Reduced Price Game Guides: Thread Eight(MODS: Please lock, Thread Nine is up)

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IAmTheCheapestGamer

IAmTheCheapestGamer

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First off, let me welcome you all to the new guide thread. Second, I'd like to ask you all to please keep conversations not pertaining to guide drops or which ones you've grabbed to a minimum to avoid cluttering the thread. It's not that I don't enjoy the chit chat, but that it may stop others from locating information on the newest drops.

That being said, let me thank Cheapy for creating this site, without which I would've spent probably 10 times what I HAVE spent on games and guides. Moreover, let me thank each and every one of my fellow CAGs for continuing to contribute to making this site a great place to find out about sales and clearances of the items we as gamers use most. Without a great community, NONE of this would be possible.

Furthermore, I would like to thank our Wiki editors HeatDolphin and Rocko for updating the Wiki. Great job.

Now, with that out of the way(and before I get to rambling), let's get on to making this new thread.

Useful Information(and links):

Game Guide Trading Clearinghouse(old one, locked now):
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102021

Game Guide Trade Thread(current one):
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175548

PLEASE keep ALL trade requests in there or PM's. Thank you.

Reduced Price Guide Discussion Thread(please keep all conversation NOT related to guide drops HERE. Thanks.): http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169252

Guide Lists:

Master Drop List(by store, alphabetically):
http://wiki.cheapassgamer.com/index.php/Category:Strategy_Guides_%28master_lists%29

Recent Guide Drops(by date):
http://wiki.cheapassgamer.com/index.php/Category:Strategy_Guides_%28recent_drops%29

What is the purpose of this thread?

The purpose of this thread is to let our fellow CAGs know when a guide has dropped to a low price(it's NOT ALWAYS A PENNY), so they can go out and grab guides for themselves and for trading with other CAGs.

Anytime you have guide drops to report, post them here. Please specify at which store you found them and which guides you found and list them in alphabetical order. Thank you.

What are penny guides?

Penny guides are guides which have been on the market for a while and the publisher(or store chain) decide that the remaining stock of these guides have little to no chance of selling, so they issue an order to pull them from the shelves and destroy them. At that time, they are also marked as .01 in their inventory system, except in the case of BBV, which marks them .01 only AFTER pulling them.

Most stores have an agreement with the publisher that states that if they destroy the remaining stock of those items, they will receive a credit for their value from the publisher. This is why many stores are usually annoyed when we CAGs come in and buy the guides AT the penny price, since otherwise they would've received a full credit for those items.

According to an employee at a local BB, they also have a recycling program for the pennied stock, so as to not clutter landfill space with the guides. As to how true it is, I cannot confirm, but I would hope that the paper is at least recycled instead of just dumpstered.

Prior Reduced price game guide threads:
Guide Three:
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50515&highlight=guide
Guide Four:
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1496376
Guide Five:
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85976
Guide Six:
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116918
Guide Seven:
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131717
Guide Seven and a half:
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142400

Finally, below is a list of website links, each of which goes to their respective guide page. Whenever possible, I will update the links with better ones(if available).

Amazon
B&N
BestBuy
Borders
BookPool
CircuitCity
Gamestop
Overstock
StrategyGuide.net
ToysRUs

Thanks to floormat, who did threads 3,4,5 and 6 and provided me with the links to them.

Thanks to Gwen for allowing me the honor of giving something back to CAG by doing this new guide thread. I hope you all enjoy it and it isn't TOO hard to read.
 
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All guides were instock when I checked in my south Miami area, but I only opted for guides I'd use: LOTRO/RE:UC/Bioshock.
 
[quote name='Purkeynator']any reason why they wouldn't ship them? I have a feeling we will get cock-blocked at the store.[/quote]

Unless there's some sort of free shipping code I wouldn't get them shipped. It's $4.99 per guide shipped apparently.
 
Odd, past penny guides are up there on that link at regular price... Tabula Rasa, Heavenly Sword, Metroid 3 & a couple of others. I got them for a penny before though.
 
Ordered a majority. Didn't have DQM or Bioshock, but had extras of a couple, like Advanced Wars and Revanant Wings. Looking to trade for DQM and Bioshock.

I'll be stopping by today and will keep an eye out for anything new as well.

EDIT: N/M, they actually had them in store. Still have extras of AW and RW, but not looking to trade for anything (cash offers welcome :) ).
 
I've done instore pickup before with penny guides with no problem. Anyways I ordered 6 that I will personally use and i'll swing by after work to check for extras.
 
I've got twelve of them set for in-store pickup. I have to wait until I get off work this afternoon, so my fingers are crossed.

