Past Glory

>>3758680
>walk into retro reseller place at local mall
>it's the only place in the mall that smells like cat piss
>even the pet store doesn't smell like cat piss
>180 and never look back

I went to an EB Games the other day because I realized I hadn't visited a brick and mortar place to acquire vidya in a long time. About 1/4 of the store was games, and they were all shoved in the back. The rest of the store was a bunch of "gamer culture" trash and trinkets to utterly throw away your money on. The entire long wall which used to house the Sony/MS console games is now *entirely* populated with those godforsaken pop! culture figures, which basically litter any store that stocks them with piles of themselves.

Absolutely disgusting. I still have the memories though, I guess.

>>3758680
I remember as a young lad my mom worked at Sears. Which had a pretty solid VG dept. When I was in 2nd grade she got me Zelda. I was pretty pumped. Then Babbagges, and Electronics Boutique came in. Actually the first games I bought with my own dosh were at that store. (CV 3 and Maniac Mansion). Then Funcoland opened up across the street and they had games for fucking 50 cents. The ships sailed amigos.

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>>3758718
This so much.

What the fuck is with these Funko Pop figures? Who the fuck buys them? Why the fuck does every vidya store I go to have a whole fucking wall dedicated to them?

It's crazy shit, man. These things aren't even aesthetically pleasing, they're expensive, and it seems like half the people who buy them never take them out of the box.

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When I was a kid the best selection of 2600 games came from a record store called Disc Jockey. Better than Camelot Music, Sears, Harts or K-Mart.

>>3758718
Gamestops have all turned this way. I don't understand who buys that junk. Weird shit I had noticed a spatula that was somehow special because it was Star Wars branded and a Bb-8 waffle maker. Just endless garbage.

>>3758771
These things mystify me too. Ugly and cheap garbage. Only positive is that just abou every franchise is represented but aforementioned problems make them awful things.

>>3758718
I remember before EB games was bought out by Gamestop it was the best place to find vidyas. Walmart/Target/Best Buy were fine for your main stream games, but for strategy guides and every game, it was the best.

Then Gamestop bought out EB games, and they both became cancerous. I know this part isn't retro, but I went to buy the last of us a few years ago on the first week after release. They wouldn't sell me a copy at Gamestop because I didn't preorder it at even though it was a week after the release. Drove the walmart down the street and picked it up just fine. I hope Gamestop and EB games go the way of Blockbuster with their cancer policies.

>>3758771
Whatever you do, don't search youtube for "funko pop collection."

>>3758814
>Gamestops have all turned this way.
yeah they had no choice. people finally saw the light and stopped buying into their shit so they had to resort to hot topic-tier merchandising to survive.

the best video game store in my mall back in the day was Walden Software., also had an EB and a Babbages.

>>3758787
>Camelot Music

the Camelot Music in my mall was right next to Waldens, and it was awesome... spent so many hours in that store flipping through albums. I actually get more nostalgiac about music stores in the mall than I do about the game stores.

In the 80s and 90s all game stores in my country where just mom and pop stores, toy stores or just big-box stores. It was only in 2000's when EB/Game/Gamespot rolled in and took over. These days the only game stores that still exists is gamestop and they barely even sell games, its all just toys and gaming clothes. One thing I have fond memories of is demo stations which I occupied while mom was buying groceries

>>3758718

I've noticed this too. I get that they have to make more money than just some overhead on games, but they already make a ton off used games, so there's no reason other than blatant Jewing to turn half of the store into some hipster trash millennial Loot Crate.

>>3758896
>>3758771
I never understood normies' obsession with Funko Pops. Remember the days when owning lots of plastic toys stigmatized you as a friendless shut-in? How did Funko Pops managed to avoid such a stigma?

>>3758771
I work at Walmart as the toys department manager. I still have a box with about 50+ of the Starwars ones from from Xmas.

