When i was a child, my city had 5 game/movie stores. Now zero, absolutely zero are left. No more midnight launches. No more place to meet fellow gamers in a friendly environment. No more place to purchase physical games without delivery times. What a sad reality.
I loved Bionicles badly when i was a kid just like i loved my Zoids, Medabots and Beyblades. They definitely need and deserve a complete comeback. I remember my mom not having so much money to afford expensive toys but Bionicles were pretty affordable and that gave me the chance to collect them all
Make it make sense lol how is phoenix putting them out of business when he’s the one buying most of their inventory he’s shown where he’s bought a lot of bulk deals from video game stores
goes into local video game store, spends money in the local economy helping out said store, takes product home to resell on Amazon to support his own business and family. The world continues to turn and everyone is happy.
Whether a reseller goes into the store to spend $10, or a "gamer" or "collector" goes into the store to spend $10, that is still $10 for shops to help with bills and expenses. People acting like a resellers money is anything more special LOL
@@TotallySearch I didn’t have the time to sell them on eBay to make rent on time but okay 👍 Also Matt definitely pays higher than most other used game stores
In my town in germany (Salzgitter) there is just only one local store left. This dude hat multiple shops in the past but only one is left and he mainly sells mangas and merch today. Even GameStop had to close the shop. Im still going to visit the local store.. even when i could get these games for cheap on markets or eBay. But there is a some kind of magical energy in these shops that i love so much
Here is a funny thought. Sure it’s not as profitable as the dude would like. But there are also people trying to get enough to survive while doing something they despise. It’s a slippery slope. It’s a reminder to be grateful when we can.
A bricks and minifigs opened a few months ago which has a ton of stuff, especially rare LEGO but nothing beats the prices at Matt's if he has what you are looking for!
There's a retro gaming store in Homestead that both sells retro games and repairs/mods consoles. People bring him huge collections all the time and he turns around and sells it all at Ebay prices. And people actually buy it. People even bring him the current gens for repair. I'm not sure what the secret is, maybe location, variety of services, etc. One would think the retro price boom would be a blessing for retro gaming stores.
I think the price boom was probably good at the start but after your current inventory is sold you'd have to restock at higher prices. Plus increased competition from resellers. Plus games getting a rating system from auctions. They also have higher costs for non gaming expenses like rent. That being said some stores are cleaning up.
These game stores have been going under all over the place around me. This and card shops. The only shops left are the guys who own and lease out several spaces within the building to other businesses. I feel like it's a combo of the spike in rent prices, energy costs, and just the general cost of everything going way up. I haven't been buying anything I don't need in the past couple of years, like games, entertainment subscriptions, etc. All these brick-n-mortar stores are struggling right now.
At this point from everything I've seen stores have to be either on some form of social media or also have an online store even if that's through Ebay, Amazon, WhatNot, etc because sometimes you never onow where that next buy will come from.
I owned shops in malls across a state. You can get free displays from store that shut down. Always look for liquidation sales, or contact realitors and see if they have any spaces that need to be cleaned out( you can spend a day and a uhaul clearing out a old shop and you get free displays).
Caleb, Thanks for the content! you are an inspiration in your overall positive attitude in your videos and tips on reselling. Appreciate you and the profile on different places of business. Kudos!
I have seen those small videogame stores back in the 1990s getting closed before the 2000s already, because of the large multimedia-electronics stores. Untill these large stores also got a lot of pressure because of the growing influence of online-shops. And so on... - There will always a "bigger"/newer fish who eats you and continues the show, but what will never be continued will be the personal interaction between clients and small shop keepers. The times in which a shop used to be a social meeting place is long gone and will likely never return. People will buy their things online with a 15% discount while they got 200 friends on the latest incarnation of Facebook etc, whom they bareley even know, and in 20-30 years nobody will even remember that it ever used to be different.
