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='Josef']Hmm, maybe some of those guides weren't supposed to be pennied out just yet and Best Buy is correcting their mistake? That was a massive list.

From other people's posts, guides that may have gone back up in price:

Spore LE bundle
Crash: Mind over Mutant
Star Wars Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning bundle
Fracture
Madden 09 LE bundle
Wario Land: Shake It!
Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway[/quote]At a store where I got SC4 LE and Ass Creed for .01 I was denied BIA:HH.

At another store I was denied penny prices for Madden 09 LE bundle and Battlefield Bad Company. This was on Tuesday.
 
[quote name='BarbblerElf']Cool a near by CAG. Yeah the bestbuy in seacaucus pulled everything but Crisis core (x4) at 11:30 am the day of the drop. They had a lot too. I left everything thinking they will be there later, but the pulled them fast. I only picked up Fable 2 guide. they had all FF guides(x7 each) and most of other drops. did u ask them 2 check back?[/quote]

I did something similar the other day. Found a lot of good guides, and left some. Returned yesterday and everything was pulled. I wish that I had been greedier, because the good stuff I left is most likely rotting in a dumpster now. I now say hoarding is good, because you'll at least have extras to trade 1:1 with other people. With the vigilance of store employees nowadays, it's a slim chance that another collector will have a chance to buy what you leave behind.

I know..."HOARDER!!!" :lol:
 
[quote name='jdawgg76']At a store where I got SC4 LE and Ass Creed for .01 I was denied BIA:HH.

At another store I was denied penny prices for Madden 09 LE bundle and Battlefield Bad Company. This was on Tuesday.[/QUOTE]

When you say "denied" do you mean the store wouldn't sell them to you after they rang up a penny, or that they were now ringing up normal price? If it's the latter, I will add Battlefield: Bad Company to the list of guides that may have went back up in price.
 
[quote name='Richard Longfellow']I did something similar the other day. Found a lot of good guides, and left some. Returned yesterday and everything was pulled. I wish that I had been greedier, because the good stuff I left is most likely rotting in a dumpster now. I now say hoarding is good, because you'll at least have extras to trade 1:1 with other people. With the vigilance of store employees nowadays, it's a slim chance that another collector will have a chance to buy what you leave behind.

I know..."HOARDER!!!" :lol:[/quote]

I know for a fact a horder didn't get the guides at my BB. When I went back at 11am I seen a mega stack at the game section register thingy with a girl employee scanning guides. I went to all the isles and seen that everything from this drop was gone. It must have been about 70+ guides. I would have asked her for some or what they were going to do with them but since she forgot the 2 Fable 2 LE and they were in my hand I wasn't risking it. I was planning on going back yesterday but it wouldnt stop snowing. I would have went today but since the other CAG said that my BB was cleared out, looks like he saved me a 20-30 min walk.
 
All in all, I think I had some decent luck despite everything remaining being pulled immediately after my initial purchases, and of the two farther off stores, one had nothing, and one had mainly Spore LE, Mass Effect, and Oblivion...so, if anyone missed either of those, let me know, because those GOTY guides are massive and I'd prefer to find homes for them sooner rather than later. I've got spares of a few others, like the WoW guides, and all are taking up space in my room right now.
 
[quote name='Josef']When you say "denied" do you mean the store wouldn't sell them to you after they rang up a penny, or that they were now ringing up normal price? If it's the latter, I will add Battlefield: Bad Company to the list of guides that may have went back up in price.[/quote]By denied penny prices I meant it rang up full price rather than a denied sale. My bad on the confusion.
 
[quote name='shiningslade']Went to Secaucus, NJ store & everything was pulled except they missed FF Crisis Core so I grabbed those. I also went to the 2 Paramus stores. The one by the Mall had nothing...all pulled. The other one was very nice. :) I usually hit up West Paterson too but it was too late by the time I drove by there, they were closed.[/quote]

You're in Penn state and came all the way to NJ to check out guides? ;) I could have told you the store at the Garden State Plaza was pulled. It was my fault >_
 
Watertown, MA seems like it was cleared out. There's a huge empty shelf where the guides used to be. Now, there's smaller sections of guides near each game type (360, PS3, Wii) and the only drop to be found there was Madden 09.
 
