Planet Games used to be a really cool used video game store, there were three of them around the Twin Cities.
The old location used to have this huge 55in projection TV sitting in the middle of the store with a nice chair and all the systems hooked up to it, and when you wanted to try out a game you got to try it out in style. They were the only place I know of left in MN that still had Sega CD and 32x games.
Then all of a sudden this winter they were bought out by EBgames. And the store just looks like a gamestop now. It completely lost all of the atmosphere. It used to feel like a cozy friendly vintage game shop. Now it feels all commercialized. You can just smell the Sony and MS. And all the Sega CD and 32x stock just disappeared. When I went in there last month I had to listen to the kid behind the counter talking kinky on his cellphone to his girlfriend the whole time.
Funcoland used to be awesome back in the day. All the people who worked there knew me. They'd all say hi when I came in, and chat about new things that might interest me. I'd ask for recommendations, since they knew what I'd already bought and liked, and most of the time their recommendations were great. They used to have a special list of the "under 5$ games", back in the NES days. I'd always be able to get a couple NES games for under 5$. Yeah, and the spreadsheet listing prices for all the games was great, and it came out new every month. I'd always take my pricesheet with me when I went garage saleing so I'd know whether I was getting a deal or not, or I could use it to talk people down on their video games. (the only problem was they had a bad habbit of listing games that never existed or were never released. It was annoying because I'd come in every week asking if this cool sounding game was in yet and it never was).
Ever since the PS2 era, funco went down the drain. All the unpopular vintage stock just disappeared. The used prices never go down. Sometimes the used price at funco was more expensive than the new price at best buy. The friendly people and atmosphere disappeared.
The only good thing as that all the genesis stock started going for really cheap, which is actually what started me buying games again. I'd never bought most of the cool games just becuase it's insane to pay 30 to 60$ for a video game.
Planet games was still good even after funco died. They moved to the new up-and-comming shopping area last year, and I discovered them again. The second time I went in there, the guy remembered my name already, and remembered what I bought. It was great, it felt like the old funco years. But as I mentioned, once it got bought out by EBgames, down the drain :
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