I grew up in the 1990s, so buying physical copies and going to game stores were the highlights of my day when I went to buy a game I wanted. I remember when the digital age crept around, and nobody thought it would ever last. Now look at it; it's put so many good businesses out of commission for local game stores. New generation gamers will believe this is standard because they didn't grow up knowing owning physical copies was the norm before digital purchases.
I live in Belgium in a city with 35.000 inhabitants(Low-mid sized Belgian city). And since last month, There is no store anymore where I can buy video games, or even toys.
This makes me sad man knowing all mine are long gone. Only memories left. Cherish this bro! I wish I could! Great video. Tell Matt to grind til he can’t anymore.
I live in the UK and used to have an indie 5 minutes from my house and another 10 minutes from my school. Really hurt when they both closed as the owners were super enthusiastic and cool. Then moved on to buying from national indie chain Computer Exchange (now known as CEX) but as of the end of this month they are pivoting to fixing broken classic consoles (alongside selling empty game boxes filled with pubes I hear!).
I worked in Business Development for years and worked in game stores and worked as a distributor for SCEE. See it as a good thing the whole city market is yours for the taking. No competition.
When I was a kid in the 90s we had 8 local video game stores, and three chains. But Game Stop killied off the all of the locals but 2, and it bought the chains out.
There is a EA store in out Mall in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario Canada and it seems busy most of the time . I get some good deals on their used games in bargain bins .
I see so many of these shops and i always wonder who would be crazy enough to invest in/own one. It is painfully obvious there is little to no money to be made in this business when it is in a physical space unless you have a golden goose supplier.
I feel like all these guys still operating stores would do so much better if they just closed the doors, started reselling out of their homes and focused 95% on video games. There is no point in dealing with the time and stress of running your own business unless you're making good money or have the potential to make good money in the not too distant future.
I would argue if you want to open a physical store there needs to be a reason to have it. Just selling stuff isn't enough because people can buy things online. One of the stores close to me does console and controller repairs, which is a big money maker for them. Another does a big retro game expo once or twice a year, and just has an amazing store filled with cool displays, arcade cabinets, etc. If you don't have something to set your store apart and make people want to actually come in the door instead of buying the same thing online then it's not worth it, just sell online.
@@legoboy-ox2kxThe driving factor would be having physical inventory you can inspect without having to rely on listing photos, so you won’t need to pay for the shipping only just tax. But considering what they’re pricing them all at, it negates any of those added benefits unless you’re trading in a game for another that you aren’t interested in selling online yourself.
All the game stores closed years ago and then one opened in town. My friend and I entered, The song that goes mr. beast mr. beast, mr. beast was playing there were also 3 nerds in the corner playing Dungeons n Dragons 💀 I never went back and they closed as of 4 months later.
If you ever do get Raging Blast 2 there are actually 2 different versions as there was a dispute about the Soundtrack so there is one with an Original OST and one with the Tenkaichi OST that was put in to replace it, it's not an update thing it's actually an on disk difference
Where is this located? I wished I had an independent store near me but only game store around here is GameStop. The ending got me very interested, I have a large collection of Pokemon cards from many years ago when I actual competed in a few Pokemon card tournaments, I even won a small tournament while I was in college. Anyways I have no idea of their worth and there’s no where around here that will buy Pokemon cards sadly. I might have to take a road trip someday.
I had a street with 5 stores, even one with a lot of imported games. Most close, one turn into phone stuff and funko pop. A cashconverter open but isn't a same, add You must be good at teardown consoles cause they clean nothing.
online shopping killed them. and lets not forget in the early days many of these online stores would ship the game a few days earlier- was an open secret. so now you didnt have to drive to your game store to pick up game x, you also got it "earlier" AND you could compare prices through multiple stores, while your local you could only see the price inside. I miss going through bins of old games and "game hunt" but I fully understand why people abandoned the local stores for online stores- even though it sucks looking back.
