All Game Crazys Are Closing

S

stonetoad

CAG Veteran
Found this on my local Craigslist.

Bend Game Crazy Closing: First and foremost, a heartfelt and whole hearted "Thank You" to Central Oregon for choosing us for the past 6 years. In approx. two weeks ALL Game Crazy and Hollywood Video stores will be entering liquidation. As the store manager, and employee since (almost) inception till the last day I wanted to thank all the many, many, many people who have been like our extended family. You have made a job a 2nd home. We will miss all of your faces and down to earth kindness. We have always striven to be your "neighborhood" game store and provide you with excellent customer service and I feel we have done a pretty good job. Your loyalty has inspired us to provide you with the best possible experiences when in our store (CoDMW2 Midnight Launch chest flasher, HALO 3 Megaline around the store, Super Smash Bros. Tourneys and many many more). You have made the long waits till midnight launches and the 4AM Black Fridays well worth it. I also thank the many employees who have been with us over the years, the part time seasonals to the full timers who have moved on. We wish to see your faces all one last time before we close that gate for the final time. So come on down, pick up that game you've been wanting or just come down and shoot the breeze with Dan, Cody, Chris or myself. We would love to see you and say thank you and goodbye.

Bend Game Crazy Store Director,
Glenn J.

Bend Game Crazy Shift Leads (and a better group of employees than I could wish for),
Cody J. & Dan H. & Chris M.


P.S. As I'm sure many of you have some questions I'll try to answer what I know here and save our phone (and sanity) from blowing up.

Q. I have deposits on preorders, credit on my account, a gift card to GC and Hollywood. What do I do?
A. All cash deposits can be refunded for cash or used towards a purchase. All credit deposits/trade credits must be used up, credit is not transferable to cash. I recommend using your gift cards as there wont be any other location to use it at.

Q. Are you still taking preorders?
A. No, we will no longer be taking preorders on future titles, nor offering the MVP membership, offering game guard or console service contracts.

Q. What if I purchased one of those things?
A. Preorders see answer to the first question, as for MVP's and game guard I assume those will be unrefundable. In the case of service contracts I am unsure at this time how the company will handle them. I will have more information after my conference call on Monday.

Q. Are you still taking trades?
A. Yep, most definitely, however, we are no longer doing cash for trades. We still guarantee the best trade price in town and if we come in lower we'll top our competitor by 5% as always. But, if it wasn't obvious, you'll want to use that credit same day.

Q. What/When are your liquidation sales?
A. The sales wont start until the liquidation firms finish bidding on the company's assets *apx. 2 weeks. As for what the sales will be I couldn't tell you at this time. However expect by the time they begin some of our stock may have been shipped out, and expect much of the "better stuff" to go fairly quickly, so don't expect the good/decent/rare(er) games to last past the first or second weeks. Moral of the story, best to just come buy it now rather than try to wait for it to hit bottom dollar pricing as it wont be in stock then.

Q. What do you guys have in stock?
A. Honestly, everything up to date including a few Splinter Cell Elite 360 and Bowsers Inside Story DSI bundles. We have a pretty awesome selection of used games right now (I raided one of the Eugene stores that absorbed a lot of product from another closing store a few weeks ago so we have a lot of hot stuff in). A bunch of refurbished Wii's for $150, a ton of refurbished 360's $160-250 and a bunch of new consoles/handhelds as well.

Q. So what now?
A. We are kicking around a few ideas about a Store Closing BBQ when all is said and done and we'd really love to have anyone who has been a regular or has a fond memory to come down and write it down or sign on the store banner. We might also practice moonwalking and juggling and putting a video on YouTube, we'll see. :)

THANK YOU CENTRAL OREGON, YOU'VE MADE IT AWESOME!
 
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The complaints about markups are a bit disingenuous. True, plenty of uninformed shoppers get caught in that trap, but that's their own dumb fault. There's usually nothing shady at all about it.

When Circuit City went under, the liquidator marked everything up to MSRP, then started the markdowns. Simple as that. And it put all stores on the same footing. They didn't pick prices out of thin air.

Folks who complained about "this TV was $200 cheaper last week!" didn't seem to understand that that sale price was Circuit City's. They no longer owned the TV. The liquidator was a new owner, and was starting the pricing at full MSRP. It would be a logistical nightmare for the liquidator to keep track of all regional prices (and recent short-term sale prices) for every location nationwide and start their liquidation there.

