John-ShepardThere was a time when multiple video game retailers flourished across the country, ranging from GameStop to Electronics Boutique to Babbages/Software Etc. to GameCrazy. But these days, it's mostly all GameStop…perhaps entirely in the near future.
The latest rumor is a bleak one for GameCrazy, as evidenced by internal details and evidence accumulated by Joystiq . It seems that according to more than a few employees, the franchise may be closing its remaining 250+ locations before the end of the month. Movie Gallery owns GameCrazy and it seems the entire company filed for Chapter 7, which means the corporation is going through liquidation and although it'll be "business as usual for the next two weeks," GameCrazy may be done for good come the end of May. However, this supposed filing hasn't been confirmed as it hasn't yet showed up on Movie Gallery's stock page or in the SEC database. But that hasn't stopped some employees from referring to an "Important Closing Store Update" memo sent through the company on April 21, and furthermore, other GameCrazy workers are saying they won't take any more pre-orders past May 18. Therefore, if you believe all this to be true and you've got any deposits on titles coming out later in the year, you might be well advised to go and cancel those pre-orders.
But please bear in mind that none of this is official, and we're not specifically telling you to cancel your GameCrazy pre-orders; only do so if you choose to believe this information, and feel free to contact your local store to see if you can squeeze any info out of them.
I wish there was a GameCrazy near me, I could
really do some damage adding to my collections with another going out of biz sale.
That's how I got 300 PS1 games, plus a handfull of N-64, & Saturn games, some gaming signs, a few posters, and some accessories for only $75 dollars on the day my local Micro-Play was closing up shop for good.
damn! thats a lot of gaming swag! :O
Saint I'd like to hang at your pad with a brick of the green stuff, a cooler full of beer, and a comfortable chair. It would be the greatest retro gaming session of all time.
lol @ brick of the green stuff
It's no rumor they are closing up shop. It sucks that Gamestop will have the biggest monopoly of all time, and they are in the pocket of MS. Makes me feel like starting up a fair gaming business myself.
Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 5/2/2010 10:02:30 PM
Your tag line could be "Buy my games or Ben will slam you up against a tree".
well, ya have to have hired muscle. You'd be surprised how self-righteous geeks can get.
Hey hey hey! John made this article so it should be "Buy my games or John will slam you up against a tree". 😀
Gamestop would be far from having a monopoly. What killed Game Crazy will ultimately kill Game Stop. Specialized stores are not good business models in the Walmart/Internet shopping era.
@ Jaybiz : I doubt that.
Mann gamecrazy is the nearest game store here! Its like a few blocks away. Hollywood videos (which is beside gamecrazy) closed like 2 months ago. Although gamecrazy can be unreliable when buying games. I went there a couple of times to buy Assasins creed 1, POKEMON silver, COD 4, uncharted 2 and GOW and everytime i came they said they were sold out. I looked at the table behind there back there were like 50 copies of pokemon silver / gold and i asked why can't they give me one. They said it was only for pre-orders. They are always like that when it comes to newly released games. I'm not surprised if they are closing down.
Selling short on stocks here I come.
I've never even seen a GameCrazy. Anybody know of one near Philly? Might be a good time to get some deals on used hardware.
I'm gonna miss Game Crazy, GameStop can go to Hell! Game Crazy was my #1 place to go.
Well this isn't a surprise considering how Gamestop is decimating pretty much every other retailer out there which really surprises me considering how horrid their customer service is.
I can't say I'm going to shed a tear for this second hand shop. Give me large retailers any day.
guys this is indeed true, i talk to my friends who use to work and is continuing to work for gamecrazy. the manager i know very well, said that hes going to be out of the job since they are closing the rest of the stores
I remember when we had a place called Gamesters, but the sign was all in cursive and it looked like Gamestens. So I would be like "Hey man let's ride our bikes up to Gamestens" Then Funco took over, then Funco died. Now the only thing near is Gamestop of course. Remember Funco? MAN they gouged us.
I remember Funco but does anyone remember Captron?
All of the ones around here closed down months ago. Their prices sucked so I could see why they went down the drain. The employees were all ass jacks too.
we dont' have a gamecrazy here in Ontario, we have microplay,gamestop,and a few smaller game stores. But it's always sad to hear about another company going under one less gamestore to go to if they had cheaper prices or a better deal. I like microplay they always have really cool retro games.
This isnt a rumor, never was, they confirmed it themselves.
I never saw a GameCrazy exist anywhere else but inside a Hollywood Video rental store. The first Hollywood video store that I witnessed close unexpectedly was out in California. Now I noticed another closing here in Las Vegas. With this information, it's clear that they're going out of business.
sad to see another store go.
money is destroying this industry, it use to be about passion but now only the wallets can survive!
Activision are saying nothing….
😐
lol what does that have to do with activision?
were talking about game stores here no?
thats the problem mom and pop stores can not compete because gamestop and co cut prices and smaller stores can not afford to do so.
i knew a guy who owned his own retail store a few years ago, he use to get me titles a week or so early, than in late 06 he had to close up shop because he lost too much cash.
We don't have any of that stuff 'round here. No gamestop no gamecrazy no microplay or whatever.