I seen a few video games store that don’t make much due to poor advertising and poor customer service n not consistent with store hours. Or due to poor payout and they mark there video games over 15%-25% over market value. The two game store in my town they’re very successful and have become my business partner where they’ll pay me 75% off pricecharting
Every other local store from bookstores to videos and games have died.......BUT NOT COMIC SHOPS! LONG LIVE COMICS! Yes Mangas and Eurocomics too obviously.
I feel like it’s the store owners responsibility to be out sourcing stuff, and game hunting. The owner shouldn’t be sitting around the shop all day. If you act like a cashier all day, you will probably get paid like one.
Pretty oblivious take. If you’re in your store you’re dealing with traffic that can lead to more sales and possible trade ins. Only so many places you can source, you want these people to want to bring stuff into you. Also if you’re paying employees, that’s a salary or two that can be used for other things especially advertising. You think a minimum wage kid cares about high level customer service or if your stores thrives? Not really.
My opinion of you has gone up so much You making these videos helps out these shops so much Other RUclips creators like u in this space would NEVER do this. They only think about themselves Seriously thank u for doing stuff like this. You’re a great dude who’s trying to help others. Not like the other RUclipsrs who would go in ignore the shop owner & wouldn’t care a slightest on advertising their shop. They would just complain after how “prices were high” (chase after right price specifically) lol
When i was a child, my city had 5 game/movie stores.
Now zero, absolutely zero are left.
No more midnight launches. No more place to meet fellow gamers in a friendly environment. No more place to purchase physical games without delivery times. What a sad reality.
bUy DiGiTaL bRo ItS sO mUcH eAsIeR
@@ianswift3521 nintendo be like:we decided to ban your account,bye bye 15k dollars in games you bought
@@ianswift3521 lol, lmao even
Nintendo? All of them can do this man@@johnyseimah229
Physical
I cried a bit when I saw the Bionicles. Reminded me of how much I miss them.
“Each set sold separately”
I loved Bionicles badly when i was a kid just like i loved my Zoids, Medabots and Beyblades. They definitely need and deserve a complete comeback. I remember my mom not having so much money to afford expensive toys but Bionicles were pretty affordable and that gave me the chance to collect them all
Bless his soul, what a nice guy. I hope y'all locals actually support him. I would love to.. Greetings from Sweden..
Only a matter of time before phoenix resale puts him out of business
Ows talaga
Make it make sense lol how is phoenix putting them out of business when he’s the one buying most of their inventory he’s shown where he’s bought a lot of bulk deals from video game stores
Phoenix is working hard to put him out of business and Matt doesn't seem to understand
@@clampokif he doesn’t understand then he’s going out of business anyways
Facts. That dude is a Vulture
Seeing those classic Bionicle sets just felt like a punch to the face full of nostalgia.
Matt seems like a beauty tho wish him and his store the best
lol A beauty? What!?! 🤣You're being way too nice.
goes into last local videogame store in his area, proceeds to buy all the good deals for amazon.
Sounds like he is helping the store by giving them some money and doing the online part for them
goes into local video game store, spends money in the local economy helping out said store, takes product home to resell on Amazon to support his own business and family. The world continues to turn and everyone is happy.
Whether a reseller goes into the store to spend $10, or a "gamer" or "collector" goes into the store to spend $10, that is still $10 for shops to help with bills and expenses. People acting like a resellers money is anything more special LOL
Exactly. The shop is happy regardless of who buys it @@MonotoneCards
you ain't got nothing better to do than hate eh
Cool to see my trade on the counter in this video! I traded in that N64 and those games. Matt’s an amazing guy.
My dude eBay exists, would have got way more lol
@@TotallySearch I didn’t have the time to sell them on eBay to make rent on time but okay 👍
Also Matt definitely pays higher than most other used game stores
Caleb your the one thats putting him out of business lol 😂😂
In my town in germany (Salzgitter) there is just only one local store left. This dude hat multiple shops in the past but only one is left and he mainly sells mangas and merch today.
Even GameStop had to close the shop. Im still going to visit the local store.. even when i could get these games for cheap on markets or eBay.
But there is a some kind of magical energy in these shops that i love so much
I love stumbling across videos like this.
