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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[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']
EDIT: I personally don't see ANYTHING wrong with posting a list of guides for sale on Craigslist, since if they're not selling here and they're collecting dust then you have to explore every avenue available to you. Most of that list from the CL ad was for $6 a pop, which is about what it costs with DC and the other expenses to ship out a single guide, with maybe a buck for the person selling it.[/quote]

Well they are $6 now, before they were more, but I was talking to the person who posted it and she is pretty cool. She lowered the prices to something fare because she didn't want to rip anyone off. She says she got the guides from someone else, so I guess she isn't a GS employee looking to make a quick buck.
 
Second post is updated with MONDAY's upcoming drop. HUGE THANKS TO VAHN!! If this drop pans out and stores don't pull them around here, it could be HUGE.

I wonder how many people will simply read the list provided by Vahn and go in NOW trying to buy them thinking they already dropped without reading the date and being pissed and coming back to this thread asking WHYYYYYY.
 
[quote name='BarbblerElf']Well they are $6 now, before they were more, but I was talking to the person who posted it and she is pretty cool. She lowered the prices to something fare because she didn't want to rip anyone off. She says she got the guides from someone else, so I guess she isn't a GS employee looking to make a quick buck.[/quote]

I have most of my TL up on CL in my area, though at $10 a pop no one is biting. :lol:

I'll probably drop them on there and on here to $5 each sometime soon. Well, except for the RPG ones anyway. :D
 
Heh, I don't like having the list this early. Too many things can go wrong because of it. I'm pretty sure I'm in for a tough one come Monday now.
 
Day before my birthday drop, that's exciting. I might hit up a couple BBY's depending on how the first wave goes. Thanks for the list Vahn that's bad ass man.
 
[quote name='Pookymeister']think im taking an early 10am lunch monday[/quote]:lol:

[quote name='62t']should be universal. Only YMMV is the selection at your store.[/quote]And if they'll sell to you.

I just noticed that GS dropped Bioshock (original) back in October. Dang, I never saw that. >_
 
I usually take lunch around 11, so I'll have to see if there's a Best Buy near my work. I hid a single anyways at my local BB for far hopes that they might miss it. :p
 
We all better hope that SD does not get hold of this list. Honestly, I rather the list be pulled until monday morning.

SD or fatwallet will ruin this for some of us!
 
[quote name='iluvmywife']We all better hope that SD does not get hold of this list. Honestly, I rather the list be pulled until monday morning.

SD or fatwallet will ruin this for some of us![/QUOTE]

To be totally fair, it sounds like there are some people in this thread who might ruin it for some of us.
 
my BB has tons of those guides. except the 2 that i am looking for.

can someone grab an extra Tales of Vesperia and Lost Oddessy? if there is anything on that list you are looking for i can grab in return.
 
A word of advice if anyone lives around Henrietta NY, the bestbuy there generally does not let you buy penny guides (or that has at least been my experience) but if you get lucky, a good number of the ds, 360 (and crisis core, but no vesperia) were there when i went earlier today.

And I want to thank the people who have been updating all these drops, it took five gamestops but i finally got a mana khemia guide (my first free guide) it made my weekend =)
 
Good post Vahn! I'll definitely hit up a few Best Buys that morning. There's only about 5 guides I want out of that entire drop (most of them I grabbed during the GS drops).

I do have extra Lost Odyssey Guides and if I can't get a Tales of Vesperia or Fable 2 LE, I'll gladly trade.

Here's to good hauls on Monday! :applause:

--Michael
 
I agree with the previous poster about f atwallet and s lickdeals. If news of the penny guides ever hit those sites we wouldn't stand a chance of getting best buy penny guides.
 
If anything, I think the people from Slick Deals and Fat Wallet found out from one of the prior drops that they listed on the sites that these things are worth damn near bupkiss just after a drop since everybody floods Ebay and other sites with them and want too damn much for them.

So, I feel safe that they won't hoard the stores near me out of everything.
 
[quote name='vahn401']So thats everything, that gives all CAGS 2 days of notice to find the guides they want, hide them or do what they need to, there is no reason why no CAG should not get the guides they want.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the heads up on the massive list vahn but has some other CAGs have mentioned I'm concerned that the big dogs upstairs at Best Buy are going to be doing their best to make sure that these books are properly pulled before the doors open Monday morning. I was wondering if without getting into detail if you could let us know if finding this pull list was easy for you and if it's something you would consider hard to miss for say the average employee/manager or whoever would be in charge of pulling the guides :)
 
[quote name='iluvmywife']We all better hope that SD does not get hold of this list. Honestly, I rather the list be pulled until monday morning.

