Gamestop = even worse than I thought

[paigeoliver]

Most old media doesn't hold value, video games just lose it faster because the formats become obsolete faster, and well, despite the fact that I am a classic gamer the reality is that each new crop of games is essentially just as good as the last, but BETTER LOOKING and thus superior.

Plus the games often outlive the consoles, particularly since consoles started having moving parts in them. In the long run in the collectors market games for PSX and newer consoles will be basically worthless, although working systems won't be. Right now they still have that whole backward compatibility thing going, but I doubt that will last eternally.

Of course I don't even own a console.

Speaking of, I buy used VHS movies for 50 cents each these days at an actual store. 50 cents each. At last count I had more than a thousand of them.

Go on down to the thrift store and pick up all those $6.99 best seller novels for 10 cents each.

[shmokes]

Speaking of, I buy used VHS movies for 50 cents each these days at an actual store. 50 cents each. At last count I had more than a thousand of them.

You should stop doing that.  I thought you were interested in girls now . . .   

Go on down to the thrift store and pick up all those $6.99 best seller novels for 10 cents each.

Or go to Barnes and Noble and pick them up for . . . $6.99.  This is the difference I'm trying to illustrate between games and other entertainment media.  You can't do that with videogames. 

Grim Fandango, hands down one of the best games ever made is 10 years old.  It may as well be 20,30, or 500 years old.  It is gone.  Period.  Put it on a retail shelf at any price and it will sell right around zero copies.  The graphics are nice . . . no too terribly outdated.  It's a PC game, so it's not obsolete in the sense that console games become obsolete.  Yet people WILL NOT BUY IT.  It's weird.

[shmokes]

That was such a flop that the designers won't even talk much about it anymore, last I checked?

The last time you checked was never.  I read every entry of the Doublefine.com blog and they still talk about Grim Fandango regularly. 

IGN rated it 9.4 and described it as, ". . . stand[ing] miles above any [game] yet released in the genre."  Yes, this includes every Sierra or LucasArts game ever made.  It also makes it into every top 100 videogames of all time list, generally at least in the top half, if not fairly near the top. 

If you have even the slightest interest in adventure games, or even the slightest interest in good games, track down Grim Fandango.  It is a transcendent experience that sticks with you forever.  I'm serious; it sounds cornball, but anyone who's played through the game knows what I'm talking about.  You just never forget it.  It's probably my favorite game of all time.  Easily top five material.

[DaveMMR]

The last time you checked was never.

And all that praise sure resulted in a ton of sales, didn't it?  Oh wait, it didn't.

Sales figures is not an indication of a game's quality.  There are lots of games released that are heavily praised by critics and the few that play it but never make a dent on the charts while, conversely, there are poor games that sell tons. 

Grim Fandango also had the unfortunate timing of coming out when "point and click" adventures were on the wane.

So yeah, commercially Grim Fandango was a flop, but it is still well regarded in the gaming circles.

[shmokes]

   Okay, pinball.  The last time you checked (I'm not sure where or how one goes about "checking" something like this) the developers were so ashamed of Grim Fandango that they refuse to talk about it.  Does that not even sound a little bit ridiculous to you?

FWIW, according to LucasArts Grim Fandango met domestic sales expectations and exceeded expectations outside the U.S.  Coming while the Adventure genre was in its death throes may mean that expectations weren't high, but LucasArts is at least refusing to call it a flop.  It may not have been a retail phenomenon, but I don't think it was a flop.

Regardless, as DaveMMR said, sales figures are not necessarily an indication of a game's (or any other entertainment medium) quality.  If sales figures depended on quality there would be no romantic comedies at your local movie theater.   

[Lutus]

Ah, point and click.....

Monkey Island series
King's Quest
Space Quest
Gobbblins
Grim Fandango
Sam and Max
Day of the Tentacle


Good times.   

[ChadTower]

Panzer Dragoon Saga received multiple printings of 5,000 or so.  Total ended up around 15,000 or so by the time they were done.  I remember that vividly - first printing was hard to get.  I preordered at 4 stores and only one ever got in a copy during that first run.

[ErikRuud]

For the most part, I like GameStop.  My PS2, EyeToy, controllers and half of the games I have were bought there.  For me it's mostly about cost. 

I have had a few problems with purchases there, but they have always been good about the returns.  I had two dead controllers once which they replaced.

The latest problem was when I picked up a copy of EyeToy:Kinetic.  If you buy the game new it comes with a "Full Vision" lens which is really a wide angle lens so that the EyeToy can see your whole body from head to toe.  Because the trade in policy only requires the game disc they don't check for this lens and the game is not playable without it.  They took it right back and gave me a full refund with out any problem.

These issues really make me wonder what testing they really do on the used stuff.

I have only traded in games once when my daughter got a three pack of games for Christmas that contained two games that we already owned.  There was no gift receipt and WalMart wouldn't take them even though I have seen the same other three packs using the same packaging sold through WalMart before.  I got about three dollars for the two duplicates and bought something else for about 7.00.

[Lutus]

One thing I think killed the adventure game series were the designers started putting unsolvable puzzles in the games so they could sell strategy guides.  Right around this time, everyone gets e-mail and internet and every time someone said "spray the cat with water" or "put the gold tooth in the bubble gum" that was $10 that company didn't make.

Maybe that's a cynical outlook but a lot of games pulled that BS.

Interesting point you bring up.

Also, didn't like in one of the Space Quest games that you had to have the manual since it had the star chart coordinates of the planets.  If you lost the manual you were screwed.

This was to combat piracy of course, but still was annoying.

[shmokes]

I think what really killed the adventure genre was that technology advanced to the point that action games became viable.  I think people in general prefer action to thinking, particularly when they're trying to unwind, relax, have a good time.  To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced that the market for adventure games every dried up very much, but rather the overall videogame market expanded tremendously, but the adventure game market stayed fairly static.  So an adventure game might sell the same as much today as it ever would have, but what used to be an enormous success, say selling 250,000 copies of a videogame, is now considered an abysmal failure.

Adventure games never got sucky, I don't think.  The market demographics just changed.

[The_Tyler_Black]

Also, didn't like in one of the Space Quest games that you had to have the manual since it had the star chart coordinates of the planets.  If you lost the manual you were screwed.

Which happened to me.... ALOT!! 

[SavannahLion]

Fandango hard to find? What? You just had to have the desire to look for it. Fandango stayed on the shelves long enough to be sold in a jewel-only case. Check Amazon for private sellers.

Shmokes is spot on on the quality of this title. Out of all the titles I ever owned, Fandango is one of the very few to be stolen from me, by my own mother no less.

[Samstag]

At the risk of totally derailing the thread by responding to the original topic, I just joined a highly recommended game trading site called www.goozex.com.  The way it works is you list the games you have available if you're willing to part with it for a certain point amount.  When you get hooked up with someone who wants a game you mail it off to them and get the points when they confirm receipt.  Then you can use the points to get in line for other games (you also pay $1 per game when you receive one).  It looks like most PS2 games are worth at least 100 points, and you can pick up a somewhat more recent game for a few hundred points.  I just dumped a bunch of PS2 games that wouldn't sell here or on Ebay and they're already being snapped up pretty quickly.

If you sign up before the end of April and use the coupon code CAG you'll get 100 points and a free trade credit, and another 100 points after your first successful transaction.  I'm looking at getting Saint's Row for the 360 for 550 points just for the cost of shipping 3 games I couldn't give away.