Here is a funny thought.
Sure it’s not as profitable as the dude would like. But there are also people trying to get enough to survive while doing something they despise.
It’s a slippery slope. It’s a reminder to be grateful when we can.
Amen
Just shopped here last week! Matt has a killer store
this clown really just kissing ass lmfaoo what a fool
A bricks and minifigs opened a few months ago which has a ton of stuff, especially rare LEGO but nothing beats the prices at Matt's if he has what you are looking for!
There's a retro gaming store in Homestead that both sells retro games and repairs/mods consoles. People bring him huge collections all the time and he turns around and sells it all at Ebay prices. And people actually buy it. People even bring him the current gens for repair. I'm not sure what the secret is, maybe location, variety of services, etc. One would think the retro price boom would be a blessing for retro gaming stores.
I think the price boom was probably good at the start but after your current inventory is sold you'd have to restock at higher prices. Plus increased competition from resellers. Plus games getting a rating system from auctions. They also have higher costs for non gaming expenses like rent. That being said some stores are cleaning up.
These game stores have been going under all over the place around me. This and card shops.
The only shops left are the guys who own and lease out several spaces within the building to other businesses.
I feel like it's a combo of the spike in rent prices, energy costs, and just the general cost of everything going way up. I haven't been buying anything I don't need in the past couple of years, like games, entertainment subscriptions, etc.
All these brick-n-mortar stores are struggling right now.
At this point from everything I've seen stores have to be either on some form of social media or also have an online store even if that's through Ebay, Amazon, WhatNot, etc because sometimes you never onow where that next buy will come from.
thats great u support ur local store. very important to support local stores for anything
I owned shops in malls across a state. You can get free displays from store that shut down. Always look for liquidation sales, or contact realitors and see if they have any spaces that need to be cleaned out( you can spend a day and a uhaul clearing out a old shop and you get free displays).
I think online reseller kill all those great video game store
Caleb, Thanks for the content! you are an inspiration in your overall positive attitude in your videos and tips on reselling. Appreciate you and the profile on different places of business. Kudos!
I have seen those small videogame stores back in the 1990s getting closed before the 2000s already, because of the large multimedia-electronics stores. Untill these large stores also got a lot of pressure because of the growing influence of online-shops. And so on... - There will always a "bigger"/newer fish who eats you and continues the show, but what will never be continued will be the personal interaction between clients and small shop keepers. The times in which a shop used to be a social meeting place is long gone and will likely never return. People will buy their things online with a 15% discount while they got 200 friends on the latest incarnation of Facebook etc, whom they bareley even know, and in 20-30 years nobody will even remember that it ever used to be different.
I grew up in the 1990s, so buying physical copies and going to game stores were the highlights of my day when I went to buy a game I wanted. I remember when the digital age crept around, and nobody thought it would ever last. Now look at it; it's put so many good businesses out of commission for local game stores. New generation gamers will believe this is standard because they didn't grow up knowing owning physical copies was the norm before digital purchases.
I have none in my area so I'd love to open one someday
I live in Belgium in a city with 35.000 inhabitants(Low-mid sized Belgian city). And since last month, There is no store anymore where I can buy video games, or even toys.
This makes me sad man knowing all mine are long gone. Only memories left. Cherish this bro! I wish I could! Great video. Tell Matt to grind til he can’t anymore.
imagine having a gamestore in your city or nearby
the only gameplace within 2 hours of me are gamestops
Same, pretty small city of 40k people. We've had a couple shops over the years but they all shut down pretty quickly
we had a gamestop in my lil town but they closed after the stock market thing.
The doubletake at the Stacy kid Lee poster😂😂😂😂 0:38
Matt’s is the best in central Ky for sure! Awesome guy!
Those candles remind me of the video from Viva La Dirt League when a customer went into the tech store to buy candles.
Probably good to not have any competition but it still looks tough
I live in the UK and used to have an indie 5 minutes from my house and another 10 minutes from my school. Really hurt when they both closed as the owners were super enthusiastic and cool.