Bah. Just got my confirmation order and none of them are available for pickup, despite the fact that the site said they were. What a fun game!
 
I ordered singles of the seven guides I wanted, and have them set as in-store pickup across two stores, and both of them should have them in the quantities that should let the order go through.

Don't forget that if the item is listed as unavailable, two things are the case:
1) There's 0-2 of them on the shelf, as it's only listed as pickable for in-store pickup if there's 3 or more in-stock. There still may be some on the shelf, though not 3 or more of them.
2) Someone at the store marked them as "No Pick", which means they couldn't find them on the shelf when trying to do an in-store pickup order. When that happens, there could be none or there could be dozens of them, and someone couldn't find them in-store, so they assume there's none to be had. Once that happens, no one can mark them as pickable for in-store pickup.

Also, if the orders are marked as "No Pick", you can call BB.com and have them set up for free shipping, so that's always a backup option.

Furthermore, the last few times this has happened and the item has been available on BB.com for penny orders before the store opened, I was able to do orders for in-store pickup without any issue, so they should go through and get fulfilled. Normally the ops reps who handle doing in-store pickup are in before the media guys, so they normally grab the orders and fulfill them before the media guys can pull the guides. The ops reps don't get copies of the order more than what they need to pull, so they can pull them and we don't have to worry about them not marking the item available when they're $0.01.

08:20 CT update: All of my guides are listed as being available for pickup, so I'm good to go, in theory.
 
Got confirmation that my order is ready for pickup. I just ordered 8 guides 1 each of ones I wanted.

On the phone with bestbuy now having em ship me guides i ordered from 2nd store for free so i'll have extra's to hook up people who didnt get any :)

*edit* they changed it and are shipping me more guides.

3X FF Revenant
3X bioshock
3X Resident Evil
3X DQM

Good ole Bestbuy \\:D/
 
I put in for a few. They're confirmed at 2 stores for me to pick up, although I got a call from one saying that they pulled them from inventory for destruction early and they have the covers torn off if I still want them. He didn't say which store of the two he was calling from, but I don't care. I ordered duplicates of the ones I wanted, so I'll have an extra for interested CAGs
 
Updated the second post with new drop info. Normally, I would've been up at 2-3 am when the BB site updated to show new drops, but I'm glad someone was on top of this.

Thanks for the info Phorrest.
 
fuck fuck fuck. All are showing as OOS online and not available for instore pickup. I knew it was bad when I saw the drop on SD before CAG.

All I wanted was Advance Wars DOR and FF12 RW! My BB moved their guides to a different dept since the last drop, as they were no where to be found in-store - not in the PC or console game areas nor books. I guess my BB did away with guides altogether so this is the end of an era for me.
 
[quote name='Caliburn']fuck fuck fuck. All are showing as OOS online and not available for instore pickup. I knew it was bad when I saw the drop on SD before CAG.

All I wanted was Advance Wars DOR and FF12 RW! My BB moved their guides to a different dept since the last drop, as they were no where to be found in-store - not in the PC or console game areas nor books. I guess my BB did away with guides altogether so this is the end of an era for me.[/quote]

It may be like the one I hit where they took all the guides and tossed them on a rolling rack thats back in a corner where nobody sees it. I asked and when the guy showed me it was filled with stuff that was long gone at other stores. The only thing that irks me is the way they are just thrown on the cart most are bent and what not and most of them are still full retail.
 
[quote name='Derrick1979']It may be like the one I hit where they took all the guides and tossed them on a rolling rack thats back in a corner where nobody sees it. I asked and when the guy showed me it was filled with stuff that was long gone at other stores. The only thing that irks me is the way they are just thrown on the cart most are bent and what not and most of them are still full retail.[/quote]

I haven't seen anything like that at my store before, but that just means I'll have to look harder. With dumb luck, the guides have been rolled near the HD Theater or classical music sections that hardly garner attention at my store, since the guides weren't within a 30 foot radius of any gaming section. Thanks for the ProTip.
 
I stopped by my local BB shortly before opening today, and there was this overweight, scummy-looking guy standing near the door (kind of reminded me of me). I just knew he was there for my guides, but strangely enough, I later found most of what I was looking for anyway. Hurray! :D
 
Both my BB are cleaned out, I stopped by for lunch and found nothing! Someone post the SD thread so I can go thumb it down. I really wanted a Bioshock guide badly.
 
[quote name='QiG']I put in for a few. They're confirmed at 2 stores for me to pick up, although I got a call from one saying that they pulled them from inventory for destruction early and they have the covers torn off if I still want them. He didn't say which store of the two he was calling from, but I don't care. I ordered duplicates of the ones I wanted, so I'll have an extra for interested CAGs[/quote]I haven't received any calls yet from them, though if I show up there tonight and find guides with torn covers, I'm going to have more than a lengthy chat with them.