I hate alot of the collector shit we sell because a lot of them dont sell or get stolen, or people open them just to see whats in the blind bag/box before they buy it. If its not what they want, the throw it back on the self or behind something.

>>3758814
>Gamestops have all turned this way. I don't understand who buys that junk. Weird shit I had noticed a spatula that was somehow special because it was Star Wars branded and a Bb-8 waffle maker. Just endless garbage.

We sell Starwars scotch (or another brand) tape at the Walmart I work at.

It sounds like the only things missing from those Gamestops full of crap are those rice hats and cheap bamboo kendo swords I used to see in the anime DVD section of FYE. A little slice of faux-japonisme to appease the Narutards, presumably, that I always gave a cocked glance at.

Even that fucking FYE store is history. It was cool flipping through new vinyl they just started selling before they folded.

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>big ass mall in my hometown as a kid
>two game stores in it
>babbages and software etc
>babbages had the weeb front covered with imports and animu DVDs
>software etc was stocked to the teeth with PC games
>babbages becomes a gamestop in the early 2000s
>software etc follows a few years later
>The former babbages shuts down
>The mall is left with the one shitty gamestop which is the same as all of the others

>>3758680
The mall in my area was the same way. Small shop on the 2nd floor was first a Waldens Software, then Electronics Boutique, then EB Games, and is currently a Game Stop.

>>3758680
Went to my "local" mall this past December which I hadn't visited in years. (I'm from a border town in mex and when I was a kid I would usually go to the US to buy stuff with my parents every 4 months or so)

and everything I loved is gone, KB toys, babbages, suncoast, that one local mom and pop vidya store that eventually was reduced to a kiosk gone too.
When I saw that the electric boutique store was still there my heart skipped a bit and I rushed inside, where my hopes died as I glanced tot he shelfs filled with hand fedoras and hand fedora accessories.
It had only the name going for it, an empty shell of what it once was.

>>3758771
they're like nendoroids but buttugly

EB was great in the 80s and 90s. I miss that old logo in the OP. Going to the mall in the 90s was such an awesome experience... checking EB for games, FYE to see what import anime merchandise they got in, and then hitting Area 51, the mom and pop comic book/geek shop.

Video game, anime, and related merchandise was so much cooler back when you had to search for it and not buy it at Walmart.

>>3758718
Yeah Gamestop bought ThinkGeek, and has slowly phased out their Nintendo retail space for T-Shirts and """collectibles""""

>local game store was either a Babbage's or Software Etc
>turned into a Gamestop by 2000
>meanwhile the mall has Electronics Boutique and Software Etc
>EB becomes EB Games
>Software Etc becomes Gamestop
>now there's two identical stores on opposite ends of the mall for years
>EB finally shuts down
>every game store is identical now, in look, feel, and inventory
>FYE even stopped selling vidya to basically become Suncoast 2.0
>also Suncoast closed

>>3758680
Can anyone identify any of the games in this picture? I'm trying to date this out of curiosity. I see Adventure Island in the NES section (released Sept 1988). Are those PC games in the left window?

EB still had non-vidya related trinkets. But even so, they were still of value to me at least. For instance, they would have Gunpla straight from Japan at the EB in the King of Prussia mall. EB and Funcoland were the best.

>There used to be arcade machines in the Basement floor of the Mall, usually near escalators and elevators.
>Fighting games, Rail shooters and shmups were there.
>Fast forward today and all of them have been replaced with perfume kiosks or simply disappeared.

>>3761473
Yeah, there's a C64 section on the left, and judging by all of those dot matrix printers on the wall, 1988 or so sounds about right.

>>3758680
my local shop has been the following:
babbage's
eb
kay bee toys
kb toys
gamestop

all in the same location in a shitty strip mall in a nowhere-town with 15k residents.

>>3761503
I thought kb toys went under years ago?