Then moved on to buying from national indie chain Computer Exchange (now known as CEX) but as of the end of this month they are pivoting to fixing broken classic consoles (alongside selling empty game boxes filled with pubes I hear!).
I worked in Business Development for years and worked in game stores and worked as a distributor for SCEE. See it as a good thing the whole city market is yours for the taking. No competition.
This is where I picked up College Slam for the Saturn!
When I was a kid in the 90s we had 8 local video game stores, and three chains. But Game Stop killied off the all of the locals but 2, and it bought the chains out.
Bro deleted his latest video on selling his gamecube collection after getting backlash
Who
You ripped him off so many times he's going out of buisness huh 😅
There is a EA store in out Mall in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario Canada and it seems busy most of the time . I get some good deals on their used games in bargain bins .
The amount of legos in this store is beautiful
What type of dog do you have btw? I absolutely love the vibe.
I was just there like a month ago
Matt's a super cool dude
I see so many of these shops and i always wonder who would be crazy enough to invest in/own one. It is painfully obvious there is little to no money to be made in this business when it is in a physical space unless you have a golden goose supplier.
That ending clip LOL
I feel like all these guys still operating stores would do so much better if they just closed the doors, started reselling out of their homes and focused 95% on video games. There is no point in dealing with the time and stress of running your own business unless you're making good money or have the potential to make good money in the not too distant future.
I would argue if you want to open a physical store there needs to be a reason to have it. Just selling stuff isn't enough because people can buy things online. One of the stores close to me does console and controller repairs, which is a big money maker for them. Another does a big retro game expo once or twice a year, and just has an amazing store filled with cool displays, arcade cabinets, etc. If you don't have something to set your store apart and make people want to actually come in the door instead of buying the same thing online then it's not worth it, just sell online.
Reggie is scared
Having video game tournaments would be epic!
@@legoboy-ox2kxThe driving factor would be having physical inventory you can inspect without having to rely on listing photos, so you won’t need to pay for the shipping only just tax. But considering what they’re pricing them all at, it negates any of those added benefits unless you’re trading in a game for another that you aren’t interested in selling online yourself.
@@DuncanLambert85no good money in that and a big risk with a crowded store.
I only have one local game store that’s only a few years old
Does he have an online ? I love supporting local treasures like this. I am also a midsummer night guy.
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer lmao
11:34 that Batman is so sparkly.
All the game stores closed years ago and then one opened in town. My friend and I entered, The song that goes mr. beast mr. beast, mr. beast was playing there were also 3 nerds in the corner playing Dungeons n Dragons 💀
I never went back and they closed as of 4 months later.
Spanks reaction was gold 😂😂
Poor Matt, seems like he doesn't know he's talking to the man that will stab him and twist the knife to his store
If you ever do get Raging Blast 2 there are actually 2 different versions as there was a dispute about the Soundtrack so there is one with an Original OST and one with the Tenkaichi OST that was put in to replace it, it's not an update thing it's actually an on disk difference
I have one local game store where I live but the guy's been going strong since 1999
Where is this located? I wished I had an independent store near me but only game store around here is GameStop. The ending got me very interested, I have a large collection of Pokemon cards from many years ago when I actual competed in a few Pokemon card tournaments, I even won a small tournament while I was in college. Anyways I have no idea of their worth and there’s no where around here that will buy Pokemon cards sadly. I might have to take a road trip someday.
I had a street with 5 stores, even one with a lot of imported games.
Most close, one turn into phone stuff and funko pop. A cashconverter open but isn't a same, add You must be good at teardown consoles cause they clean nothing.
If gamestop is struggling to stay in business imagine how hard it is for the little guys
He put fent in the candle 🕯️
I watched for about 55 seconds before I couldn’t anymore.
online shopping killed them. and lets not forget in the early days many of these online stores would ship the game a few days earlier- was an open secret. so now you didnt have to drive to your game store to pick up game x, you also got it "earlier" AND you could compare prices through multiple stores, while your local you could only see the price inside.
