GameBusters- New indie game store now open in St. Louis Area!

ctice44

ctice44

CAGiversary!
GameBusters! Videogames is now open!

Gamebusters is a new videogame store in the St. Louis area with die-hard gamers in mind.

Hello fellow CAGs! Sorry I didn’t post the grand opening of Gamebusters sooner, but I have been crazy busy trying to open the store.

Let me tell you a bit about myself (you can skip all this and go strait to the deals at the end of the post if you want). First of all, I am a former Game Crazy store manager (Granite City) and also a serious CAGer. I have been on CAG for over 6 years. CAG has helped me out with getting cheap games, movies, and guides over the years. I would like to extend a thank you to the CAG community by giving special deals periodically (the first deals are at the end of this post). Now, back to by background... after Hollywood Video went under and Game Crazy went with it, I decided to open up an indie game store. I took the massive loan out and looked into renting a space about a block down from the former Game Crazy location. My goal was to try to keep most of my old customers (and get a few new ones along the way). .....fast forwarding..... I was able to save a couple of my former employee’s jobs by hiring them on......more fast forwarding.... we are now open a month and business is doing pretty good.
A little bit about the store: We sell new/used games from any decade or country! We also take in Blu-Ray movies, Anime DVDs, some Strat Guides (sorry you won’t get much for flippin’ those penny guides..lol) and game related toys. Basically, if it’s game related & sellable- we’ll take it in. I do tons of research so we can have the highest trade prices and the lowest used prices.

Check Us out online:
www.gamebustersvideogames.com

On Twitter:
http://twitter.com/GamebustersGC

Or Facebook:
Store- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Game-Busters-Video-Games/134832659873581
Personal- http://www.facebook.com/people/Charles-Tice/100000897027063

We are located about 15-30 mins from anywhere in St. Louis
3801 Nameoki Rd Suite 12
Granite City. IL 62040
*note* there is no sign out front, yet but we are next to Fantastic Sams and Sweety Pies.. in the same strip as Big Lots
If you get lost or need better directions just call
phone-618-512-1205
Mon-Sat 12-9
Sun 12-6

SPECIAL CAG DEALS (You are going to have to mention CAG):
These are all First Visit Deals only.
25% Trade Boost (‘cause I know you all have the good stuff)
15% off any used game
5% off Used systems
5 Disked buffed for $10
3 for $25 on used Blu Ray movies
 
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Awesome thanks for the heads up. Might want to post this in the St. Louis thread its usually decently active. Whenever I make it across the river next I will try to stop by and check your place out. Bookmarked the site for now. Good luck : )
 
I'm just up the road I will have to check it out. Never checked out GameCrazy much due to tax unless I wanted it at that time or didn't want it on my credit card. Amazon not charging tax wins me every time. I will check your store out as soon as I get the cash to buy stuff. Never even noticed anything being done when I was driving by.

Good luck with it and I guess I will have to start paying tax on things again.
 
I will check your place out the next time I'm in GC. Good Luck with the store, I hope it all works out.

If you get a Killer Instinct machine in there, I promise to buy all of my games from you exclusively.
 
My parents live in Illinois and Granite City is about 40 minutes away. I will stop by sometime. Make sure you DO NOT price like Gamestop does (play n trade). You will be out of business in a heart beat. You are a brave person (or crazy?) for doing this. Good luck. Are you on the same side of the road that the GameCrazy used to be on?

Not to s--t on your parade but this just reminds me 100% of the Play N Trade thread a person on here had going, and they were out of business in 6 months it seemed like. I hope u do quite a bit better. Just watch the prices on stuff. Do NOT try to price things according to Ebay or Amazon or GameStop. If you want Ebay or Amazon prices, sell it on Ebay or Amazon. There is a reason prices are higher on Ebay and Amazon. Worldwide market. There is a reason Gamestop prices are higher. Name recognition and saturation. You are going to need to give good trade in credit AND price your games to sell. Seriously, good luck. Hopefully you find the magic formula.
 
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Huffers- sorry no Killer Instinct machine...but we do have a Nintendo Playchoice (w/ 7 games) and a 2 slot Neo Geo (that I swap games out every once in a while) if ya wanna come play.

Shuerm26- I don't plan to be out of business in 6 months and I hope I have the formula. I think some of the differences between me and the guy that started the Play N Trade (with no offense to him) is: 1. Play N Trade rapes you with all these Franchise fess and other misc fees before you even open up shop... I don't have to worry about franchise fees 2.Opening a game store blind is suicide. I opened this store because I know the public verrry well and was a staple in Granite when I ran Game Crazy for it's last 2.5 years. Heck, I get a lot of people that don't know much about games coming in thinking Game Crazy just moved down the street- then I have to explain the whole Game Crazy story. I am not using any database to set my prices because I don't want them to be too high. I check competitor's websites & drop my prices lower than theirs... if all else fails I go off gut instinct. I get comments all the time asking how my prices can be so low and surprise when they get so much in trade.
Hey, if you happen to be out this way I love to sit down and chat with you.
 
Hey man good luck. I worked for Movie Gallery in St. Louis and had to go through that whole closing stuff too. I am glad you are doing something positive out of it. I do graphic design now though. If you ever need any logo or t-shirt design stuff done let me know. I be happy to help.
 
no we are about a couple blocks up the road (closer to 270) in the Big Lots strip. We took over Radio Shack's old location.
 