And no, that's not a ripoff, because--unlike Circuit City--the liquidator was going to keep lowing the price of the TV until it sold.
 
This has been known for months and I think there was a previous thread about this. Gamecrazy never had much of good games in stock in my area and alot of them were slackers who didn't show much effort or that they cared. They are all being closed by the fall supposedly so dip out while you can and use up all your credit. Buy whatever you can and just sell/trade it on here or elsewhere. By the way, all the local gc employees who lost their job went on to work at gamestop. Go figure..
 
Sad for me. I worked and managed one for a few years...after I left about a year later it turned into a generic "Hollywood Games" before disappearing overnight when Hollywood closed.
 
[quote name='decon']Too bad EB/GS is still around.[/QUOTE]

why do you say this? GS is ten times better than gamecrazy... I will miss GC but their business practices were terrible, not to mention they were very conservative with their promos, which never stacked with "MVP"... I will miss the store but overall I love GS far more
 
and contrary to popular belief, their trades were NOT better than GS, in fact I traded in games there a handful of times unlike the 9 billion times I trade into GS a month.
 
[quote name='Billymays21']I'm confused. Is this just the ones in Oregon or all around the country?[/QUOTE]

yeah its buried at the end of his first sentence, but it says ALL in big capital letters, so I think we're assuming ALL as in nationwide..
 
I just called the one store left here in town. They reiterated the online message exactly--all stores closing, no special sales right now, liquidator should start sales in approx 2 weeks.

Bummer because there were 2 stores just a couple of months ago, and the other one (gone now) had a few good deals I meant to take advantage of. My bad.
 
[quote name='KillerRamen']It's always sad to see a business close up shop, but it's not exactly surprising. There's one store left in St Louis (I think there's only one) and they did no advertising what-so-ever. It's kind of hard to know if its worth going in when they don't advertise. From the one time I was at the store, it looked pretty nice, but the prices were a bit high. I guess I'll go in and see if I can get a deal.[/QUOTE]
Hey Ramen,
I'm not sure how accurate this is, but from what I know there are at least 2 stores in the St. Louis area, plus one in Granite City. I used to work at W. Florissant, which is still open, and my friend is the manager at, and I'm friends with 2 other workers at, the Delmar store. Not sure if S. Grand is open or if it was closed down months ago, along with the other one(Festus?).
 
If you go on Hollywood Video's site, they say that only some of the less profitable stores are closing. They said to use the store locator to find which ones were closing (only 2 out of about 15 were closing in West Michigan). I don't know if this means that only some are closing, or if only some have their sales going already.
 
Walked into my GC for any information on a liquidation sale, but didn't get any. Would like to pick up some Blu-Ray movies from Hollywood Video.
 
The problem is casual shopper will buy up everything at 20% so by the time it hits 70% there wont be any good stuff left.
 
I just called the Portage, IN Game Crazy store and they had no idea what I was talking about. Maybe we're hearing this wrong?
 
My local Game Crazy in Frederick, Maryland confirmed that they are going out of business and will have a sale in 2 weeks.
 
[quote name='mossman43']Not all. The two next to me in Dartmouth and Fall River MA will remain open.[/QUOTE]

no it won't. this was announced yesterday afternoon. the entire company is closing.

i don't know why your local store wouldn't know unless they did not call into the company wide conference call yesterday afternoon. they're in for a surprise in two weeks. i will confirm again: ALL stores will be closing and will begin liquidating in a couple of weeks.
 
Sad, while the local Game Crazy was emptied and gone before I even realized it, I was hoping it wasn't part of a larger trend. Although we only had one GC here in the area for any length of time, picked up quite a few used games for good prices and new games during the sales / black fridays.
 
[quote name='jebnaut']In the end, they were just too fucking crazy for their own good.

REST IN PEACE DUDES[/QUOTE]

was that a hunter s. tompson reference?
 
[quote name='Scorch']no it won't. this was announced yesterday afternoon. the entire company is closing.

i don't know why your local store wouldn't know unless they did not call into the company wide conference call yesterday afternoon. they're in for a surprise in two weeks. i will confirm again: ALL stores will be closing and will begin liquidating in a couple of weeks.[/QUOTE]


well i guess no need to delete any info anymore, Scorch. ;) Figures it would be out without any official announcement.