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Used to go here too

>>3761534
>has been

>>3761503
It is funny that it went from a software store to a toy store then back to a software store

>>3758771
Does anyone even buy these things? I see them all the time yet not once have I ever seen anyone pick one up.

>>3760756

Well, "Nerd Culture" (TM) is in right now, or at least to the extent that wearing a Nintendo shirt, buying Star Wars toys, playing Pokemon Go, and watching things like Big Bang Theory and Marvel movies make one a part of nerd culture. Funko Pops are just an easy way of expressing a person's nerdy interests with minimal effort. While a true Friday the 13th nerd might have a collection of minty import Laserdiscs, an autographed original movie poster, a prop or two, and so on, a more mainstream nerd might just buy a Jason Funko and call it a day.

The apparently wide variety of covered topics presumably makes them collectible and prime for impulse buys, too, for people who just like collecting random things.

>>3760852
They still have FYE at my local mall. It's horrible for vidya, but still pretty good for movies/music.

>>3762692
I fucking hate nerd culture. All the boring nerdy stuff is the trendy shit. When will true computer nerddom rise to the top?

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>>3762713
Make nerds great again.

>>3758680
stop being such a bitch

>>3762872
Go back to looking at men's asses.

>>3758787
Strangely enough one of the best places to get old games where I live is a half music and video/half video games store, with a small used anime section.

Then there's another store that's mainly music with a display case of overpriced SNES games.

>>3760663
>One thing I have fond memories of is demo stations which I occupied while mom was buying groceries
This. My mom's bank had a GBA and GB you could play, but were removed when it was acquired by a different company.

>>3762713
When there stops being money to be made from it.

How the fuck did Gamestop manage to take over like a malignant cancer?

It's such a fucking garbage store.

>>3763102

Money and will, I imagine. In their early days they at least maintained the bins of old stuff like Funcoland before them, but after they became a "why don't I just buy it from WalMart or Amazon?"-tier store, I've no clue how they managed to stay in business.

The last thing I remember buying from them was their special edition Birth By Sleep PSP.

>>3760724
You know the point of business is to make money... Right?

>>3762642
Mine local shop was egghed, then eb, then GameStop, then a liquor store.

What's funny is an indie retro store came in and the GameStop left. I don't buy video games but it warmed my heart to see the lil guy push out the big guy (even though I know the manager of the GameStop had been wanting to leave for years)

>>3763102
I can actually answer this.
The EB guys got offered a lot of money. A few of the top guys just wanted out, the others thought they could go start their own business (Game Trader, and last time I went to one it was a fucking shithole. Most of them closed down). A lot of locals had a great deal of pride in EB (Greater Philadelphia area), Myself and my coworkers were insanely angry that they sold the company off, as we had met a lot of the higher ups in the company, being so close to the flagship store.

What's really funny, though, if is you go to the King of Prussia mall, you'll notice that there are two Gamestops. Why? In the contract to sell it off they're not allowed to close down the OG Electronics Boutique location (which is funny because originally they were a booth in the mall, not a storefront, but I digress) and the Gamestop higher ups refuse to fucking budge from their location. It's been what, 15 years or so and both stores still stand. It's hilarious.

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My very first ever game preorder was SNES Chrono Trigger at Electronics Boutique. I never got my Ghaleon hand puppet with my PS Lunar 2: Eternal Blue preorder. There were great big box PC games that I got and wished I got. Expensive, but still I do remember EB. Scanned this image to show they did offer a free EA sports duffel bag with your purchase of any EA sports game.


>>3758718
This perfectly describes my recent experience too.


>>3762687
I think they are just store decorations too. As I have never witnessed any ever getting purchased or signs of one ever being purchased. A local used movie/music/games chain store I visit often carries a wall of those Pop figures, and I cannot help but think they have to be losing money from the things. Now I even see they carry the knockoff cheaper off-brand ones with spherical heads that are even uglier. Just doubling down on a bad idea, I suppose everyone is desperate for any cash around me.

