Over the vacation season, we’re republishing among the finest articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors as a part of our Better of 2024 sequence. Take pleasure in!
Soapbox options allow our particular person writers and contributors to voice their opinions on scorching subjects and random stuff they have been chewing over. In the present day, Ollie displays on simply among the eventful episodes from his days working in online game retail…
When information hit that GAME, the UK’s final remaining online game retailer (not counting the various great unbiased shops left standing), could be bringing an finish to trade-ins and pre-owned merchandise from sixteenth February 2024, I felt a potent mixture of ideas and feelings.
On one hand, I couldn’t fairly comprehend why the agency would come to such a call; I labored there for one of the best a part of a decade, and three key initiatives had been constantly promoted to each employees and clients: reward playing cards, pre-orders, and trade-ins. For the latter, 100% of the cash produced from pre-owned gross sales went instantly into GAME’s pockets, whereas new video games would yield a relatively a lot smaller revenue. You may see why the agency wished to push trade-ins.
However on the flip aspect, when you think about the quickly rising recognition of digital video games along with GAME’s choice to show the overwhelming majority of its standalone retail areas into Sports activities Direct concession shops, it does make sense that the corporate would wish to convey an finish to trade-ins. Based on GAME’s filings for the 12 months as much as April twenty ninth, 2023, the gross transactional worth (GTV – full retail worth excluding VAT, financial savings schemes, and writer deductions) for pre-owned merchandise totalled 16,478. That is down from 25,894 over the identical interval the earlier 12 months, so there’s no denying that the demand for trade-ins and pre-owned merchandise is lowering quickly.
With all that mentioned, I’ll miss trade-ins when the apply finally goes the way in which of the dodo within the coming months. As a buyer, it’s an effective way to knock a bit of cash off new releases by getting rid of some older titles, and to choose up secondhand bargains for older video games.
As an ex-employee, nevertheless, coping with trade-ins for ten years (give or take) has resulted in a bevy of reminiscences each good and unhealthy, and I’d prefer to share only a few of them with you, pricey reader.
So make yourselves comfy as we make a journey into the not-too-distant previous and see simply what GAME workers have needed to put up with…
That One Time We Had *All* The Skylanders
Keep in mind Skylanders? Oh boy, I positive do. I’ve virtually had nightmares about them. As somebody who was by no means notably into the entire toys-to-life style (I not often even purchase amiibo except it is for a sequence that I’m actually eager on), I wasn’t actually clued up on the characters past that absolutely botched model of Spyro.
Disney Infinity wasn’t so unhealthy as a result of I immediately recognised a whole lot of characters. However with Skylanders, I’m actually sorry, however I couldn’t let you know the distinction between Boomer, Chill, Countdown, Cynder, or any of them, and I frankly wasn’t paid sufficient to swot up. This wasn’t a difficulty for essentially the most half: folks would choose what they wished from the cabinets, make the transaction, and be on their method. The issues arose when of us wished to commerce them in.
It doesn’t matter what it was — whether or not a bunch of handheld consoles, equipment, video games, or figures — when a buyer got here strolling into the shop hauling a huge cardboard field with an expectant grin on their face, my coronary heart sank. 99% of the time, it meant that they had a heap of ins and outs to commerce and I must drop no matter I used to be doing and spend the subsequent hour sorting all of it out.
In the course of the peak of the toys-to-life craze, a lady got here into the shop together with her two sons, and all three had been carrying large containers. I believed they’d be stuffed with video games, which might have been superb, however after they obtained to the counter and opened them, Skylanders. Three containers full to the brim with Skylanders.
Our stock course of for this was to seek the advice of a binder that contained a full listing of each Skylander, together with their names, their until code, and a small, barely blurry picture of the determine. I spent the higher a part of three hours grabbing one determine at a time, rigorously consulting the binder to match the determine with its blurry picture, inputting the code, and transferring on to the subsequent one. And the worst half? The poor girl and her sons stayed within the retailer all the time and when it got here to tallying up, I don’t assume we even broke £50. I felt horrible realizing that we had been providing a fraction of what she’d get on eBay, however she didn’t care. Honest sufficient, then.
By the tip of the day, I used to be able to launch the figures into the ocean. There aren’t many situations the place I’m glad to see a recreation sequence finish, but when Skylanders ever comes again, I’m off to Mars.
That One Time I Obtained Attacked
For a decade, I met many, many attention-grabbing characters working at GAME. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of them had been pleasant, nice individuals who I used to be honoured to serve. The remaining had been both impolite, dismissive, indignant, deceitful, or violent. Properly… There’s solely been one actually violent buyer.
Throughout my time at GAME, we not solely handled video video games, {hardware}, and equipment but in addition secondhand cell gadgets. We had been making an attempt to muscle in on CEX’s territory and, to be honest, we didn’t do a nasty job at it. We stocked a very good vary of mobiles, and we had been meticulous when it got here to making sure they had been of fine, saleable high quality.