[quote name='DarkRider23']You're in Penn state and came all the way to NJ to check out guides? ;) I could have told you the store at the Garden State Plaza was pulled. It was my fault >_
 
Im going to go out on a long shot here and say that maybe just maybe the BB employee's were so vigilant this time with pulling the guides because there may be an error on ones that pennied?>

I just suggest this seeing I dont ever recall seeing so many BB nationwide pulling these guides like this and now people are starting to see certain ones now ring up full price.

I dont know 2 locations that usually are gold mines were cleared out by the employees long before the store opened because I was told that also could this be because of the two day notice (im not complaining about it) from the CAG who listed these with the SKU's ?

I dont know unless BB had some meeting and said we need to combat these people who come in and walk out with 30+ guides and only spend $.30+ lol.
I for one usually buy something with my penny guides just to make it worth while.
 
[quote name='jdawgg76']By denied penny prices I meant it rang up full price rather than a denied sale. My bad on the confusion.[/QUOTE]

No problem.

Here is an updated list of the guides that people have reported to have been raised back up to full price (look to be mostly Prima guides):

Spore LE bundle
Crash: Mind over Mutant
Star Wars Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning bundle
Fracture
Madden 09 LE bundle
Wario Land: Shake It!
Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway
Battlefield: Bad Company

Luckily, it seems a lot of the better ones are still pennied.
 
I checked 4 stores yesterday and each had rearranged their guide section, everything had apparently been pulled. At one store I did manage to find a couple Sonic Chronicles on the shelf. Then as I was leaving I noticed a WoW: Bestiary and WoW: Strategy Collection on one of those employee carts, so I grabbed those too.

Also, the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning bundle rang up full price for me as well.
 
[quote name='BarbblerElf']Yeah your in bergen county, I'm in hudson. About the bold. . . . same happened to me. I bought 3 guides at first and it was all good. While I was leaving the guy who stands at the door and checks your receipt asked "Dude, how did you get them for a penny?" Came back an hour later to see that everything was pulled. I should have grabbed all I wanted the first trip to the register. Well that's a lesson learned to me.[/QUOTE]

Alright...far too many North Jersey CAGs are popping up! I saw the stack of Crisis Core guides but passed. I only get the guides I may actually use, and since i beat it, didn't feel inclined to buy it. I was shocked when I got my Fable II and Mass Effect in the West Pater..err Woodland Park, NJ (Racists!!!) store. Never made it up to Paramus.
 
If you see in Google cache that a store has a guide in stock, but it's not on the shelf, it's worth asking about. I told an employee I was looking for Elder Scrolls & Mass Effect, and he said they had been pulled, but they might still have them. He called someone in the back, and he brought them out to me. I didn't want to press my luck and ask for any others, and left happy to get at least 2 guides I really wanted.

Also, as I was about to get in the checkout lane, I saw a few guides where they have a variety of odds and ends. Since they were in an out of the way place, the pennied ones hadn't been pulled, and I was able to snag Mercenaries and Civilization. Be sure to check around in various places in the store before you give up on finding guides.
 
[quote name='guessed']I noticed that, but since it was such a horrible post, I figured it would just die. Good luck to everyone searching for unnamed "gaming magazines".[/QUOTE]

Yeah, "gaming magazines"... :lol:

I went back to BB today and picked up some more guides. All the ones I checked were still pennied (including SCIV LE, Mass Effect LE, Oblivion GOTY, FFXII, FFCC: Rings of Fate, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Tales of Vesperia, Too Human, and Spider-Man: Web of Shadows).
 
Anyone know how long it usually takes for a guide to be pennied at GS vs BB and vice versa? Because a local GS has the Oblivion GOTY(black) but I can't find it at BB.
 
Went back today in Johnson City, TN for an attempted round 3, but all the pennied guides were pulled =/

So how often do these guide drops happen? This was my first time getting in on one, and would like to be better prepared for the next time.
 
I wonder if anyone at BB has read this forum and have decided to pull guides. That would suck. I am going back to see what's left at my local store tonight. I'll report back then.
 
