Reduced Price Game Guides: Thread Nine

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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(KEEP ALL TRADE REQUESTS HERE OR IN PM'S)
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(KEEP ALL DISCUSSION NOT RELATED TO GUIDE DROPS HERE!!!)
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169252

Guide Lists(master drop lists and recent drops):

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

Recent Guide Drops(by date,also check the second post in this thread):
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
Guide Eight:
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=167157

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
Barnes&Noble
BestBuy
BookPool
CircuitCity
Gamestop
Overstock
StrategyGuides.net
ToysRUs

Thanks to floormat, Guinavere and anyone else who has created and maintained the guide thread before, as well as to all of those who find out either advance information on drops or provide a list of which ones dropped when we do have a drop.

The post below this one contains a list going back at LEAST six months of the more current guide drops, which stores they occured at and which ones dropped. Note that sometimes(Oblivion guide, Quake Wars: Enemy Territory)there are multiple versions of a guide, be it that there are Prima versions, Brady versions and the occasional Nintendo and Doublejump guides.

Please specify WHICH version has dropped when mentioning possible guide drops. Thank you.


 
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Thank you to whoever originally posted the CC drops!!! :D

Came out of a CC in socal w:
National pokedex
Zelda Phantom hourglass
yoshi's island ds
pokemon battle revolution
pokemon mystery dungeon: explorers of time/darkness
Metroid prime 3
super paper mario

all for $0.07!!! thanx!! :D
 
[quote name='menchirox']pokemon mystery dungeon: explorers of time/darkness[/quote]Wait. Did Explorer of Time/Darkness ring up $0.01 or out of system? If it actually rang up $0.01 w/o any adjustment needed, I need to make another trip...

PMD Red/Blue was the one reported pennied...EoT/D was still ringing up full price for everyone.
 
Thanks Ops!
Picked up most of the penny CC guides yesterday...alas no Lego Complete Saga...top of my list after buying it at GS a few weeks back...after reading about the misc/parts override...went back today for Army of Two, Rogue Galaxy and Mass Effect...no issues when the supervisor was called to override...
 
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I am surprised so many are having luck at CC. I struck out at one; after about 10 mins the cashier came back and wanted to charge me full price for Rogue Galaxy, so I politely declined. But at a second one a manager gave me a few guides (unfortunately no Zelda PH though) after getting tired of trying to find a price for them. Thanks for posting the info! I thought CC didn't penny guides out. Has it pennied them in the past or is this a new thing?
 
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[quote name='eugaet']Wait. Did Explorer of Time/Darkness ring up $0.01 or out of system? If it actually rang up $0.01 w/o any adjustment needed, I need to make another trip...

PMD Red/Blue was the one reported pennied...EoT/D was still ringing up full price for everyone.[/QUOTE]

no way? wow...i assumed it was EoT/D :p oh well, glad my assumption did me well this time around :)

*and to answer, i did get it w/o having having the have the other guy do any manual adjustments :)
 
[quote name='donut']Thanks Ops!
Picked up most of the penny CC guides yesterday...alas no Lego Complete Saga...top of my list after buying it as GS a few weeks back...after reading about the misc/parts override...went back today for Army of Two, Rogue Galaxy and Mass Effect...no issues when the supervisor was called to override...[/QUOTE]

Mass Effect? That's not pennied. How'd you manage that one?
 
[quote name='Ubiiquitous']Mass Effect? That's not pennied. How'd you manage that one?[/quote]Rogue Galaxy isn't pennied either. Some are lucking out by getting an employee who doesn't know how to ring up stuff correctly.
 
[quote name='eugaet']Rogue Galaxy isn't pennied either. Some are lucking out by getting an employee who doesn't know how to ring up stuff correctly.[/QUOTE]

So it's not scanning at all? It's actually listed on the website as $19.99, so it should scan, I would think.

EDIT: I'm referring to Mass Effect, not Rogue Galaxy.
 
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I remember trying to buy Rogue Galaxy last year during a half-off sale, and getting crushed due to the deadly "special promotional item" nonsense. You guys can probably forget getting them now.
 
Yeah, the guides like Rogue Galaxy, Assassin's Creed and Mass Affect you are getting for a penny because for some items the employee has to press F12 on the keyboard after he scans it, then it comes up with the price.