All we have specialized in gaming/music/video is Freerecord shop, which is like gamestop, but then slightly less xbot oriented…
Let me get this straight, Gamestop might be americas only brick n mortar game store? That'll suck.
England has basically only Game, but while there are others, (theres one in wood green which prices some stuff quite cheaply people) but most of them are over priced f*cks.
i mean in Game, its £20 for any platinum game… WTF!
"It sucks that Gamestop will have the biggest monopoly of all time"
How can Gamestop be a de facto monopoly when in fact there many other retail entities that compete with them and offer the same services?
As for GameCrazy, well the market have spoken and chose Gamestop over them.
Has anyone ever seen a Play 'n' Trade? I was interested in opening a franchise a few years ago and I think they are still around. They are supposedly like a gamestop but have tournaments and fix consoles. They were to take on gamestop. I've never seen one yet though.
yes ive seen play n' trades. one just opened up a couple years ago where i live, and there are a few in Montana that i know of.
They are really pro 360 worse than gamestop in my opinion. they never have ps3 tourny's, ever. and not to mention they have only had a few tournaments anyways and its always MW.
everytime i have preordered their, which was only twice not only did my game come in late, like 2 days late, but they ordered both games for the 360 when clearly i stated for the ps3. So i went elsewhere to get it.
the one thing they have going for them is they have stations set up for each console where you can try any game before you buy it!
now a lot of this could be how the store was ran. i also looked into starting a franchise before i changed my major in school, and i wouldnt let it be ran that way.
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 5/3/2010 9:38:31 AM
There's a Play n Trade here in the Daytona Beach, FL area that opened a few years ago. The employees there are cool, I haven't experienced any bias there.
otis-
good then that means its just in my area!
but what a horrible experience myself and friends have had there!
the gamecrazy where i live is going out of business as we speak. they are selling the last of what they got which might be some light fixtures or something…
Thanks Bigrailer. I see there are a few in Manhattan here. I'll have to pop in and check it out. I think the pro 360 thing will disapate as ps3 is catching up big time.
The GameCrazy in my hometown shut down months ago.
Why bother retail? Amazon has most games cheaper if not significantly moreso than any retail chain. Gamestop is trash…I quit shopping there circa 2002. I was tired of them telling me their last copy of a certain game was an opened display box version of it and then charging me like it was new…Ha, no thank you. Gamecrazy experience wasn't good either. Had a crappy copy of Ogre Battle 64 sitting around so I thought I'd call game crazy to see what the trade in value would be…They said a 1.25 USD. So I called back the very next day and said, "Do you have Ogre Battle 64 in stock?". They said, "No." I then asked, "Well if you did, how much would it cost?". They replied, "29.95.". I laughed, hung up and have not been to a retail chain ever since. Amazon for new games and eBay for oldies.
Last edited by Solaris Knight on 5/3/2010 2:05:45 PM
Gamecrazy doesn't exist in NYC so it doesn't really affect me
Though, it's sad. This just means that Gamestop will just take over that much more
Well, if you have any pre-order's at GC in the US, you're probably SOL because,
GameCrazy officially shuttered in US alongside Hollywood Video….
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/05/03/wsj-gamecrazy-officially-shuttered-in-us-alongside-hollywood-vi/
game retail chains really need to come up with better names…
I miss the nice NYC almost underground looking independent game stores. Sadly they are all mostly gone.
I used to work for Game Crazy a few yrs back and they had chapter 7 issues then and closed alot of the stores they had. Ours stayed in business because we were one of the highest grossing stores and we were built into Hollywood video but they do, well did have a few stand alone stores. They almost recovered from it after the 1st rounds of trouble but last month my buddy who stIll works there had told me about the memo and they had already shut down most of the Hollywood stores and the Game Crazy's were next. Doesn't shock me the stores suffered from high theft and all the Hollywood stores have been suffering awhile just due to Blockbuster and Netflix put the final nail in the coffin for them finacially. PS3 video store and Netflix on both systems didn't really help the already dier situation either. I remember when I leaked a screen shot of our computer screen for Socom on PS3 months before it was annouced on this site, Sony didn't care to much for that and sued us and also stop sending us emails about their upcomin games, but MS and Nintendo still did. It was pretty cool cause we'd get these memos every month or so about new games, systems and pre order gifts months b4 official announcements. But we never had a embargo or ne thing technically saying when we could actually talk about it. Hell it wasn't even called Confrontation at that time I leaked it, I can't remeber the name but I remeber ppl weren't believing me and my ex co worker posted the pic of our PC which ultimately got him canned 🙁
Sorry about the spelling and typos, getting tired and typing from my iPhone. I swear it makes more mistakes than fixing them when typing real fast, but back on topic I forgot to mention I remeber FuncoLand and theybwere the best game store I can remember. We have a Games Galore and a Game Junkie here which are just small lil stores in a single mall here. Nothin big but Game Stop pretty much runs the stand alone video game store business here in Ohio. I've personally been using Amazon alot more lately on pre ordering new games and I rarely use Game Stop unless I'm forced to trade in some games, I usually only do that if they are running like a 25% trade bump or something, that plus ur 10% for a Edge Card adds up pretty fast. And I must have my Game Informer.