Reduced Price Guide Thread XIV (FAQ in 2nd Post)

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The Reduced Price Guide FAQ/OP has been moved to the SECOND post. Read this first!
[customspoiler="Disclaimer"]
All credit goes to IAmTheCheapestGamer, floormat, and guinaevere. They ran this thread for years, and I can safely say we would not have penny guides here without them. Thanks for your work!
[/customspoiler]

Private message me if there is something incorrect or needs to be changed in the non-wiki pages.
Below is two years or so of guide drop info. If you want to see the full list, please refer to the third post of the Reduced Price Guide Thread XIV that can be found HERE.​

Note that date may be of confirmation, and not of drop.

CE/SE/LE=HARDCOVER GUIDE
Red=Gamestop drop
Blue=Best Buy drop
Pink=Toys R Us drop

 

Recent Drops (Last Six Months)

Dropped 3.23.16 at GameStop

Game Stop 1 Cent

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate CE

Just Cause 3

Halo 5 CE



Dropped on 3.26.14
 

Gamestop

Battlefield 4

Disney Infinity

Grand Theft Auto V

Remember Me

Super Mario 3D World

Dropped on 2.26.14

Gamestop 

Assassin's Creed IV: CE

Battlefield 4 CE
Grand Theft Auto CE

Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds CE

Skylanders Swap Force CE

Wonderful 101

Dropped on 2.14.14

Toys'R Us

Rage
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Mass Effect 3

Star Wars The Force Unleashed II

Dropped on 10.31.13

Gamestop 
 
Animal Crossing
Assassin's Creed 3
Borderlands 2 LE
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Cheat Code Overload: Winter 2013
Codes & Cheats Vol. 1 2013
Dead Island Riptide
Diablo III

Disgaea D2

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Legendary
Epic Mickey 2
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Halo 4
Hitman Absolution
Injustice: Gods Among Us

Injustice: Gods Among Us LE
Last of Us

Last of Us LE
Lego City Undercover
Madden 25
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team
Ni No Kuni
Pokemon Black & White 2 Pokedex
Resident Evil 6 LE
Resident Evil Revelations

Wind Waker LE
Dropped on 9.25.13

Gamestop
Army of Two The Devils Cartel
Dead Space 3
Metal Gear Rising Revengence
Star Trek
Super Mario Bros. Wii U
Epic Mickey 2 Limited Ed
Halo 4 Limited Ed
Hitman Absolution Limited Ed

Dropped on 9.04.13

Gamestop
 
Call of Duty Black Ops II CE
DMC: Devil May Cry
Dishonored
Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider CE       
 
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crazedracerguy said:
I only had 1 hold - for a Fallout softcover. I got a ready for pickup email. We'll see how it goes. They're usually pretty chill there.
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That's way to do it. Figure out the stores where the employees will help you out. The stores near me are pretty hit or miss but if the right person is working, Jackpot! There is a lot of seasonal help out there right now so maybe more folks will get lucky. I was not lucky with my bioshock collection hold.

 
spacegundam0079 said:
Thanks again Darby ! :)
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was the Fallout guide a penny as well?

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk
 
First penny guide in years. Attempted two pickups of DS3CE. Got email for first one. No email for 2nd but walked in anyway(both stores in same mall within 2 mins walking). In both cases they were surprised at the penny. 2 cents well spent
 
hmmm it may be the holiday employees who are less clued in to what is going on...we may all have better luck this time around.

I also got 2 pickup emails approved. one for fallout and one for dark souls. We shall see.

 
I attempted to schedule a pick up for a store who has a good track record of honoring them and it says none are available anywhere even though I know the guides are there. May be an error on the mobile site.
 
Picked up my held FO4 softcover guide with no issue... Actually, that dude was less happy about giving me the FO4 guide than the other dude was to give me 7 guides... Go figure.

 
Found an awesome manager lol. She's like just take it (dark souls). Then I grabbed a couple more guides and she's like yea take those too, even though we are supposed to destroy them.