Looks like I started a frenzy of people going to CC. ^_^

Anyways, went back there, and the guides that the employee who rang me up wanted were back on the shelf, so this time I got:

Madden 08
Pokemon D/P
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
LoZ:pH
Tomb Raider Anniversary
LOTR: Online
PBR

YAY! 53 guides so far from CC with my friend and I combined. I'm trying to find a ride to the other one but its all the way across town and I'm not old enough to drive. >_
 
[quote name='kell']I am surprised so many are having luck at CC. I struck out at one; after about 10 mins the cashier came back and wanted to charge me full price for Rogue Galaxy, so I politely declined. But at a second one a manager gave me a few guides (unfortunately no Zelda PH though) after getting tired of trying to find a price for them. Thanks for posting the info! I thought CC didn't penny guides out. Has it pennied them in the past or is this a new thing?[/quote]

I believe(though we will need clarification from neocisco or someone else who has info on CC)that they used to ring up in a way that didn't allow them to be sold if they pennied. Though, like I said, we need clarification from neo or someone as to this.

BTW, if anyone would like to clarify which of the guides that people have been getting are fairly recent(this year or last) releases, I'll gladly add them to the second post if they aren't there already. But, the way it is now, I'm going to hold off on putting the MUCH older guides people have also been finding in the second post, since I don't want to clutter it up too much with stuff that was probably yanked and destroyed at many CC stores a LONG time ago.
 
[quote name='dfriday']Add Tomb Raider Anniversary (PS2) to the .01 CC list.

Also Devil May Cry 4 is regular price (in NC) but Halo 3 is out of the system and is no longer on the website. I went to customer service and they adjusted Halo 3 to .01. I got 10 guides for 10 cents. It almost felt dirty but cool at the same time.:D[/QUOTE]

Can anyone else confirm the OOS for Halo 3?
 
Rogue Galaxy hasn't rung up at Circuit City since last year, I was trying for a long time to get one discounted from there but managers would always only offer retail price.
 
Just ran to Game Crazy and checked the following guides, none of which have been pennied :)-()

Valkyrie Profile 2
Blue Dragon
FFV Advance
Sonic the Hedgehog (PS3/360)
Transformers the Game
Folklore
Soul Nomad
FFXII
Pokemon's Mysterious Dungeon (NP) (Red & Blue)
...and some others that I can't recall at this time.

The clerk said that they haven't had a drop in a while, so maybe they're just waiting for the first monday of the month? Mark my words, when they do drop, I'll be there (kekekekekek).
 
[quote name='punkmaggit']Just ran to Game Crazy and checked the following guides, none of which have been pennied :)-()[/quote]There hasn't been much of anything going on at GC for a while, penny-guide-wise, since the big drop in January. There was a tiny drop in June, but that's about it.
 
game crazy hasnt pennied anything in a long time. The problem is the change the price to $0.00, and I cant get the local store to give it to me at that price
 
I didn't have a list or even a clue but I remembered that Pokemon NP guides were part of the drop so I brought some up to the front and the clerk added them into the system and then charged me a penny for them. Great because my kids are into Pokemon and the National Pokedex is pretty cool.
 
So, I don't quite get how this works. When they are listed and dated here then the stores may still have them on the shelf at a pennied price? So is it just a timing thing before the employees pull them from the shelf?
 
[quote name='Chronis']Neo reported someone? WTF, what's going on here....[/QUOTE]

probably posted in the wrong topic
 
[quote name='ryanbw']So, I don't quite get how this works. When they are listed and dated here then the stores may still have them on the shelf at a pennied price? So is it just a timing thing before the employees pull them from the shelf?[/quote]

Yup, exactly. Especially with timing. You never know, you could be mere minutes late before guides get pulled or someone else buys them all. So the early bird and the worm and whatnot.
 
So I went back to CC today and managed to get the same 2 splinter cell guides I couldnt get the other day. When the cashier said I had to buy the game tog et them I told him that they didnt even sell the game anymore its so old. He told me that was the only way to get it so i told him to use the override code to make it a penny. To my surprise he did and I ended up getting two guides for 1 penny. Also I took a few Army of Two guides up but they werent in the system and he was so flustered because of all the people behind me I just didnt bother. They are very thin guides but they must of had about 25 of them.
 
[quote name='shelisheli']anyone want to sell their penny Rogue Galaxy guides?[/quote]

I tried to get this today for you but it rang up 20 at my CC
 
Wife grabbed me a Madden 08 & a Lord of the Rings for $.01 each @ CC.
There was one more Madden, but they wouldnt sell it to her.

They also had some of the Halo 3 guides, They rang up $20. The cashier said if she bought the game it was free.
 
Went back to my CC, picked up a small haul, the cashier (Possible manager, does wearing grey instead of red mean manager?) looked like he rang up pennied guides before.

3x Pokemon BR
2x Metroid Prime 3
2x Yoshi's Island
2x SPM
1x LotR
1x STALKER
 
[quote name='darkslime']Woohoo! From CC I've kept 15 guides, made $34 dollars in credit to a used game store, and $5 cash.[/QUOTE]

What store did you find to acutally buy them o_O Local store?

