A mystery solved: here’s why Gamestop is hustling to make you happy

By Stephen Munn | September 13, 2008

This past Tuesday, a new store opened up in the Colonie Center Mall, which is just a few minutes away from me up here in the Albany, NY area. PlayNTrade is a video game retailer, somewhat in the mold of a Funcoland or Babbage’s or any of the other stores that at some point merged to form Devastator. Er, Gamestop. The difference here is pretty big though. Let’s start with the presentation.

The store is clean and neat. It feels like a real store, rather than a sloppy toystore. PlayNTrade is staffed by plenty of knowledgeable, courteous people who clearly love games.

The store also acknowledges the existence of game systems from before the PS2. How far before? They’ve got a demo kiosk in the store for NES games, and like all the store’s kiosks, it’s running on a large, clear, bright LCD. They sell NES games. They’ve got systems in the store to run all the games they sell, and the games roll all the way back to the Atari 2600. The guy I talked to implied ColecoVision was coming, too. I flipped through a somewhat sparsely filled bin of 2600, NES, SNES, N64, and Genesis cartridges, all of which were carefully placed in alphabetical order, and many of them were in boxes. Shoppers are free to test any game in the store on the console it plays on. Prices seemed to start around $3.

PlayNTrade also sells imports. That’s imported games as well as imported consoles. Don’t like the colors the PSP comes in here in the US? Pick up a nice pink system. They’re region-free, so it doesn’t matter. Want something a little more exotic? I spotted a RetroDuo in the case: an unofficial console that plays NES and SNES cartridges. Want a silver PS3, which is not available in the US? It’s available there. Want some controllers to match it? Check.

There were multiple sealed copies of several popular Greatest Hits edition Square-Enix PS1 games in the case as well, including Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy VIII and IX, plus Origins, Chronicles, and Anthology. No sign of Final Fantasy VII, of course, but that thing is pretty hard to get your hands on for less than $50 these days.

I got the full rundown on what PlayNTrade is all about from a staff member, and here’s how it works. You can bring in games and trade them in, and you can buy used and new games. The prices for used games are actively priced lower than their competitor (who he mysteriously would not mention by name) and the amount of credit they will give for the games is likewise higher than the competition. They have a yearly subscription you can get if you like called 10-10-10. For $10, you get 10% off all used games and 10% more credit on all your trades, making the deal even a little sweeter than it was.

I had been running with the assumption that Gamestop’s recent media blitz pushing their used game trade-in values was in response to the almost universally negative press they get on the web from people like me. I mean, let’s face it, we all shop at Gamestop and we pretty much hate the place, but it’s all we’ve got. Well, think about this. What if it’s not all we’ve got anymore? Hit the official website for locations near you, and see for yourself. This place is worth checking out.