D-damn... my mall had the coziest little nook of a EB games. Walls lined with games. Magazine racks. Players guides. I don't want a digital future.

>>3763480
I guess the price was right.

I'll still miss the old EB at my local mall though. It was always packed with people.

>>3760852
You're not talking about the FYE at Eastview mall, are you? That one was huge in its prime, it even had an arcade where I fondly remember playing Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder and Marvel vs Capcom.

>>3762868
I watched this movie for the first time a few years back and I can't tell you how pleased I was that the voice of Mandark from Dexter's Lab looks almost exactly like him.

>>3764090
Nope, it was the one located in Plattsburgh NY at the Champlain Centre Mall, the same mall that had the EB I was talking about in OP. Middle of nowhere upstate NY (near Canadian border), and that mall has seen better days: Sears just folded, Borders books failure left a big hole, and while there is still an arcade in the old location it's nothing but ticket machines for kids with a handful of pins, Namco Galaga/ms pac reunion the only real classic style game there, and sucks (used to be awesome "Just Fun" arcade).

Same mall where I used to get Atari 2600/7800 carts new in the late 80s from the long gone Hill's department store. I still have a TV cart from that Hill's in classic woodgrain MDF that was my original battlestation as a kid (it was actually a computer cart, and the shelves held my NES and 7800 setup nicely with a 19inch Trinitron TV).

>>3763480
I remember there being 2 Gamestops in the Trumbull Mall in Connecticut as well. Maybe it was Stamford.

>>3760852
We had a FYE that turned into a Sports Authority that recently shut down. The same lot has a CompUSA that has been sitting dormant for over a decade except when it's one of those Spirits stores.

>>3758718
eb in Australia is the same,

>>3758718
>>3758771
>>3758680

I remember going to EB games circa 2002-2005 and being able to pick up NES games for cheap. I got lucky once and was able to buy an unopened majora's mask for $15. of course I opened it but if I knew how much games prices would go up, I mightve just bought another one cart only..

>>3761181
use to be a kick ass video store that was the only one in perth western Australia that rented anime, the owner gave me a tone of anime posters and marketing stuff that she got from the distributors. its gone now replaced with a salvos, which to me is the sadist store in the world

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Funcoland>EB Games>>>>>>>>Gamestop

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There used to be a Blockbuster Music in my neighbourhood about 21 years ago.

I have truly never experienced a better store.

They had all the PC games in their big boxes and I bought my first PC game there, which was a compilation pack of Prince of Persia 1 + 2.

They had stuff that you would never see in shops back then. Strategy guides, massive cardboard cutout displays, monitors with playable consoles.

And this was just the games section. It was like an IRL Amazon store. They had everything.

>>3764895
>>3764895

I miss Funco. The primary one that I went to closed long ago - I don't remember if it formally became a GameStop before it shut down or not. It might have retained the original name to the end for all I know.

Now it is a Hope's Door Resale Store. Some other game store opened in the same shopping center, but I've never actually shopped at it.

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>>3761473
>>3761502

It looks like 1990 to me, based on the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade game box in the left window. Pic related, released in 1990. I wouldn't make it much later than that overall due to the fashions on display.

>>3765172
Correction, it was released in 89, and its not likely to be 1990 yet due to the Christmas decorations on display. The game is unlikely to warrant prime position like that in Christmas 1990.

I remember back when EB was pretty based honestly.

>Birthday in October
>Mom and Dad pre-order me Ocarina of Time
>Got a shirt
>Got the guide
>Got the game
>Got some other swag too
>All for just pre-ordering

Now what do you get? Fucking nothing. You get some shitty tacked on DLC.

Back in the day where you may actually not be able to get a copy, pre-ordering made sense.

Now pre-ordering is a cruel cash grab.

I haven't been in an EB games since like 2006. I started going to places like Best Buy since they were cheaper and didn't try to sell you any bullshit. Then I just started buying everything from Amazon with Prime.