One afternoon, I used to be taking my lunch within the upstairs workplace when a colleague got here as much as inform me {that a} buyer had wished to convey his cell in and wasn’t dealing with the rejection very properly because of the gadget’s lack of high quality. I used to be a Senior Gross sales Assistant so I used to be sometimes left in command of the shop. As such, whether or not we took this telephone in was finally right down to me.
I adopted my colleague downstairs and glanced on the buyer and the telephone in query. It was a Blackberry (gosh, bear in mind these?) and it was in horrible situation. The SIM card tray was battered past restore, the display was scratched to hell, and there was no charger or accompanying field. Naturally, I mentioned, ‘No.’
After a little bit of backwards and forwards with the shopper, I put my foot down and mentioned, “I’m sorry, however there’s no method we’re taking this telephone.” Instantly, he launched right into a rage, making an attempt to seize me over-the-counter, lacking, and continuing to choose up no matter he might discover to hurl at me, all of the whereas shouting expletives. Finally, he picked up a very heavy charity field and aimed for my head. I raised my arm to dam my face and the field caught my elbow, leading to a nasty reduce. The client lumbered out of the shop, operating his arms throughout the cabinets to knock off as a lot as he might on his method.
We referred to as the police, showcased the CCTV footage, and that was that. I didn’t want any medical consideration, however I used to be fairly shaken up. The man had the gall to come back again days later to have a look at our cell phone inventory! He was quickly arrested and went to jail.
That One Time These Numerous Occasions I Refused Scratched 360 Discs
Ah, the beloved Xbox 360. It was such an awesome console, however my goodness, did it have some issues. The one that everybody is kind of conscious of is the ‘Pink Ring of Loss of life’; a fault through which three of the purple lights encircling the ability button would mild up signifying Normal {Hardware} Failure.
Much less notorious, nevertheless, was the 360’s different problem, which needed to do with the console being moved whereas it was turned on (and generally even when it was stationary); the equipment inside might reduce an ideal round scratch into the spinning disc, usually rendering it fully unsalvageable.
That didn’t cease folks making an attempt to commerce them in, although. All of the bloody time. It was all the time dad and mom, too, who would herald Little Timmy’s recreation assortment and apparently weren’t made conscious that they had been principally ineffective. So, after all, they’d argue, though the proof was staring them proper within the face. “We had been informed all of them work superb.” Properly sure, I’m positive an eight-year-old seeking to get a brand new recreation is being fully sincere, proper?
We did have just a little machine that might buff up scratched recreation discs, and it usually labored wonders, however once you’ve obtained a type of round scratches from the 360, just about nothing’s going to resolve it. Hmm… Perhaps Microsoft ought to go all-digital, in any case?
Nah.
That One Time I Obtained A GBA SP For Free
Along with common clients seeking to commerce of their private belongings, we might usually get house owners of unbiased recreation shops coming in to shore off a few of their inventory by way of trade-in. It was a superbly respectable method for them to do away with video games or equipment that weren’t shifting and swap them for merchandise that they might promote. So I used to be all the time glad to assist out.
One chap got here in fairly regularly — a lot in order that his daughter wound up getting a job on the retailer and proved to be some of the environment friendly group members — and we constructed up fairly a friendship through the years, proper up till my GAME department closed in 2017. He’d usually are available in with containers to commerce, but it surely was by no means a trouble; he was all the time on prime of what they need to be price, so I by no means felt our time was being wasted.
Sooner or later, he got here into the shop within the run-up to Christmas and easily handed me a Sport Boy Advance SP in excellent situation with an accompanying charger.
” we do not take these for trade-in anymore, proper?” I requested.
“I do know. It is yours,” he mentioned. He knew that having removed my GBA a few years prior, I had all the time wished to get one other one. As a thanks for coping with him for therefore lengthy, he took a near-mint SP from his personal inventory and gifted it to me, no questions requested. I wasn’t fairly positive what to say. I do know the consoles weren’t price an excessive amount of cash — not less than they weren’t on the time! — however for him to keep in mind that I wished one within the first place was sufficient to almost convey a tear to my eye. I am going to always remember him, and I hope his personal retailer is flourishing.
In order that’s it! Hopefully, you’ve got had as a lot enjoyable studying these tales as I had writing about them. It has been a good few years since I labored at GAME and it is protected to say that the corporate has modified fairly a bit within the time since. Regardless of its points, I am going to all the time bear in mind my time there fondly — the ups, the downs, the laughs, the frustrations.
Largely, I am going to bear in mind my colleagues, although; of us who, regardless of what the web may need you imagine, liked video video games by and thru. Even when they could not title all of the Skylanders.