Got DS3 CE, mafia 3, and GOW4
 
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Hit 2 stores, 1st GS the guy checked on the computer said he got no guide I'm looking for (GS app said otherwise)

2nd store, met probably the nicest GS employee I ever met. When he brought out DS3 CE, he told me I can have it for free since its a penny guide thingy. I played dumb to get him check for what else in stock, there's a bunch more but I wasn't greedy, only ask for Bioshock (softcover) and Fallout 4 (hardcover). He hates trashing these collector's guide as GS making employee to tear out the cover, and that's a pain in the ass for the CE.

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Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk
 
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First store denied my email when I went in. They said it was a "mistake on their end". They wouldn't budge.

 
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Put a hold request online for BioShock Collection and Deus Ex CE. Got a confirmation email, went and got them no problem. Figured since I was there I asked if they had any others they wanted to get rid of and got a Mafia 3 guide. Now to try and get a Dark Souls 3 one from another store...

Pookymeister said:
Oops, didn't notice the Fallout CE in list. I'll try my luck at a store on way home from work.
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Only the $120 version, not the standard $20 hardcover one.

 
Never saw any of the guides at a penny at my local GS so today i went without trying and got out with :

Hyrule Warriors CE
Asassins Creed Unity CE
Bioshock collection

Freeee!!!😀
 
I stopped trying because they'll literally override the price up to full price around here. I don't even know how legal that is.
 
Total success. My first in a long time.

Got Bioshock collection, deus ex CE, and a surprise mafia 3 at one store. Then a dark souls 3 at another store.
 
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Thanks Darby. I went to a slightly out of the way GS and got one each of Fallout 4, Mafia III, Bioshock Collection, Deus Ex CE, and Dark Souls III CE. Employees were really cool about it. The GS in my area have tons of the Fallout 4 softcover. This location had at least 10 and the one closest to my house had a stack of 15+ when I was there last week.
 
Saix_XIII said:
Only the $120 version, not the standard $20 hardcover one.
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So the post above mine was a employee giving out the wrong one for free? I figured out something was wrong when it rang up $20, and thought maybe when i saw that post above I interpreted the HC for the SC instead.

 
Pookymeister said:
So the post above mine was a employee giving out the wrong one for free? I figured out something was wrong when it rang up $20, and thought maybe when i saw that post above I interpreted the HC for the SC instead.
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Right, that employee messed up.

Hard Cover is not pennied.

 
I got turned down at 3 stores including the one that said my instore pickup was ready. If anyone with duplicates wants to trade for old guides, please PM me. I have a massive amount from back before IATCG wrote the publishers. 

 
Went to my local store and the strict lady was working.  I asked her about the penny guides and we chatted for a bit.  She seems to take pride in pulling the guides and shipping them back to corporate.  Lame.  I really wish GS would put them on sale for like $5 each, or free with game purchase.  I feel like they'd make a little more money on them that way.

 
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NSpectreGarrus said:
Went to my local store and the strict lady was working. I asked her about the penny guides and we chatted for a bit. She seems to take pride in pulling the guides and shipping them back to corporate. Lame. I really wish GS would put them on sale for like $5 each, or free with game purchase. I feel like they'd make a little more money on them that way.
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They don't ship them back to corporate.

I asked two places that gave me the guides yesterday what they were supposed to do and they both said they tear off the front cover and throw them away.

This is in Texas, so maybe it varies by state or district.

 
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FissFiss said:
They don't ship them back to corporate.

I asked two places that gave me the guides yesterday what they were supposed to do and they both said they tear off the front cover and throw them away.

This is in Texas, so maybe it varies by state or district.
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They do this in Maryland too. The Manager at the GS I went too on yesterday expressed her frustration with the policy. She says she hates wasting them like that and didn't raise any objection to selling me 5 pennied guides on yesterday. I told her and the employees that I don't want them to get into trouble, but I would be happy to buy them when I can. Hopefully I can ride this wave for a while.

 
FissFiss said:
They don't ship them back to corporate.

I asked two places that gave me the guides yesterday what they were supposed to do and they both said they tear off the front cover and throw them away.

This is in Texas, so maybe it varies by state or district.
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She said they used to do that, but now they have to mark them as defect and ship them back. This is in Missouri. She did sympathize with me a bit though, reminiscing about the times when she could grab a couple for free for herself. It was convincing, if not true.