[quote name='radman99']I wonder if anyone at BB has read this forum and have decided to pull guides. That would suck. I am going back to see what's left at my local store tonight. I'll report back then.[/quote]

I would hope that anyone at BB who would have read this forum would have pulled the guides, thrown them in their car, and then offered any duplicates that they don't want for trade here on CAG.
 
[quote name='spookyhurst']If you see in Google cache that a store has a guide in stock, but it's not on the shelf, it's worth asking about. I told an employee I was looking for Elder Scrolls & Mass Effect, and he said they had been pulled, but they might still have them. He called someone in the back, and he brought them out to me. I didn't want to press my luck and ask for any others, and left happy to get at least 2 guides I really wanted.

Also, as I was about to get in the checkout lane, I saw a few guides where they have a variety of odds and ends. Since they were in an out of the way place, the pennied ones hadn't been pulled, and I was able to snag Mercenaries and Civilization. Be sure to check around in various places in the store before you give up on finding guides.[/quote]

Same deal happened here. Worker was really awesome. Every guide had been pulled, so he went in back and got a SC4 LE and Fable LE for me, then went back again and got another Fable for my cousin. Very nice of him.
 
Went to 2 different BB's today and might go to another one later on. But this is my haul so far.

GoW: CoO
LoZ: Phantom Hourglass
Condemned 2
Assassin's Creed
Super Mario Galaxy
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy Tactics:A2
Sonic Chronicles
Fable II LE
Mercs 2
 
[quote name='skiizim']Went to 2 different BB's today and might go to another one later on. But this is my haul so far.

GoW: CoO
LoZ: Phantom Hourglass
Condemned 2
Assassin's Creed
Super Mario Galaxy
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy Tactics:A2
Sonic Chronicles
Fable II LE
Mercs 2[/quote]

No one cares what you bought. Also, no one cares that no one cares what you bought.
 
[quote name='Slim Gatsby']All in all, I think I had some decent luck despite everything remaining being pulled immediately after my initial purchases, and of the two farther off stores, one had nothing, and one had mainly Spore LE, Mass Effect, and Oblivion...so, if anyone missed either of those, let me know, because those GOTY guides are massive and I'd prefer to find homes for them sooner rather than later. I've got spares of a few others, like the WoW guides, and all are taking up space in my room right now.[/quote]


If you haven't found homes for the Mass Effect one I will gladly take one :)
 
hmmm. I think some posts from people showing their haul from Best Buy were just deleted, and while I'd usually agree that those posts are a little superfluous, I think we're in a special situation right now where we could use that information. Some guides that were on the drop list for Monday have gone back up to full price since Tuesday, and we might need to put together a new list of what has remained at a penny.

Just a thought... I think anyone posting their findings since tuesday is useful to us.
 
OMG OMG OMG.
Sorry for the caps but I feel that it's warranted for what I'm about to say.

Backstory: Went to a local Best Buy on the drop date and picked up 14 guides. I met an employee there who was like, is there something I don't know? You're the 3rd person I've seen today with a bunch of guides, and I explained that I heard they were on clearance etc. Pretty cool guy, showed him the list I had and he went and picked out something for himself. I went back to this same Best Buy today, and the employee was there. He told me that they had taken the penny guides and put them in a big basket out front, and somebody had bought em all. For $5. Which means, yes 500 GUIDES! He was like, yeah, they were all in the computer section. ARGH I'm so mad at myself for not checking that section. =(
 
If anyone has extra copies of Mass Effect: LE, Assassin's Creed, & Spore: LE please let me know. The guides, in the Virginia Beach area, seem to have been pulled from Best Buys.
 
[quote name='trezzi']OMG OMG OMG.
Sorry for the caps but I feel that it's warranted for what I'm about to say.

Backstory: Went to a local Best Buy on the drop date and picked up 14 guides. I met an employee there who was like, is there something I don't know? You're the 3rd person I've seen today with a bunch of guides, and I explained that I heard they were on clearance etc. Pretty cool guy, showed him the list I had and he went and picked out something for himself. I went back to this same Best Buy today, and the employee was there. He told me that they had taken the penny guides and put them in a big basket out front, and somebody had bought em all. For $5. Which means, yes 500 GUIDES! He was like, yeah, they were all in the computer section. ARGH I'm so mad at myself for not checking that section. =([/quote]

The first rule of CAG is you do NOT talk about CAG.