[quote name='h3llbring3r']Both my BB are cleaned out, I stopped by for lunch and found nothing! Someone post the SD thread so I can go thumb it down. I really wanted a Bioshock guide badly.[/quote]That's the SD thread:

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=790015
 
[quote name='MaxBiaggi3']I stopped by my local BB shortly before opening today, and there was this overweight, scummy-looking guy standing near the door (kind of reminded me of me). I just knew he was there for my guides, but strangely enough, I later found most of what I was looking for anyway. Hurray! :D[/quote]

The solution for next time: deliver a pre-emptive strike to the right knee with a lead pipe, just to be certain that you will arrive at the guide section before he does.:)
 
Fresh back from the local stores. Four of them (RE:UC and DQM:J) indeed are missing the covers, but when I checked the rack they had some Bioshock still there, so I grabbed one. The second store I went to, I checked the rack first and found covered copies of Bioshock, Advance Wars and RE:UC I was looking for and just bought those.. deciding if I still want to bother with the pick-up.

If anyone missed the boat, CML... shipping costs will basically kill the deal aspect when bundled with a convenience fee, but if you're after them, they're still pretty cheap.
 
Advance Wars? . . . that wasn't on the list earlier. fuck . . . I checked a bunch (about 12) random guides but I didn't do that one. Oh well, I'll check later. Nothing to add to the list.

Interestingly Mario Galaxy is $20 but the hardcover collector's ed. is $15.

I saw the post for drops at 9:45 and I could get away from work . . . I sprinted straight to BB and found a number of the guides . . . alas, no Bioshock.

Funny, the clerk was new and was like "cool" when I came through but when I came back with the stack to check he was ready to call his manager but I reassured him that these were unlikely to be .01.
 
[quote name='schultzed']Advance Wars? . . . that wasn't on the list earlier. fuck . . . I checked a bunch (about 12) random guides but I didn't do that one. Oh well, I'll check later. Nothing to add to the list.

Interestingly Mario Galaxy is $20 but the hardcover collector's ed. is $15.

I saw the post for drops at 9:45 and I could get away from work . . . I sprinted straight to BB and found a number of the guides . . . alas, no Bioshock.

Funny, the clerk was new and was like "cool" when I came through but when I came back with the stack to check he was ready to call his manager but I reassured him that these were unlikely to be .01.[/quote]Oddly enough, the Zelda Phantom Hourglass guide was $29.99 on the website, though at BB, I picked it up for $14.99 - $10 RZ certs on Friday.

Also odd about the SMG CE guide being cheaper than the non-CE SMG guide.
 
I got to my BB about 10 minutes after they opened. I picked up 2 copies of Bioshock and the only 2 copies of DQM. They still had several copies of Bioshock. Unfortunately, none of the other pennied out guides was to be found. I also tried the FFXII, but that's still full price. I'm still waiting for that one to go down.
 
My local Best Buy had restocked penny guides since last week! Guides long since off the shelves must have been located in the back and tossed out on the stands... I picked up 27 guides, never more than 1 of each title. There were still an absolute ton of them left.

Just as a CYA side note, this is a BB that I frequent because it's in a bad part of town and few people shop there. I keep going there expecting it to be shuttered. YMMV obviously.
 
[quote name='speedracer']My local Best Buy had restocked penny guides since last week! Guides long since off the shelves must have been located in the back and tossed out on the stands... I picked up 27 guides, never more than 1 of each title. There were still an absolute ton of them left.

[/QUOTE]

You suck . . . :)
 
No guides left on the shelf in Downer's Grove. I asked an employee (Mike) if they had any Bioshock guides in back. He told me he'd check in just a moment, and he re-appeared 2 minutes later with one copy. He told me I was "lucky", and they were supposed to send them back today. He told another employee who walked up to him to chat to "take a hike" as he was explaining the penny guide process to me, and the other guy was like "Yeah, I know this one is a penny".

Mike walked up front with me, and told the cashier that it should ring up as a penny. Another employee at the Customer Service desk rang up my guide, and the first cashier yelled over to him "That's supposed to ring up for a penny". He told her that it did, and I was on my way out the door.

Some excellent customer service for once.:D
 
Wow, I found multiples of the ones I wanted (Bioshock, Advance Wars, Final Fantasy). and breezed through checkout. The girl acted like it was a normal occurance. I guess the penny guide river is flowing again?
 
I got everything on the list except the spanish version of Halo 3 (and an extra one or two for people). I had an issue with the Lord of the Rings guide though. It rang up 19.99, but the manager came over and fixed it down to a penny.
 
