After The Money’s Gone

Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground…


Same as it ever was

I had about one bi…*trillion ideas I wanted to write about today, so of course I spent most of it absolutely not executing on a single god damn one. Certainly ideal for a day off, me thinks. In the future, look forward to a couple of article concepts I’ve concocted, involving at least some rambling about the recent Nintendo indie info dump, including some more thoughts on Cadence of Hyrule, which I’m totally vibing with, a fun little speedrun of a shorter rando I stumbled upon, and probably more nonsense involving the Belmonts, as I continue to celebrate the ridiculous bastards they truly are.


A clan of willy little shits, the lot of them

That’s next time of course. For now, I’ll just bring to your attention something potentially interesting if done correctly. Though, knowing the company involved, that’s a Death Egg sized if* involved. According to recent reports, Gamestop is looking to make some of their locations nationwide hearken back to the days of yore, by providing some retro offerings to old school aficionados. The retro gaming array of older offerings will include the NES, SNES, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy, N64, DS, Wii, Wii U, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, Xbox 360, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS Vita, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, and Dreamcast.


Gamers the nation over weep for the severity of this revisionist
injustice done this day in the name of the Virtual Boy

I have some immediate questions, but based on some of what’s been listed, I already have some unfortunate answers. Checking out Gamestop’s website only revealed four different locations that carry the retro product that I will have access to within 100 miles of my location, not a promising sign to put it lightly. And while the potential selection sounds great *if* it was across the board, this early rollout, if we are assuming there ever will be a greater expansion of stores that will carry the older product, which stores are going to include, if any will, the majority of the old games from every system? Browsing some more common titles and being familiar with their prices, used Pokemon titles are going for more than when they came out new. Which, again, doesn’t surprise me an iota, but given the profit margin Gamestop will no undoubtedly be aiming for, how many people are going to casually drop $50 bucks on a game, especially when one considers the possible cheaper digital version. And what of the trade in prices?


Gamestop customer: I brought a copy of Gale of Darkness to trade in! I heard it goes for like 800 bucks these days!
Gamestop employee: We can give you 8 dollars in store credit for this.

I like the idea in theory, but the execution of this has to clear such a high bar of financial irrationality for it to end up being an appealing offer my nose started bleeding just thinking about it In any case, it looks as if Gamestop is starting a rollout on the strategy already, so if you’re interested, be sure to cross your fingers that you’re near a bigger city to see if there will be any reasonable chance a store around you will be carrying some retro fare, but get ready to pony up for some old school pleasures.

~Pashford