My Experience With Buying Games From Second Hand Shops

I generally find that you get two groups of people when it comes to buying games. One group is the group that are "hardcore gamers" so to speak who'll buy something the day of release, or maybe the week of release for £45 or £40. Then you get the people who aren't gamers "to the heart" they just play games for a bit of fun... I'm not necessarily refering to casual gamers here. Typically these people are either kids who don't have much money, or parents who dont have much money.

The second group are the type that you find in second hand shops. These shops aren't very nice to go into; let's be honest, they are small, cramped, not all that clean and the they are full of kids "running around" (of what they can) and their parents shouting at them whilst they rummage through the 7-year-old PS2 games for £2. These shops target the unemployed, and it's generally those type of people that go to these shops. These shops don't offer much for stuff, and there are many games that you'd expect to see there... Fifa '07, Fifa '08 and all sorts of cheap games that nobody's really heard or cared about.

But here's the thing, I have bought quite a few games there. Why? well because if you manage to get passed all the rubbish that's there you'll find a pretty good deal. i got Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box for £2, same with Need For Speed: Pro Street. I got Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call there for 99p... that's right 99p! I can't find that game for any less than £30 anywhere else. It's because they don't understand the value of certain games, so they can't effectively price them, it seems to me they go off assumptions... "oh, this is a PS2 game, every other PS2 game we have is £1 or £2, let's make this £1"

Of course the football games are priced slightly higher than anywhere else (well, think of the customers who enter these shops)... oh and did I mention the stacks of 2-year-old football games there? that's another rant for another time.

One thing that really annoys me is this; the conditions of these games. I don't even understand how anybody could have so little respect for games as to put them in the state that they become. I have PS1 games that I have played many times, Final Fantasy VIII I got on September 30th 2000 (My 12th birthday) and the discs are still working fine, not all that many scratches. But I sometimes see these 360 games and PS3 games with tons of scratches all over them. The cover art on the box isn't in all that good condition either. Now consider this, I got Lucifer's Call for 99p, a bargain, I am very pleased... but the disc was full of scratches. Think about this, the person who sold it to this second hand shop kept the recipt of their original purchase of this game, they bought it 2nd hand for £18 in 2006 (guess that means I got it at least 3rd hand then). They clearly didn't take care of it very well, they probably turned it on and thought "bah! this game is slow and boring" (knowing the mindset of the youngens today, gee, I'm not that old). Now considering that I bought it for 99p, that means the previous owner must have gotten even less than that! 50p maybe? what does 50p get you? barely even a drink! so they must have thought "50p is better than this game"... not only that, but the shop thought "how much can we sell this for? 99p? alright then!" So what would've happened if I didn't but that game? well probably some random kid would get it and treat it just as badly. It just annoys me that there are people willing to pay lots of money for these games but can't get them cause some ingoramous is using it as a coaster.

I guess all in all what I'm saying is that if a game comes out, just wait! don't pay £45 for a 1-day-old game, unless of course you've been anticipating it for a couple years then I can understand. Before you know it'll be in some second hand shop somewhere for a bargain. I suppose this is also a message about not getting games brand new on the release day but I might talk about that another day (that is people who in general pay way too much money for the value they get)