Also, I saw some random old shreaded Sims expansion guide, felt like getting a check on it, but it looked like it was kicked around a bit in the back room so I passed.
 
[quote name='Link927']What store did you find to acutally buy them o_O Local store?

Also, I saw some random old shreaded Sims expansion guide, felt like getting a check on it, but it looked like it was kicked around a bit in the back room so I passed.[/quote] Bookman's and Metro Gnome Music in Tucson, Az both buy them. Metro Gnome will buy all. Bookman's will buy most, but not multiple tons of copies of crap like dark sector and madden 08, they'll only buy 1-2 of those, but they bought all of my paper marios and stuff like that.

Also, is it MGS 3 snake eater or subsistence guide that's going for a shit load on ebay? I see them both at Metro Gnome.
 
[quote name='Chronis']Neo reported someone? WTF, what's going on here....[/quote]

There was a spam post before mine. Reported and deleted. But now it reads like I'm going after 62t (which is not the case).:)

I go Chow-Yun Fat on spammers!:twoguns:
 
There is a chain in NC that gives credit for guides. It's called Ed McKay's. It's MGS 3 Snake Eater Limited Edition Guide that is the expensive one. I think I just have the regular edition guide.
 
I picked up a single copy of Frontline: Fuels Of War from the one local Gamestop and I tried out 3 guides at Circuit City. The one had a copy of Rogue Galaxy, as well as multiple copies of the Pokedex Volume 2(Prima version) and the regular God Of War II guide.

All came up the normal price, but the one Pokedex had a misprint on the front cover. It was missing the Prima logo.
 
I was a bit confused on the D&P today, I saw 3 different versions, the NP, the ultimate NP and some pocket sized one. I deicded to not take the hassle and pass with what I had already @.@
 
Last time I was in Game Crazy (last weekend maybe), Xenosaga III rang up $19.99.
I played the whole, Oh crap I left my money at home routine.
Also, I didn't check it (stupidly) but there was a DoA Volleyball calander (2007 I think), has anyone seen it? Is it pennied or stupidly something like $15?
I may be in the area of Gamecrazy this or next weekend. It's kind of a hike.
 
[quote name='Frosty The Batman']Last time I was in Game Crazy (last weekend maybe), Xenosaga III rang up $19.99.
.[/QUOTE]

I checked about 2 weeks ago and it rang up the same price here. I was a bit supsicious since she took a long time, but when she denied me of DQVIII, I left Xenosaga alone.
 
^^ weird about Xenosaga III. Maybe GC is getting wind of the general populous that picks up the guides for a penny (or for $0.00). When I had my guy check a few, he did note that some of the guides dropped by like a dollar or two. I'm thinking this is how they do business now.

The NP Wind Waker guide was $3.99. 0_o
 
[quote name='punkmaggit']^^ weird about Xenosaga III. Maybe GC is getting wind of the general populous that picks up the guides for a penny (or for $0.00). When I had my guy check a few, he did note that some of the guides dropped by like a dollar or two. I'm thinking this is how they do business now.

The NP Wind Waker guide was $3.99. 0_o[/QUOTE]

Yea, that Wind Waker guide has been 3.99 for a while. I found a copy during a GC drop more than a year ago.
 
Speaking of Gamecrazy...

IATCG, please add this to the 2nd post.

After work today, I went by to my local Gamecrazy. The manager saw me and told me today was my "lucky day."

The following guides were pennied:

1. Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Brady)
2. Phantasy Star Universe (Brady)
3. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (Brady)
4. Call of Duty 3 (Brady)
5. The Darkness (Brady)
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Brady)

Of course, all Gamecrazy's are YMMV but the manager at mine has been really cool with me and is willing to let me have pennied guides for free.

Enjoy!

--Michael
 
Super Paper Mario NP was not in the system today
Reconfirm Tomb Raider Anniversary
Splinter Cell Double Agent rang up as a penny but computer wouldnt allow sale
 
[quote name='smaaug']Super Paper Mario NP was not in the system today
[/QUOTE]

There was two different UPC codes for that I think, I remember my CSR had a little trouble ringing it up.
 
Went to another CC today and managed to get another splinter cell and two army of twos. I found a guide there for a penny thats not been mentioned yet and that is Lego star wars the original trilogy. It came up saying it was a packaged deal but the manager overrode it for me.
 
went back to CC today to get the other Madden 08
I also grabbed a Rainbow Six Vegas I and a Rock Band guide as well.

Madden & RSV both came up a penny. The Rock Band guide wouldnt come up.
Cashier called her manager. He said it was obviously a mistake. He told the cashier to charge the price on the back of the book. LOL
 
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