All Game Crazys Are Closing

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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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Movie Gallery bought Hollywood and took out a crap ton of debt in doing so. I'm surprised they would close up shop all together but they did lose like 200 million last quarter alone so they weren't digging in the right direction.
 
So glad I turned down that management spot with them a year and a half ago...

I feel awful for the employees though.
 
I wish Gamecrazys would have seperated from the Hollywood videos. I think if all of them were solely GCs and not part of the video stores, they might have found a place in the market. Opposed to Gamestop / EB Games, Game Crazy was a completely different shopping experience. Not necessarily good or bad but it was distinct enough to want to go one opposed to or at least after the other. They ALWAYS had better trade in values compared to GS though, and that's without a special deal or coupon. My local GC closed THE DAY that Modern Warfare 2 released! F'N pissed me off so bad!
 
Game crazy has been closed in CA for a few months now its just HWV that carried their left over games for sale. Games are only 50% off right now but a lot of good games are gone only the old and almost unwanted are left. will probably bite when 60%.
 
[quote name='Sir_Fragalot']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]

I was surprised when I did a search for the closing stores on their store locator about a month ago(when the one Hollywood Video up in Scranton got their notice they were closing too)and saw that the GC/HWV there was closing.

That was probably my ONLY reason for going to Hazleton anymore, since the Goodwill and Salvation Army there suck and we have a couple Ollie's stores up this way now.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']I was surprised when I did a search for the closing stores on their store locator about a month ago(when the one Hollywood Video up in Scranton got their notice they were closing too)and saw that the GC/HWV there was closing.

That was probably my ONLY reason for going to Hazleton anymore, since the Goodwill and Salvation Army there suck and we have a couple Ollie's stores up this way now.[/QUOTE]
Yeah Hazleton sucks for games anymore. The only reason I still go to Hazleton is because Hazleton is still the closest drive, and the traffic isn't that terrible. Bloomsburg is just as bad as Hazleton, but there is a small shop in Bloomsburg that has a few games (and a fuckton of $3 dvd's).
 
Bugger, I had no idea this was happening. They announced months ago about 2 Hollywoods in my area closing, but the one attached to the GC I go to wasn't so I wasn't worried, until I saw they were both closed last week. >.< There is still one GC somewhere around here, I hope I can find something to get with my close $100 in credit that I had planned on saving for the next gen consoles. :(
 
Greats, whos left to compete against Gamestop in the US? Granted things and becoming more and more online oriented, my friend just traded his games into Amazon since they paid for shipping.
 
[quote name='Monsta Mack']Greats, whos left to compete against Gamestop in the US? Granted things and becoming more and more online oriented, my friend just traded his games into Amazon since they paid for shipping.[/QUOTE]

Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Sears, K-Mart, Amazon and others all sell games.
 
[quote name='typical guy']Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Sears, K-Mart, Amazon and others all sell games.[/QUOTE]

Surely you must've just misunderstood what he meant. SURELY.
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']Surely you must've just misunderstood what he meant. SURELY.[/QUOTE]

I guess so? Maybe he was sarcastic and I didn't get it or maybe he means trade-ins? I have no idea. If he meant trade ins, then he not as cheap as me since Ebay is way more efficient at getting you more money and you can use that money on more than just games.
 
yea was talking with the guy at my local movie gallery yesterday and he said all the stores are closing. The sale starts in a week or so and will last for 8-10 weeks. If a store is clearing out slowly then inventory will be moved to a faster store. Its sad only video store left will be blockbuster for Va.
 
[quote name='Monsta Mack']Greats, whos left to compete against Gamestop in the US? Granted things and becoming more and more online oriented, my friend just traded his games into Amazon since they paid for shipping.[/QUOTE]

Play N Trade, Gamer Doc, etc.

There's probably a slew of other smaller franchise-type businesses.
 
Yeah this kinda sucks. They had some great deals, although I was never too fond of the bad condition nearly all of their used games were in. I found out wednesday when I went to trade in a game and they said they weren't taking trades anymore since they were closing... although I figured it was just that particular store. Unfortunately I don't really have anything else close to me; play n trade closed, the mom and pop store closed, the BBVs closed, and record and tape traders closed!
 
