for selling illegitimate goods.

MHYoshimitzu

No, it's an actual store. There is one in a mall near me, and one that appears to be a separate store all its own.

brynstar

There's a Play and Trade store near me, and it's rather pathetic. The selection is lacking, the employees are asleep most of the time, and its painted inside to look like an old lasertag arena. I've been there a few times, I bought one game from them. They keep their gutted games in hard cases instead of sleeves, which I liked, but the stickers they use on their display cases are terrible.

They sell a few classic games, but if I want that stuff, I'll visit the far superior locally owned shop in the next town. Play and Trade to me seems like a half-hearted attempt at cloning a Gamestop and adding classic platforms. If the one near you has a bunch of classic stuff and that's what you want, it couldn't hurt to buy from them, but otherwise I'd avoid it. Mine has like...10 NES games.

Jimpy

Legit? I'm not sure what you mean by that... but they pretty much sell tradeed games (so there might be the problem). Of course what old game store can't? I've got a few actual stores by me. They are pretty much legit and seem to sell legit stuff. What I've noticed is that there prices are extremely high compared to Ebay/my local old games store. They seem to charge $5-$10 for the shittiest games that go for $.99 on Ebay or in my local store.

DoctorArch

brynstar wrote: »

There's a Play and Trade store near me, and it's rather pathetic. The selection is lacking, the employees are asleep most of the time, and its painted inside to look like an old lasertag arena. I've been there a few times, I bought one game from them. They keep their gutted games in hard cases instead of sleeves, which I liked, but the stickers they use on their display cases are terrible.

They sell a few classic games, but if I want that stuff, I'll visit the far superior locally owned shop in the next town. Play and Trade to me seems like a half-hearted attempt at cloning a Gamestop and adding classic platforms. If the one near you has a bunch of classic stuff and that's what you want, it couldn't hurt to buy from them, but otherwise I'd avoid it. Mine has like...10 NES games.

The one I went into locally had Oddworld Stranger for 50 bucks used. Most of their other prices are also in line with this silly scheme of pricing. These stores are not geared to well-informed gamers, but instead to the person who will see a used copy of Madden '07 for 30 bucks and think it is a good price.

SyphonBlue

It's a legit store, it's just a shitty one. Their selection is pathetic, the stores are always empty and have a weird vibe to them, and the workers don't have any clue about anything. The people who work at Gamestop at least have a general knowledge of games and how to sell them. Last time I went to Play N' Trade, this is the conversation I had with them

"Hey, do you guys have the new Ace Attorney?"
"The what?"
"Um...Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney? You know, like, the Phoenix Wright games?"
"I've never heard of them, so probably not."
"Okay bye" *goes to Gamestop, buys it*

Dr Mario Kart

Their stuff is largely overpriced. Not worth going into.

Its a legit place though.

I'm not sure how they stay in business, no one seems to ever shop there. They might have an edge in that no one takes classic stuff back anymore.

Zombiemambo

My Play N Trade was pretty cool, actually. They had an old Atari for sale plus games, and Saturn stuff as well (including Guardian Heroes). They also had all of the major consoles hooked up so you could try anything you wanted to.

Closed down though.

Toxic Pickle

A Play N Trade opened near my house... a stand-alone type of store that I noticed had suddenly appeared one day when I was going to Quiznos. It's a really small store and looks pretty cramped inside, so the selection is obviously not the best.

The only thing I ever bought from them was WoW: Wrath of the Lich King, which of course they were special ordering since they (like every other game store these days) don't sell PC games. The dude behind the counter was able to tell me they were having a midnight release, but he had no idea (less than a month out, mind you) how much the game was, how much the special edition was, or even if any special editions were left to order.

I still got the game (regular edition) from there since they had the midnight release and the store is by far the closest gaming outlet to where I live... or at least it was at the time but a Best Buy has since opened up... but seems kinda low-rate to me and I haven't gone back there since.

Bursar

There was one near where I used to live, near my bank, and it wasn't really anything spectacular. I got a couple of new games there once, but the old game selection wasn't anything special - all they had was used copies of the general stuff: old sports games and last year's AAA titles. There were also racks and racks of T-shirts with the store's logo on them, for some reason.

There was a Wii set up with Brawl always on, and a few regulars playing. I was in there a couple of months ago looking for Earth Defense Force, and while their system said they had it, the clerks couldn't find it anywhere. If I recall right, the staff was generally cheerful and tried to be helpful, but they didn't have any services or products that I particularly cared about.

Spicy_Rev

The one in New Orleans closed with no notice. People still had credits with them, etc, and they just disappered. It is going to vary greatly store to store, but check everything before you walk out because you are going to have a tough time returning/exchanging it if it does not.

The NOLA one was shady and its closure made that all the more evident.

MHYoshimitzu

After doing a bit of research, it looks like every single one of these stores is privately owned under the "Play N Trade" name. Sort of a DIY gaming store, where they help you get started if you have the cash for the lease and everything that goes along with starting a business. It explains why people are having such different experiences.

The one I went in looked pretty good, although I couldn't say much for the selection of newer games, they remain the only place I can get older titles from other than pawn shops (where they won't let you test whether a game works before you buy it, and quality is a crapshoot).

Viscountalpha

MHYoshimitzu wrote: »

After doing a bit of research, it looks like every single one of these stores is privately owned under the "Play N Trade" name. Sort of a DIY gaming store, where they help you get started if you have the cash for the lease and everything that goes along with starting a business. It explains why people are having such different experiences.

The one I went in looked pretty good, although I couldn't say much for the selection of newer games, they remain the only place I can get older titles from other than pawn shops (where they won't let you test whether a game works before you buy it, and quality is a crapshoot).

Some of the best luck finding older stuff for cheap was goodwill. They want to push a fair amount of it out the door and its usually only 2-5$ for awesome nes games. Its really hit or miss and you can miss a fair amount before you hit.

You could also post what city your near, maybe someone here might know of other places you can get older nes games. I know for the beaverton/portland area there is game trader where I've seen some awesome nes games for decent prices.

anoffday

Archgarth wrote: »

brynstar wrote: »

There's a Play and Trade store near me, and it's rather pathetic. The selection is lacking, the employees are asleep most of the time, and its painted inside to look like an old lasertag arena. I've been there a few times, I bought one game from them. They keep their gutted games in hard cases instead of sleeves, which I liked, but the stickers they use on their display cases are terrible.

They sell a few classic games, but if I want that stuff, I'll visit the far superior locally owned shop in the next town. Play and Trade to me seems like a half-hearted attempt at cloning a Gamestop and adding classic platforms. If the one near you has a bunch of classic stuff and that's what you want, it couldn't hurt to buy from them, but otherwise I'd avoid it. Mine has like...10 NES games.

The one I went into locally had Oddworld Stranger for 50 bucks used. Most of their other prices are also in line with this silly scheme of pricing. These stores are not geared to well-informed gamers, but instead to the person who will see a used copy of Madden '07 for 30 bucks and think it is a good price.

Wtf? Wow. First of all, that would have been the price of a new one, and second of all that game is like 6 years old. F this store.