>>3758771
>Who the fuck buys them?
Poser nerds trying to look cool.

I like plushies and the fact that gamestop is carrying merchandise based on games, but fuck this Pop figure shit, half of it doesn't even have to do with Vidya in any form. Keep it in fucking hot topic, not Gamestop.

Then again, Gamestop is already dead

I remember our local sears had a legitimate gaming section. When the Dreamcast came out there was a line of people waiting to play the Sonic adventure Demo. We also had a Babbages that was also packed with people. The other day I went to Gamestop to get a copy of Pokemon Sun and the place was packed with "Gamer Culture" nonsense and Muh Call of Duty bros. I saw a call of duty bottle opener and a star wars ice cube maker. Seriously who buys this shit?

>>3765441
>tfw I have "real" video game culture stuff
>Capcom Creator Studio Monster Hunter Statues
>Official Taito Bill and Bub plushies that sit next to my neo-geo

Stuff like that is actually fun. Stuff like shitty low quality bobble heads are fucking lame.

I also don't get how "services" like Loot Crate have -any- standing. They have shit products, and seem to spend so much shit on advertising that it's ridiculous.

>>3765456
>I also don't get how "services" like Loot Crate have -any- standing
I guess lots of people just want to pay a monthly fee for what is essentially rejected Hot Topic merchandise. Hell, any crate is better than Loot crate, Indie box is better as you get nice packages and stuff

>tfw Gamestop is technically retro since they sell retro games again.

>>3765471
Too bad it's going to be at very inflated prices, at really shitty quality too.

It's really a shame, 10 years ago retro vidya used to be a pretty cheap niche alternative that results in finding satisfying games, and now it's an expensive market that everyone ends up playing.

>>3762713
Its all these fake ass nerds that killed it

>>3766119
It feels like that episode of Married with Children where Al makes his Garage into his Man cave, then Jefferson invites friends without his permission that end up being total faggots, and then it suddenly becomes a safespace for Marcy's women's group.

Sad thing is, it's almost exactly the same thing, nerd hang outs used to be a nice way to get together, but then dumb normies came in and ruined them, and now a lot of fuckers use them as some kind of dumb feminist safespace, even if the franchise has almost nothing to do with feminism

>>3758718
I was running an electronics boutique store in Australia prior to, and during the rebrand to EB Games. I've actually managed a few EB Games stores here. Probably the worst company I've ever worked for desu. Shifty upper management, rampant nepotism. Dont get me wrong, guys on the floor and other managers are generally ok, but fuck man upper and middle management male evereything a fucking nightmare right now. They currently only hire hipster trash and chicks with tatts or colored hair. The area managers promote these chicks because they think that thay are gonna get their dicks wet if they do, and 'hot' chicks bring in the drooling neckbeards and virgin gamertards. The sooner digital distribution collapses these cunts, the better. Sidenote - Zing pop culture currently makes more revenue for them than the games do. They had to change, or die.

>>3766335
Thats one thing I see here a lot in my area. We have Gamestops and Vintage Stock up the asses with hipsters and posers working at them.

>tfw live in southamerican country with so much piracy that there were never any legit game stores
>tfw in like 2007 a "gamestop" opened in a mall
>100U$S for a not so legit looking copy of Fallout: New Vegas
Thank fuck for Steam.

>>3758718
The only one in my town doesn't even stock new games. Asides from the shitty merchandise, at least a quarter of their remaining total stock is Xbox 360 copies of FF13.

>>3766225
There was a golden period though where there was lots of nerd groupie pussy to be had

90's smaller franchise game shops were the fucking best.

I forget the same of it but I remember one which sold everything including things like the 32x which (was uncommon even at release), souped up PC's at the back playing Quake 1 at 800x600, all sorts was there.