......yea, and to back u up as well...3 closing stores I've been through...no mark-ups in prices. Never seen that happen. Yea they start off really high, but not over.
 
[quote name='KillerRamen']It's always sad to see a business close up shop, but it's not exactly surprising. There's one store left in St Louis (I think there's only one) and they did no advertising what-so-ever. It's kind of hard to know if its worth going in when they don't advertise. From the one time I was at the store, it looked pretty nice, but the prices were a bit high. I guess I'll go in and see if I can get a deal.[/QUOTE]

I think there is still the one on Delmar in U City and the one up north in Florissant. And then the one across the river in Granite City. I think I will miss their disc buffer the most. Now it seems Family Video will be my only choice for cleaning up roached games.

Decent stores, but never a lot of sales ala Game Stop and that non-stacking of their MVP on deals was always annoying to me. Still sad to see them go.
 
[quote name='Dante Devil']Walked into my GC for any information on a liquidation sale, but didn't get any. Would like to pick up some Blu-Ray movies from Hollywood Video.[/QUOTE]
As in, they don't know anything about it, or they just don't know what the liquidation would be like?
 
[quote name='62t']The problem is casual shopper will buy up everything at 20% so by the time it hits 70% there wont be any good stuff left.[/QUOTE]


this this this, exactly this!
 
Just called my local place. They confirmed they are closing but said that prices are not down yet. Told me to look to the news and papers for when prices drop as they are waiting to hear more about the liquidation.

She was very nice as all Hollywood employees are. Sad to see them go. They were one of the few retailers I like now days.
 
I actually heard about the closings from a lady at my work. And she's trying to get a couple of the guys hired with us at TRU. It's not surprising to me; it was speculated here when they were giving away MVP memberships with trade-ins.I don't really mind that the store's are closing. I feel bad for Scorch and the helpful people here, but I never really liked too many of the dudes at my local stores. I guess I better see what I can use my credit on.
 
[quote name='destro4eva']

Decent stores, but never a lot of sales ala Game Stop and that non-stacking of their MVP on deals was always annoying to me. Still sad to see them go.[/QUOTE]

Up until the last few weeks game crazy got much better deals than GS. The MVP can be stack if the employee is willing to scan it and the discount.
 
There aren't any GC's in my area and there haven't been for a couple years now so this is pretty useless to me. However I am not sad to see them go, they treated customers like crap here.
 
[quote name='SaraAB']There aren't any GC's in my area and there haven't been for a couple years now so this is pretty useless to me. However I am not sad to see them go, they treated customers like crap here.[/QUOTE]

They didnt call em Game "Crazy" for nothin'. ;)
Hollywood video wont be missed either- Adios!
 
I just realized that the only GameCrazy in my area had ALREADY been closed. (Since it's not appearing in the store locator)

Ah damn, so much for looking for any bargains.
 
My local game crazy went out of biz without any notice over a year ago, right after they did a "BONUS FOR TRADING IN GAMES!" deal. A lot of people werent too happy to get a bunch of store credit and then have to drive several hours to actually use it after it closed.
 
I am always late to the clearance party because they never give me a straight answer over the phone and always lie, like with the blockbuster/hollywood video and circuit city closing i would call "oh yeah we got tons of awesome deals" i get down shit is barely below retail then when i end up going again all the really good stuff that was insanely cheap was gone.. basically i would have to go everyday when they opened in hopes of snatching a deal

luckily i knew a worker at hollywood video and got a butt load of tv shows for amazingly cheap but its not worth my time.. gamecrazy is about a 20 minute drive from me
 
[quote name='muteprophet2000']whats going to happen with my warranty i bought for my 360?[/QUOTE]

yup you guessed it. at the end of its lifespan GC got about as shady as Hastings... which is pretty SHAQFUing shady! I told the story once on CAG before but one time I went into a GC and when i asked about a product i was given this rebuttal:

"pft.. why do you want a GBA Micro man?"

(I asked to see one in the case)

wow thats really good business practices, the EB/GS guys have always been better, another employee accused me of not being a gamer at all? i didnt know how to respond to that..
 