SD or fatwallet will ruin this for some of us![/quote]

I completely agree. I really appreciate vahn posting the list but I think it should be pulled from the 2nd post and all other posts then repost it Sunday night. SD and FW trolls aren't exactly known for their restraint. There are 3 mods that frequent this thread so if one of you agree I honestly think this would be best for all of us. Thanks.
 
[quote name='genfuyung']If I can just get ONE lost odyssey guide I will be ecstatic.[/quote]

I'm with you there man. I'm just trying to get the guides for all these RPGs. Those are really the only guides I'll even think about using.
 
I know plenty of you guys are excited about this drop but how about letting this thread cool down until Monday morning, huh?

You're really not helping your own cause if you know what I mean.
 
okay, so I went to Best Buy to do inventory of their stock and I'm absolutely super excited about Monday since they have everything I want with multiple copies....Then something happened that concerned me......

I bought a Enemy Territories: Quake Wars guide last month for $0.01...today I happened to find another one in the PC section and figured why not? This time when I brought it up it rang up as $0.68 with $0.05 of tax... So I paid 73 cents for the guide instead of 1 penny. Anyone have similar experience? Can we expect all guides on Monday to not be pennied, but put to 73 cents? I'm still going to buy them, but still I think my days of penny guides at BB are over...now it'll probably be dollar guides or something.
 
[quote name='Wolve11']okay, so I went to Best Buy to do inventory of their stock and I'm absolutely super excited about Monday since they have everything I want with multiple copies....Then something happened that concerned me......

I bought a Enemy Territories: Quake Wars guide last month for $0.01...today I happened to find another one in the PC section and figured why not? This time when I brought it up it rang up as $0.68 with $0.05 of tax... So I paid 73 cents for the guide instead of 1 penny. Anyone have similar experience? Can we expect all guides on Monday to not be pennied, but put to 73 cents? I'm still going to buy them, but still I think my days of penny guides at BB are over...now it'll probably be dollar guides or something.[/quote]

That one was reported a while ago. It happened like a couple of weeks after it initially dropped, but jumped back up to like $.3x and/or $.6x. I think it might have just been that one guide, but it is a possibility for some of the guides Monday.
 
[quote name='Josef']I don't like the fact that Best Buy stores are getting this list two days early. I have a feeling there will be a lot of disappointed CAG's come Monday morning.

By the way, this is probably the biggest Best Buy guide drop ever.[/quote]

Considering I managed to find two Hardcover Phantom Hourglass guides today, I don't think my BB is really gung-ho about pulling penny guides. I, for one, can not wait until Monday.

BTW, how certain are we that this information is accurate and true? Like 100%? I don't want to walk up to check out with a handful of guides on Monday only to find out that there was no drop and this was all speculation.
 
[quote name='Doomstink']Considering I managed to find two Hardcover Phantom Hourglass guides today, I don't think my BB is really gung-ho about pulling penny guides. I, for one, can not wait until Monday.

BTW, how certain are we that this information is accurate and true? Like 100%? I don't want to walk up to check out with a handful of guides on Monday only to find out that there was no drop and this was all speculation.[/quote]

Tread softly...for you tread on our dreams...
 
[quote name='genfuyung']Tread softly...for you tread on our dreams...[/quote]

Either someone has been reading a lot of Yeats or they just watched Equilibrium. Great movie.
 
I forgot to mention this as it may interest some folks... When at CC a few days ago, I grabbed a big stack of guides to have price checked and the guy I asked said I could use the scanner myself to do it. This was very cool. But one thing I found was that you had to cover part of the SKU to have it read correctly.

Maybe it's the same where you are - some of the staff are bummed to be losing their jobs, so they will let you do self-scanning. I think he was helping another customer too. Next week when I go back, I plan to just grab the scanner without asking...

hey, all they can say is "cut that out!"...
 
Yeah, I got some penny guides at CC today and she had to cover up part of the bar code. Several guides weren't ringing up, so I had to put them back, lest a manager come over.
 
[quote name='neocisco']I completely agree. I really appreciate vahn posting the list but I think it should be pulled from the 2nd post and all other posts then repost it Sunday night. SD and FW trolls aren't exactly known for their restraint. There are 3 mods that frequent this thread so if one of you agree I honestly think this would be best for all of us. Thanks.[/quote]

Once I update the second post, that's it. I don't keep a copy of the alphabetized list around anywhere. Everything is done is Notepad on my computer. Once I'm done and I've verified that the list I updated matches the one compiled, then close the Notepad windows without saving the list.