Man, it sucks that MG as a whole is shutting down. My HWV was full of great workers, except their prices always stopped them from having enough business.
 
man this means that basically gamestop is going to rule the used video gamer market and I like Gamestop somewhat but compared to Gamecrazy it seem...............Gamecrazy was a better fit for me
 
I have a Game Crazy GC for around $20. Anybody want it? I imagine they'll have some nice closing sales. I don't know why I didn't use the whole card when my game crazy closed. It got hard buying $100 worth of games that had already been slightly picked over.
 
[quote name='ray2dee']man this means that basically gamestop is going to rule the used video gamer market and I like Gamestop somewhat but compared to Gamecrazy it seem...............Gamecrazy was a better fit for me[/QUOTE]

unfortunately #-o
 
Grrr, I just got back from my GameCrazy that was closing. They had had Street Fighter 4 for $8. When I took it to the register, they couldn't find the game.
 
Game Crazy in Pottsville, Pa has nine more days left. The games are 60% off. All strategy guides are $2. I got CE RE5 new for $24. CE Soul Caliber 4 new for $16. There's still a few decent games left both new and used. Waitng til the middle of the week to see if they drop another 10%.
 
[quote name='Droogs']Grrr, I just got back from my GameCrazy that was closing. They had had Street Fighter 4 for $8. When I took it to the register, they couldn't find the game.[/QUOTE]

story of the century for them.
 
[quote name='typical guy']I guess so? Maybe he was sarcastic and I didn't get it or maybe he means trade-ins? I have no idea. If he meant trade ins, then he not as cheap as me since Ebay is way more efficient at getting you more money and you can use that money on more than just games.[/QUOTE]

But with Ebay you have all sorts of fees and with Craigslist you have all sorts of flakes to deal with, so by comparison to those two experiences Gamestop/Gamecrazy seems like the much better option for many of us.

Plus, we always make sure we wait till a good promo comes around before trading in our stuff, so we still make back a good portion of what we paid.

In many cases, what we paid is often less than what we're getting back to spend on more games.:D

But yes, cash would be preferable, though if you don't wanna deal with the hassle you just trade stuff into GS/GC/etc.
 
[quote name='spmahn']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.[/QUOTE]

I don't know. The closure of all the HWV locations (more so than Gamecrazy itself) will be a shot in the arm for Blockbuster. Around here, anyway, they were always paired up in the same area. My small 10,000 person town, for example, had 1 Blockbuster and 1 HWV. The HWV closed last month and that means a big increase in customers for the BBV. It's the same just about everywhere else around here. Despite what people say on the Internets, I saw both stores getting a ton of rental business whenever I'd be in there (usually for gaming deals). I'll miss the HWV $4.99 game sale - the liquidation won't provide anything 1/10th as good as that. But I'd miss the BBV B1G1 sale even more if they went belly-up. We'll see how they do with the decreased B&M competition.
 
[quote name='Monsta Mack']Greats, whos left to compete against Gamestop in the US? Granted things and becoming more and more online oriented, my friend just traded his games into Amazon since they paid for shipping.[/QUOTE]

Gamecrazy sucked huge balls. I'm so glad it's closing (minus people losing their jobs, I hope they all recover very quickly). It was nowhere near a competition to Gamestop. What a terrible store.
 
So besides all the boohooing about them closing (I worked there for 3 years)

....

Are there any deals to be had at this point?
 
I have to agree unfortunately. Gamecrazy always had class-act employees but that store became absolute balls after they stopped classic systems. They moved into direct competition with Gamestop and got slaughtered with their weak sales like B1G1 $18.99 new against B2G1 any used. I'm glad Hollywood Video got shit on in general but it's sad that Gamecrazy had such good employees for such a crap company.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']But with Ebay you have all sorts of fees and with Craigslist you have all sorts of flakes to deal with, so by comparison to those two experiences Gamestop/Gamecrazy seems like the much better option for many of us.

Plus, we always make sure we wait till a good promo comes around before trading in our stuff, so we still make back a good portion of what we paid.

In many cases, what we paid is often less than what we're getting back to spend on more games.:D

But yes, cash would be preferable, though if you don't wanna deal with the hassle you just trade stuff into GS/GC/etc.[/QUOTE]

I've never been much of a fan of "store credit". Do they give you a gift card like Best Buy with their store credit or do they just put some information into their computer system?
 
i have two game crazys still open by me along with three Hollywood Videos...well one of the HWV close this Saturday, so pretty much two...I'll have to check it out once the sale starts...
 