Like most stores they had a members club, specifically they printed their own cheat book which is why I pestered my mum to take me there one day. So we go and meek little ol' me asks for a cheat book at the counter, dude refuses me saying I need to be a club member to get these books. Another dude took pity on me and gave me one anyway (It was about as much as a book as a fist full of A5 paper folded and stapled together) which gave me mad cred in school the next day.

>>3758689
>reseller place at local mall

>2nd hand pokeyman games at 50 buck

Motherfuckers.

That feel when third worlder.

That feel when game stores were never a thing in my country because lol socialism.

That feel when to play you had essentially to wait for console hacks and buy bootleg copies at fairs with high failure rates.

>>3764895
Based funcoland in North Jersey. Had better prices than GameStop/eb

>>3767413
early 2000 to mid 2000's I'm guessing?

>>3767356
>>3767597
Thanks for the different perspective
You cannot mourn the loss of something you never had

>>3762713
You're a few years too late immafraid.

>>3758771
I have 2 friends that obsessively collect these things. I do not understand it. More than half of them aren't even video game based, its movies tvs and every other thing they can make a creepy looking bobble head statue of. ... I'm surprised I have yet to see them with a Helen Keller one.

Also, to vent my frustrations, I found out one cannot crouch jump in a fps. Nor does he know what a rocket jump is. He's just into "nerd culture" and hasn't played a console before xbox. I still like the guy, but I just can't have anything to do with games like I like with him.

>>3766335
Hey I used to work at EB between 2006 - 2009 in Australia. Small world.

>>3768103
Late 90s to 2000-2001. Girls got less slutty after 9/11

>>3766335
I remember Electronics Boutique in Australia in the late 90s / early 00s had a fair number of quality gamer girls on floor staff, no deviations like tatts or coloured hair, just nerdy with good knowledge and passion for games.

I think there's just been a big gaming culture change in general since then

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>>3764090
i loved the FYE in eastview, but mostly for the direct cut-through to the other side of the mall. i always laughed at the people sitting at the digital music kiosks buying dollar songs to put on their zunes.

there's a few ROC anons around here, or there's two and you and i keep talking to eachother.

pic was at victor goodwill, 400 dollarydoos

>>3762676
i moved away a decade ago, i just checked and it's a FAMILY VIDEO now...

software>toys>software>gamestop*>fucking movie rental store

hilarious

*gamestop is it's own category as it's a shitshow.

>>3769135
>tfw the FYE near me doesn't even sell vidya anymore
Not like I really mind that much since it had a crap selection and wasn't even retro

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>>3762687
the only one I bought was the pac-man figure

considering pacman's artstyle it dosn't look ugly

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got kinda of a cool story from when I went to san francisco last week
>went to burger dicks since my little brother wanted to drink something and eat some fries
>enter
>something is very off
>in the side there's a fucking pac man party arcade pic related
>mfw no face
>get some quarters
>spend like a solid hour playing mappy, galaga 88 and rally x
>fuck ton of people start crowding around me watching me play
>leave
>next day go again to play
>there's a solid crowd watching a guy play Rolling Thunder
>tfw I most likely saved a pac man party machine from getting thrown out

>>3771417
You bought a square pacman. looks pirated. I'm suprised the liscense holder of pacman was okay with this.

>>3771491
They made that awful CGI cartoon recently, I don't think Namco gives a fuck as long as they get their money.

>>3761430
Staten Island mall ?

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I used to go to a place in richland, washington called nielson's video games. (pic isn't them, it's the store that replaced them 3 months later 100 meters away)
I don't have a lot of memories of any game shops when I was small, I first went to this one when I was like 12, so I didn't have a lot of games, even though my family was well off
The point is I played the shit out of just 4-5 games on the snes and gba until we got a wii

>>3758680
How long until EB Games loses the Games and just becomes EB and no longer sells games and instead just sells toys and shit?

It can't really be that long now.

>>3761503
my local mall(which is now gone) used to have an EB games right across from a KB toys

it was the best

I miss both of them