I miss going through bins of old games and "game hunt" but I fully understand why people abandoned the local stores for online stores- even though it sucks looking back.
I seen a few video games store that don’t make much due to poor advertising and poor customer service n not consistent with store hours. Or due to poor payout and they mark there video games over 15%-25% over market value. The two game store in my town they’re very successful and have become my business partner where they’ll pay me 75% off pricecharting
This is the store from the Bionicle dream.
Where is this store located? I would love to shop here. Im always buying retro videogames
Everything is dying
If i lived there id be there 2 times a week lol. Where is this spot ?
really good video Austin 🔥Oddly relaxing ???
That's a lot of courage putting rare stuff out there without a display case.
Geez, Funco Pop's are mold you can't get rid of. Not enough bleach in the world.
Round 2 pomeroy Ohio. More variety and systems and games full stock
Come to Ohio. We’ve got plenty of local game shops and need more
*A vulture has entered the store*
No wonder people don't go there. The prices are way too high.
Today you don’t need a store to sell games, so is not so bad he still has a lot of worthy items
What a nice guy
Online shopping is destroying brick and mortar
Upvote for local business love
bro he even has bionicles in there what the fuck that must be one of the best places on earth
0:55 the goat lego batman 1
Cockroach resale is only there to size up his 10% value buyout after he closes shop
Shocking there’s no GameStop.
Even a small town like Pueblo has GameStop.
Resellers be like ‘I got a CIB. What game? Doesn’t matter. That’ll be $120’
Spanky knocked out 💀
Every other local store from bookstores to videos and games have died.......BUT NOT COMIC SHOPS!
LONG LIVE COMICS! Yes Mangas and Eurocomics too obviously.
Stores like this are my favorite. Sadly they are dying
this guy looks so passionate and nice lol my local video game guy is closer to the video game guy from the Simpsons for example.
00:38 How much for the Stacy Keibler poster? 👌
cool you dont leave the name at all in the video thanks!
If you live in Lexington there's a store in the mall called Card Monster Games. They have a great selection of video games
Great, now Caleb is going to ruin his business. Good job.
@@Undead_slime lmao you're clueless
😂😂😂@@Undead_slime
I’ve bought so much stuff from them. Best preorder prices for every tcg.
I think game stores or comic shops should be 2,000 ft or less. His shop is way too big.
locking great
I feel like it’s the store owners responsibility to be out sourcing stuff, and game hunting. The owner shouldn’t be sitting around the shop all day. If you act like a cashier all day, you will probably get paid like one.
Pretty oblivious take. If you’re in your store you’re dealing with traffic that can lead to more sales and possible trade ins. Only so many places you can source, you want these people to want to bring stuff into you. Also if you’re paying employees, that’s a salary or two that can be used for other things especially advertising. You think a minimum wage kid cares about high level customer service or if your stores thrives? Not really.
My opinion of you has gone up so much
You making these videos helps out these shops so much
Other RUclips creators like u in this space would NEVER do this. They only think about themselves
Seriously thank u for doing stuff like this. You’re a great dude who’s trying to help others.
Not like the other RUclipsrs who would go in ignore the shop owner & wouldn’t care a slightest on advertising their shop. They would just complain after how “prices were high” (chase after right price specifically) lol
They didn't sell Taylor as a Lego set.
CaN i FliP iT?
he should sell OMEN Alienware etc Notebook, profits !
I luv the Taylor Swift💖Lego set 4:20 in
I'm seeing he's barely breaking even, I just hope he didn't put all of his eggs in one basket
CANDLES LETS GOOOOOOOO!!!
Renix Pesale?
This isn't my kind of video, I'm probably not to target audience, but Matt seems like a great guy and I wish him and his store the best
SPANKY SPANNKY SSSPPPAAANNNKYYY
Matt knows whats up. Love your local collectable stores!
🔥