[quote name='ctice44']Huffers- sorry no Killer Instinct machine...but we do have a Nintendo Playchoice (w/ 7 games) and a 2 slot Neo Geo (that I swap games out every once in a while) if ya wanna come play.

Shuerm26- I don't plan to be out of business in 6 months and I hope I have the formula. I think some of the differences between me and the guy that started the Play N Trade (with no offense to him) is: 1. Play N Trade rapes you with all these Franchise fess and other misc fees before you even open up shop... I don't have to worry about franchise fees 2.Opening a game store blind is suicide. I opened this store because I know the public verrry well and was a staple in Granite when I ran Game Crazy for it's last 2.5 years. Heck, I get a lot of people that don't know much about games coming in thinking Game Crazy just moved down the street- then I have to explain the whole Game Crazy story. I am not using any database to set my prices because I don't want them to be too high. I check competitor's websites & drop my prices lower than theirs... if all else fails I go off gut instinct. I get comments all the time asking how my prices can be so low and surprise when they get so much in trade.
Hey, if you happen to be out this way I love to sit down and chat with you.[/QUOTE]

Definitely I will stop by sometime. I live in Kansas City but head back to my parents quite often. I will definitely stop in. Hope everything works out well.
 
I'm in St. Louis County and don't drive, but I'll certainly see about getting a ride down there sometime soon.
 
Good to know that you survived the closings. I'll be by sometime soon to check you out!!

PlayChoice...sweet memories...

Damn! I completely forgot about the Play N Trade guy!!
 
schuerm26- thanks... and hope to see you when you come in town
Erad30- hopefully you can make it out
thabizzle- yeah, barely survived. I had to shut my Game Crazy down 3 weeks early because my customers bought stuff so quick. That just meant I got booted out 3 weeks sooner than everyone else. But, hey, it also gave me 3 extra weeks to work on my store.
Had to get a Playchoice. Since Granite City charges yearly for arcades I had to go with multicart arcades. A mame arcade would have felt funny (that would be like me selling modded systems). Just didn't want to give off the wrong impression. So, my first 2 choices were the Neo Geo and Nintendo Playchoice!
 
Moved recently and I'm a lot closer now. How's the store doing? Are the CAG deals still good?

Looked at the pictures on the store's website and the place looks good. Hope the store is doing well.
 
Yeah, Bob. Thanks for the response- haven't seen a comment in a long time. Just come in and mention the CAG post- we'll hook you up.

About the store: we have boomed over the past year! We bumped up from a 3 man staff to a 6 man & one woman staff. I am working so much now! I'm personally not in the store as much. We have tried some new things that other stores won't do and our customers are getting used to it and loving it. For example: We don't "gut" new games, I make display boxes for all the new games we have in stock (what a concept, lol) and that the game you will get is factory sealed. All of our used games are in excellent to pristine condition with artwork. Since we are indy I can't take a chance on losing money by taking in scratched up games. If we don't have the original artwork I will print a high res graphic- you won't ever get a game that has generic art with the title hand written or typed on the front. We separate our "collectible" games in a special glass case so they can stay in the condition they were traded in, without the abuse of shelf ware, price stickers, disks taken in & out of a sleeve, etc...
You only need to put a dollar down to preorder a game. My employees aren't pushy or sneaky like other stores. They don't have goals to get them more hours. Other stores are so focused on: Dollar per transaction, add-ons, pre-orders, service contracts, discount cards, etc... they tend to lose focus on the main thing: the customer! Here we have one goal: monthly revenue (how much do we have to make to stay in business?). One of the last things we do that is a little different: the discount cards. I don't believe in them, so we won't ever have them. Is it good from a business side? Yes. From a customer side? You would think yes.... but no. If you have a discount card, then you have to set a price on a used game a little higher so that the discount brings it down to the price you want to sell it at (ex: $19.99 new or $17.99 used....why???). Since we don't have a discount card we sell that game for $14.99 all the time. I've had another indy game store owner come in and ask one of my employess, "Does Charles know what things are worth? Because his prices are too low. I sell this game for $27.99 & he's got it marked $19.99." The trade works the same way. We have so many customers that say, "I'm getting how much in trade? Awesome!" We do have a punch card for people that come in often so they can get an additional discount or a bonus trade.

Well hope to see you up there!
Charles
 
Wow. I forgot about this thread. Remembered the store though. I drive from KC to Illinois and take 270 N to 70 and get off at Hwy 4 exit to Lebanon. Every time I see the Granite City exit sign I mean to stop in but it has always been bad timing. Im heading back on Monday to KC. Im going to assume you guys are closed on the 4th?
 
Thanks for the long reply. Glad you guys are doing good. After seeing tons of Blockbusters close, I thought an indie store would never survive.

Checked how far I am on Mapquest and I'm a lot farther than I thought. Still not too bad. About a 2 hour drive. I'll try to stop in on my way to/from a 49ers vs. Rams game or fishing trip. Still haven't found a place to go for midnight releases down here yet. Might have to pick Walmart :/

You probably don't need to, sounds like you are already doing really well, but put an employee on the stores Twitter. Free advertisement is always nice plus people can easily find out when events are, ask questions, drop some codes, have some contests, and be up to date with the store. Noticed it gets updated a little, but have somebody update it more often.
 
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