Care to guess what the second rule is?
 
I went to the Best Buy around the corner from my place yesterday and then again today. They put out a whole load of guides that weren't there yesterday. Many of them pennied ones. Strange. Thought they were supposed to pull them and not just restock the shelves..........
 
[quote name='Slim Gatsby']The first rule of CAG is you do NOT talk about CAG.

Care to guess what the second rule is?[/quote]

I told him I heard about it on SD.. didn't think it would be a problem
 
I went back to my BB with the guide goldmine and it seems that they pulled all the guides I left behind. I did find a couple of Mercs 2 guides and about 10 BF: Bad Company guides but when I went to pay BF:BC rang up $14.99. :bomb:

I should have just "hoarded" those 3 Fable 2 and 2 Lost Odyssey guides. I could have hooked up more CAGs.
 
[quote name='cblakerobinson']Went back today in Johnson City, TN for an attempted round 3, but all the pennied guides were pulled =/

So how often do these guide drops happen? This was my first time getting in on one, and would like to be better prepared for the next time.[/quote]
are you from jc?
 
Went to BB today to return something, and was planning on strolling through the guides section as well. While at the returns desk, I glanced over to my left and saw a huge pile of guides sitting atop one of the check-out counters, probably about 100 books or so. I asked the lady helping me if I could browse the stacks, and she said "go ahead". I pulled about 15 to buy. Most rang up for a penny with the following 4 exceptions which I put back in the pile (these 4 books rang up not at full price but around 25% off of whatever the sticker said):


Madden NFL 09 Limited Edition
Pokemon Pocket Pokedex vol. 2
Star Wars Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duel
Wario Land Shake It!
 
I will run the list of skus tomorrow and see which ones have supposedly gone back up, then i will report back with my findings tomorrow night.
 
[quote name='mvp828']Any info on a possible GS drop tomorrow or Friday? (forgot what day they happen)[/QUOTE]

Probably not going to be another drop at GS for another month or two. Heck, most of the stores near me have Game Informer magazines on the guide rack since the guide selection was decimated the last two weeks.
 
[quote name='vahn401']I will run the list of skus tomorrow and see which ones have supposedly gone back up, then i will report back with my findings tomorrow night.[/quote]


thank you Vahn, as always you're our only hope!
 
[quote name='DarkRider23']Right now I wish I had hoarded the guides at my BB. *kicks self for not hoarding*

It seems like every BB near me pulled their guides.[/quote]

My Goldmine BB finally pulled all pennied out guides! This is the first tmie that I have seen BB pull penny guides. Everything was neatly arranged at both guide sections and all penny guides were gone so I assume that the guides were pulled.
 
I was able to hit 1 BB and get Assassins Creed,but other than that everything has been pulled.I talked to a BB employee at 1 of the several Best Buys here and he was like yeah,"I pulled all of the guides Monday and kept a few for myself".He was speaking of the PS3 guides and I now remember,in talking with him about a week earlier that he does not even have a PS3 or 360.Wow way to ruin it for the people that need them.
 
I went to another BB earlier today, this one in fort myers (main, not the small one). They had everything organized well and I saw a bunch of penny guides (starting with BF bad company). I walked up and down every aisle with games, and one of the employees came up to me and told me they had guides for a penny (wait wat). I grabbed mostly whatever I saw (left a few, there weren't too many left). BF:BC and brothers in arms rang up at $14.99 each (bf:bc said 1 cent on 2 and $19.99 on the 3rd), so the guy went to check the price on all of those, and believe it or not, another employee changed the price to 1 cent for 2 of the BF:BC ones. They kept the one that said $19.99 I guess, but I didn't mind.
I know there are some CAGs around here, one employee at the gulf coast store (if you live around here you know what/where that is) said someone bought a ton of penny guides a while ago.

Also there were a ton of halo 3 guides for $3 each (brand new). They are marked "end of life" and the prices and "EOL" are written on a sticker on them. This is at the fort myers main store, for anyone that lives around here.
 
I just got back from another trip to BB. Most of the guides were gone at this point from the normal spot so I went over to the pc section and grabbed another Spore LE,bad company they came up as a discounted price but the sims 2 apt life, Hell boy and brothers in arms were still a penny
 
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