The store across the street from my building was dying for a few weeks now.
Nothing good was left though because most of the new merchandise was "sent to other stores". I did however pickup No More Heroes 2 for like 11 bucks used and in new shape. That was all.

Yesterday though they had a sign that said "All games must go Saturday". So I show up today and there's another sign that says "We didn't bother opening. Don't knock because you'll only hurt your hand. Closed forever".
 
[quote name='wreckemtexastech']yup you guessed it. at the end of its lifespan GC got about as shady as Hastings... which is pretty SHAQFUing shady! I told the story once on CAG before but one time I went into a GC and when i asked about a product i was given this rebuttal:

"pft.. why do you want a GBA Micro man?"

(I asked to see one in the case)

wow thats really good business practices, the EB/GS guys have always been better, another employee accused me of not being a gamer at all? i didnt know how to respond to that..[/QUOTE]

I see your "pfft" and I raise you a "wtf"
(1)My brother was nice enough to buy me a 360 wireless wheel and a game for christmas a few years back - The game he bought was PGR(the game thats included with the gd wheel) He didnt know what he was doing , but dont try to tell me a GC employee didnt know.

(2) Went into GC once to browse for used 360 games. The employee told me "I dont know why anyone would own a 360 at this point. PS3 has a bluray." Way to earn that paycheck kid:roll:
 
[quote name='Chronis']...Why DO you want a GBA Micro, man?[/QUOTE]

Because they are awesome, and play one of the largest libraries of video games ever released.
 
This isn't surprising. Most of the local Gamecrazy's here in CT closed up shop years ago. Blockbuster is going to be next, probably before the end of the year.
 
Real shame they are going under finally. Couple of years ago the only one near me went out of business.

Yeah they werent the biggest or the best but the sales people never treated me like an idiot or annoyed the fuck out of me and they usually had a cool promo item you could only get there. They had decent prices on stuff also, nothing fantastic but hell Ive paid more for a game on a occasion or two rather than go into gamestop or bestbuy.

Course that store went out of business because lamestop literally had 3 stores within a 5 minute walk of them. A lamestop in the strip center next door, a funcoland in the grocery center behind the store and a lamestop in the mall right across the street. Plus there was another lamestop literally within a 5 minute drive.
 
[quote name='Jorrel56']My local Game Crazy in Frederick, Maryland confirmed that they are going out of business and will have a sale in 2 weeks.[/QUOTE]

Hey Jorrel, please keep me updated! I'd be coming from College Park, but I definitely want to get some great deals.
 
Damn, sad to see them go. In Hazleton, PA there was a a GC, and it was decent. It saddens me that the only place to trade games in is now Gamestop in my area and their workers at my Gamestops are fucking retards.
 
[quote name='Chronis']...Why DO you want a GBA Micro, man?[/QUOTE]

Why DON'T you want a GBA Micro man?.................

Smallest gameboy that rocks!
 
[quote name='UncleBob']Anyone know how this announcement is going to effect Movie Gallery locations?[/QUOTE]
The store in Tell City, IN got their notice on Friday. At least the employees beside the manager found out Friday evening. They will be completely closed in 3 weeks. That is the only rental place in Tell City too so that sucks for my old hometown. I'm pretty sure Movie Gallery is the parent company of the Hollywood Video/GameCrazy. I could be wrong on that though.
 
[quote name='jp0213']The store in Tell City, IN got their notice on Friday. At least the employees beside the manager found out Friday evening. They will be completely closed in 3 weeks. That is the only rental place in Tell City too so that sucks for my old hometown. I'm pretty sure Movie Gallery is the parent company of the Hollywood Video/GameCrazy. I could be wrong on that though.[/QUOTE]

I believe you're correct on your assumption. Seeing as Movie Galleries are gone (I hated that shithole), it would make sense that their other operations would follow suit at some point.

It would definitely be interesting to see Blockbuster bite the dirt as well. I wonder if Redbox would raise their prices at that point...
 
[quote name='wreckemtexastech']and contrary to popular belief, their trades were NOT better than GS, in fact I traded in games there a handful of times unlike the 9 billion times I trade into GS a month.[/QUOTE]
sigh they would match and beat gamestop by 5%
 
Yeah, MG/HWV are the same company - there's a rumor going around town that our local MG is closing and with this news, I figure it's probably true.
 
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