Just use ebay/craigslist and you'll a) get more money for what you sell and b) buy games for cheaper than any b&m store sells them for.

As usual....the problem w/ people is their lack of effort.
 
Does a store disappear from the locator once they enter liquidation? Someone on another forum was talking about going to the only Gamecrazy left in his area that's still open and I checked the area and it doesn't show any on the list.
 
The entire Movie Gallery Company is closing. Not just Game Crazy. So deals on game should start in two weeks. A press statement should be made in the next couple days about it.
 
There used to be three Game Crazys in my city. Now there's only one. Maybe I can finally go inside one to buy a game without being harassed 20 times to buy used, buy MVP and buy game guard.
 
(I have a Game Crazy GC for around $20. Anybody want it?)

Doom Ill take it hehehe Ill have to check out the last gamecrazy in bakersfield luckily it takes me 15 mins to walk to there man I remeber I got lucky walking to that store on the way there next to the get bus seat I found meh a ipod touch 32GB first generation model good time good times
 
[quote name='typical guy']I've never been much of a fan of "store credit". Do they give you a gift card like Best Buy with their store credit or do they just put some information into their computer system?[/QUOTE]

Gamestop gives you a gift card with the credit on it, which you can use at ANY of their stores.
 
[quote name='typical guy']I've never been much of a fan of "store credit". Do they give you a gift card like Best Buy with their store credit or do they just put some information into their computer system?[/QUOTE]

They offer cash at 80% the store credit you would get.
 
So many factors contribute to the demise of game crazy.

First is the internet. Whether Ebay, Amazon, Craiglist. Taxfree and usually cheaper

Second would be pricing. Games are getting expensive. Everybody is looking for a deal/cheaper way to get games whether sales/taxfree/auction/used.

Third is Renting. Gamefly or local rental stores. I have 2 stores by me 3.00 for 5 days or 4.00 for 7 days. You can beat most games in that time.

Four would be Piracy. Lets face it its there and if the prices of games keep going up so will the piracy. I put it last because it has always been here and games have still sold. But you and i both know that it factors into game sales.
 
[quote name='Blackout']Gamecrazy sucked huge balls. I'm so glad it's closing (minus people losing their jobs, I hope they all recover very quickly). It was nowhere near a competition to Gamestop. What a terrible store.[/QUOTE]

The Gamecrazys musta sucked balls around you then.

The GCs near me literally ALWAYS gave higher base trade in values than the Gamestop. Their employees were way less pushy with their sales pitch of pre-ordering games, or buying the strategy guide, etc.

The games seemed like they were always in better condition, and none of them gutted the games.
 
[quote name='jrberger']The entire Movie Gallery Company is closing. Not just Game Crazy. So deals on game should start in two weeks. A press statement should be made in the next couple days about it.[/QUOTE]

Yep. News just hit today on the wsj. Closing 2k + stores.
 
[quote name='chris100185']Does a store disappear from the locator once they enter liquidation? Someone on another forum was talking about going to the only Gamecrazy left in his area that's still open and I checked the area and it doesn't show any on the list.[/QUOTE]

Yep, mine closed March 30th and after that it disappeared from the Store Locator.
 
My Gamecrazy must be in some kind of crazy twilight zone time warp because the employees there are straight up burnt out idiots. Hell, the last time I went in there the lady even forgot to put my games in the cases because she was busy hitting on the clerk from HWV (He was ignoring his customers too).....and I thought McDonalds took the cake for dumbass employees. Still, Gamecrazy had its moments (10 dollar Fight Night woooooo) and it will be missed.
 
Nooooooo. I have $204 in store credit I have to use. Use trade in value was more than gamestop from all the games I ever traded. GC u will be missed :whistle2:(
 
I can't believe that anyone is surprised by this. The b&m video rental store model is faiding fast. And at the same time Movie Gallery decided to expand by buying HWV/GC thus never having a chance to recover their investment. In regard to GameCrazy, never having stand alone stores really hurt it, since people go to b&m video rental stores less often. And IMO, getting out of "classic" games hurt their identity. Selling old cart-based systems and games made them stand out a bit from GameStop. Without "classic" games, I visited my local GameCrazy's less (when the Detroit area still had them).
 