But....if the mods want to delete the advance list and then repost it Monday morning, by all means. I certainly won't object if they edit out and then edit back in the list.

As for me, I'm done editing the list in the second post for this drop. The only exception to that is if I missed a guide or two, which I'll then edit the list to reflect.

Otherwise.....:razz:....

Personally, I'd rather the hoarders from SD/FW get stuck with 90 bajillion guides that they can't even give away. Maybe then they'll learn what I've somewhat learned, not to hoard every damn thing.
 
[quote name='Doomstink']Considering I managed to find two Hardcover Phantom Hourglass guides today, I don't think my BB is really gung-ho about pulling penny guides. I, for one, can not wait until Monday.

BTW, how certain are we that this information is accurate and true? Like 100%? I don't want to walk up to check out with a handful of guides on Monday only to find out that there was no drop and this was all speculation.[/QUOTE]

The only difference is there wasn't any advance notice on that drop, and the number of guides pennied out at that time was not nearly close to the number of guides planned to be dropped on Monday. I'd love to be wrong, but I have a feeling many stores are going to be pulling the guides early on Monday (or even on Sunday).

The person that posted the planned BB drop is a BB employee and has been accurate in the past. I have no doubt he will be accurate again.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']Once I update the second post, that's it. I don't keep a copy of the alphabetized list around anywhere. Everything is done is Notepad on my computer. Once I'm done and I've verified that the list I updated matches the one compiled, then close the Notepad windows without saving the list.

But....if the mods want to delete the advance list and then repost it Monday morning, by all means. I certainly won't object if they edit out and then edit back in the list.

As for me, I'm done editing the list in the second post for this drop. The only exception to that is if I missed a guide or two, which I'll then edit the list to reflect.

Otherwise.....:razz:....

Personally, I'd rather the hoarders from SD/FW get stuck with 90 bajillion guides that they can't even give away. Maybe then they'll learn what I've somewhat learned, not to hoard every damn thing.[/quote]

So just copy the list and PM it to yourself. It's a simple fix and it's to the benefit of everyone here. What's the problem?
 
[quote name='BarbblerElf']Same here. I mostly want LO and Tales of Vesperia[/quote]

I didn't even notice that vesperia was there. That would be another great one to get. :pray:
 
[quote name='gordojones88']People are starting to panic.[/quote]

Yes, here's what I am planning to do to beat the pandemonium:

-PM the list to myself
-copy that PM, then e-mail it to myself
-copy that e-mail onto a jump drive
-mail that jump drive to myself
-put it in a locker in grand central station
-wait nervously
 
[quote name='sgaldis']Yes, here's what I am planning to do to beat the pandemonium:

-PM the list to myself
-copy that PM, then e-mail it to myself
-copy that e-mail onto a jump drive
-mail that jump drive to myself
-put it in a locker in grand central station
-wait nervously

[/quote]


Why go to all that trouble when you can simply

- print out the full list on posterboard
- go to Kinkos and have it laminated
- go to the mall and get the laminated posterboard framed
- hang the framed laminated posterboard on your wall
- Take a picture of the framed laminated posterboard with your digital camera
- email a pic of the framed laminated posterboard to yourself


Besides I went to BB today and put all the guides I want behind a stack of Haze. Nobody will ever look there.

.
 
[quote name='gordojones88']Why go to all that trouble when you can simply

- print out the full list on posterboard
- go to Kinkos and have it laminated
- go to the mall and get the laminated posterboard framed
- hang the framed laminated posterboard on your wall
- Take a picture of the framed laminated posterboard with your digital camera
- email a pic of the framed laminated posterboard to yourself


I certainly don't see why people can't see how obvious easy is.[/quote]

LOL...

touche!
 
[quote name='gordojones88']
Besides I went to BB today and put all the guides I want behind a stack of Haze. Nobody will ever look there.

.[/quote]

You better hope slowdive21 isn't in your area. :lol:

[quote name='slowdive21']I can't believe Haze is not on the list![/quote]
 
Ok, I'm heading out to camp out for the drop on Monday...


1st in line, baby!


Just kidding...I really am getting ready to go by BB in a little while, though...
 
[quote name='drawingboard']So they're getting rid of "Codes & Cheats Winter 2009" already? Odd.[/quote]

Those books get cycled pretty quickly. Same thing happened a couple of Xmas's ago. I think it even happened earlier like in Dec.
 
At my BB I saw multiples of the guides I cared about - Dragon Quest IV, Tales of Vesperia and Soul Calibur IV. Not many of the other ones. I hope they're still there tomorrow...
 
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