So my normal routine of "I think all of these are a penny, but if some arent I'll run em back" at the checkout counter was warmly accepted today. The cashier blatenly said "Yep, I'm pretty sure they are. blah blah....Have a nice day!"

I was surprised to say the least, they new about the guides and had no trouble selling them. This is good.:lol:
 
Thanks for the heads up, I ordered singles of 5 guides this morning for in store pickup and got a conf. email.

I'll probably go later today and see if they have any others.
 
[quote name='carlcarlson']Does the fact that my confirmation email came back negative mean my store trashed all the guides?[/quote]

That, or the monkeyboy in the media dept just scored some penny guides.
 
[quote name='carlcarlson']Does the fact that my confirmation email came back negative mean my store trashed all the guides?[/quote]If they said that the store doesn't have them, you should be able to call BB's 800 # for BB.com ordering support and get them to ship the guides to you for free. That's SOP for any item that isn't in-stock at a store when they went to go pick it for in-store pickup.

[quote name='Caliburn']That, or the monkeyboy in the media dept just scored some penny guides.[/quote]Probably the real issue.
 
I was hassled by the "store manager". He was trying to secretly follow me around while I was picking up the guides. I brought them up front and the cashier rang one up and said into his microphone headset, "They are ringing up a penny". The 'store manager' yelled from about 30 feet from the register "What best buy do you work at?" I said "I don't work for best buy." He said "How do you know these are a penny" I said "a friend told me" He said "What is your friends name and I replied "Actually they are a penny on the Besy Buy website". He then said "We have to verify online prices in the store, so I will have to look all of these up". I said "Next time I'll bring the printout for you". I then said "I can call corporate if you'd like" as I wrote down his name and the store number. Then the cashier said "they are ringing up a penny, I do not have to override them" and the manager said "Then we have to sell them at that price".
 
I think someone or someones did instore pickup at my local BB too - because my last time there had a ton of dupilcates of most of the listed guides, then I come in today and Bioshock, FF12, and Dragon Quest were completely gone, and everything else had been already pulled just as I got there. It was funny though because the guy who pulled them stopped to help a customer, so I asked him if I could just take the cart he filled, and he said go right ahead. In the end I got:

1 Umbrella Chronicles (keeping)
1 Days of Ruin (keeping)
1 World in Conflict
2 Smackdown vs Raw 2008
5 Sim City Societies
6 Halo 2
 
Picked up...
Adv Wars
RE:UC
Bioshock
FFXII RW
and DQ: Monsters...

pretty good morning when I can pick up some penny guides
 
Yeah, the guy who called me to notify that the covers were ripped met me at the store since they weren't behind the normal counter. He was friendly but he was definitely trying to get the point across that they were supposed to be destroyed and this was a lucky occurrence.

The second store the girl rang me up and asked for my RZ card and when I said I have one, but not with me she was like, "I could look it up... but do you want to bother for three cents?" I chuckled and said no.
 
Don't this beat all? This thread is usually a little active, and now at least 3 pages today!
This is one of the greatest SG drops ever!
So I picked up Bioshock, FFXII: RW, Advance Wars: DoR, and DQM: Joker. Got as many as I could carry, but didn't clean the store. Didn't feel that evil.
 
Thats what I get for going to bed early! When I finally got up and checked the thread, the SD-alert was up, so I hit as many BB's as I could.

Each one had a ton of DQM:J and Advance Wars, other locals, I know I left behind tons of these as well as the occassional Final Fantasy XII since each one had a bunch of these.

Only one had BioShock and Umbrella Chronicles, and only one of each -- the only reason BioShock was probably still there was because I was lazy the last time I had it price checked and it was piled with some other guides behind the Phantom Hourglass guides. That store also was the only one I saw a couple copies of Sim City Societies at.

All in all, I found:

Advance Wars Days of Ruin xMultiples
BioShock (just one, for me, yay)
DQM: Joker xMultiples
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (extra)
Final Fantay XII Revenant Wings xMultiples
Halo 2 (extras)
Halo 3: La Guia Oficial xMultiples
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (just one for me)
Sim City Societies (w/ an extra)
Unreal Tournament (Extra)
World In Conflict (extra)

Pretty productive afternoon. =) Thank OP!
 
Got 50 guides. Multiples of everything but Smackdown VS Raw. Pretty much planning on keeping 1 of each guide for myself since this drop rocked but if anyone can't find any after today send me a message and i'll check your lists.

As usual CAG moderators and IAmTheCheapestGamer get first dibs if they need any since i wouldnt snag jack without em.
 
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