[quote name='io']I don't know. The closure of all the HWV locations (more so than Gamecrazy itself) will be a shot in the arm for Blockbuster. Around here, anyway, they were always paired up in the same area. My small 10,000 person town, for example, had 1 Blockbuster and 1 HWV. The HWV closed last month and that means a big increase in customers for the BBV. It's the same just about everywhere else around here. Despite what people say on the Internets, I saw both stores getting a ton of rental business whenever I'd be in there (usually for gaming deals). I'll miss the HWV $4.99 game sale - the liquidation won't provide anything 1/10th as good as that. But I'd miss the BBV B1G1 sale even more if they went belly-up. We'll see how they do with the decreased B&M competition.[/QUOTE]

We are in a similar situation. 10K small town, only had the GC for games. It was always busy. Wal-Mart went to a small store and now only sells top 10 games and shovelware. Aside from Fred Meyer it is now a 10+ mile drive to another place to buy games. There is now no seller of used games in town either.

I'm seriously considering finding a VG selling franchise and see what I can do for myself.
 
[quote name='EvilIA']Aside from Fred Meyer it is now a 10+ mile drive to another place to buy games.[/QUOTE]
lol, people in small towns are so funny. 10 miles? I drive 30 miles easily to BBVs & HWVs during B1G1s and the $5 sales. You can probably get to another town in 20 minutes, but some of us have to drive alot further than that to work or school every day.
 
[quote name='Gertle627']lol, people in small towns are so funny. 10 miles? I drive 30 miles easily to BBVs & HWVs during B1G1s and the $5 sales. You can probably get to another town in 20 minutes, but some of us have to drive alot further than that to work or school every day.[/QUOTE]

I actually find that people who live in smaller, more rural communities have no problems driving long distances. Because they pretty much have to. My brother lives in upstate New York and the closest large scale mall is an hour away from him (in Albany). He or his wife will drive that distance whenever they need to without any complaints.

But he has been using Amazon a lot more the last few years for even big ticket items. ;)
 
[quote name='moothemagiccow']They offer cash at 80% the store credit you would get.[/QUOTE]

Holy fucking shit....

I didn't know that..........NOEZ!!!!!11!1!1!!1!1!
 
[quote name='Gertle627']lol, people in small towns are so funny. 10 miles? I drive 30 miles easily to BBVs & HWVs during B1G1s and the $5 sales. You can probably get to another town in 20 minutes, but some of us have to drive allot further than that to work or school every day.[/QUOTE]


Everything is a 20 minute drive from me, and something I do weekly. BTW, Small town folks are used to driving distances for purchases on almost anything, it's the nature of living away from it all.

When it comes down to it there is more of a factor then miles. Time, traffic and tolls also come into the picture.. Most of which I use to calculate if I would be going to participate in a deal. With family and job commitments I can't spend all day hunting for deals, so I chose to shop local or miss a deal.

Also if I made 10 miles sound like it was some catastrophic distance, I didn't mean too. Just a reference for a "quick" trip.
 
Looks like Movie Gallery is closing up shop for good:

In February, bankrupt video renter and retailer Movie Gallery announced it was closing all but 250 Game Crazy locations. The game-rental chain was a subsidiary of Hollywood Video, and its outlets were paired with the movie-rental franchise, which Movie Gallery bought in 2005. Some 545 Hollywood Video locations were also to survive.

Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that Movie Gallery, facing its second bankruptcy filing in roughly two years, has decided to shut down entirely. The move will see all 2,415 US Movie Gallery, Hollywood Video, and Game Crazy locations close in the coming months, with about 19,000 people losing their jobs. The fate of the company's 184 Canadian locations is unclear, reports the Journal, citing "people familiar with the matter."

Movie Gallery's closure was blamed on both its $600 million in debt, much of which was incurred by the Hollywood Video purchase, and increased competition from automated Redbox video-rental kiosks. Another major contributor was the rise of Netflix, which rents DVDs via mail as well as via online streaming to PC, Macs, Xbox 360s, PlayStation 3s, and Wiis.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6260944.html?tag=latestheadlines%3Btitle%3B4
 
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