 
NSpectreGarrus said:
She said they used to do that, but now they have to mark them as defect and ship them back. This is in Missouri. She did sympathize with me a bit though, reminiscing about the times when she could grab a couple for free for herself. It was convincing, if not true.
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Such a damn waste....they could at least donate them to Goodwill or something to sell for cheap.

Happy though since I was going to buy the DS3 CE guide when it came out...but heard meh/bad things about it.

 
FissFiss said:
They don't ship them back to corporate.

I asked two places that gave me the guides yesterday what they were supposed to do and they both said they tear off the front cover and throw them away.


This is in Texas, so maybe it varies by state or district.
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I'm from Texas and the guy that gave me free guides yesterday said so too, destroy the guides by ripping off the covers. He couldn't ring them up because that would get him into trouble, so he just give them away if anyone asks.

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk
 
FlawlesslyFatal said:
I'm from Texas and the guy that gave me free guides yesterday said so too, destroy the guides by ripping off the covers. He couldn't ring them up because that would get him into trouble, so he just give them away if anyone asks.

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk
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Same lol. Im in Austin.

 
Brought the HC Fallout 4 back, the same guy yesterday told me to just keep it, it's not like they're gonna sell it anyway. I asked if what else in stock he said Mafia, GOW, Deus Ex and Uncharted 4. Unfortunately he couldn't find Deus Ex or Uncharted 4. Still managed to snag Mafia and GOW.

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk
 
Just realized I have an Uncharted 4 CE guide. I wonder where I got it...? I guess Gamestop, I don't think I got it from Best Buy....but I don't remember getting it from Gamestop either. Weird.

I also have Rise of the Tomb Raider CE. I think I got them both together at GS, weird.

 
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Saix_XIII said:
Just realized I have an Uncharted 4 CE guide. I wonder where I got it...? I guess Gamestop, I don't think I got it from Best Buy....but I don't remember getting it from Gamestop either. Weird.

I also have Rise of the Tomb Raider CE. I think I got them both together at GS, weird.
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Did Rise penny somewhere? I've been wanting to get that one.
 
Just did a pick up for Deus Ex at 1 of the 2 stores turned me down on penny guides yesterday. Different clerk from yesterday, simply ask what I'm here for, I told him hold for OSG, he handed it to me and yelled out "next" for the guy behind me, didn't even ring me up. Not exactly a friendly tone, but w/e I got my free shit.

Deus Ex guide sure looks not worth the msrp tho, much much thinner than other guides.

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Thanks, Darby. I was able to get Dark Souls. The clerk just said "here, take it", and then told the other clerk that he didn't understand why GS does this wastefulness.

 
So looks like people are getting the run around. I placed some orders online the other day, most got cancelled. There was 1 where they actually honored the store pickup but when I got there they refused to sell it at the 1 penny price
 
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yea my second store pickup also fell through. They wouldn't sell it to me when I got there. Kinda annoying they dont honor it if they sent out the confirmation email already...I mean people could drive a long way to get these things. at least deny it when the initial request comes in.

 
Thanks. Is there a reason you guys are ordering them for pickup rather than just going in cold? I would imagine it would be easier to just go in and pick it up off the shelf (if you have multiple gamestops in your area of course).
 
Electroplasm said:
Thanks. Is there a reason you guys are ordering them for pickup rather than just going in cold? I would imagine it would be easier to just go in and pick it up off the shelf (if you have multiple gamestops in your area of course).
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Here is my logic, and everyone is different.

If I go into the store and find them on the shelf and bring them up the employee can still easily deny me. If I do a store pickup request sure this may bring it to the employees attention, but it will bring it to their attention in the same way as if I brought it to the register, so it is even in terms of employees denying you.

BUT! If I do a hold request and they approve it then if I go to the store and they refuse to sell/give me it I have a reason to be upset, I took time out of my day to drive here because you said it was ready for me to get and then you say you can't sell me it!??!

Ever single penny guide I've gotten from GS has been from hold requests except for one. And that was an older drop that someone left on the floor that I saw when I was in the store for something else.

Granted this is what I choose to do and why, other people prefer the "shock and aw" approach of going to the store and trying to surprise the employee, whenever I try that at GS I get denied.

 
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