GT Games — Local services in Carleton Place

GT Games was unfortunately not what I was hoping for when I heard a new gaming store was coming to the Carleton Place area.

When initially hearing about them, I did some research and saw they had a history of running an annual CHEO charity scam. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but unfortunately it was exactly as it seems.

They essentially take the trade in of whatever retro games you bring in to trade and donate half or all of it to CHEO. This meaning the seller of the old games gets nothing or close to it and GT Games pockets all profit, on top of getting a tax write off. Generally, extremely shady as they are donating nothing from their own pockets and keeping all profits. I would advise anyone who wants to help a good cause to donate to CHEO directly and not these con artists.

Even after hearing about all that, I was hoping the actual in store shopping experience would be better, perhaps they were ignorant of the harm they were doing. However, going into their store just proved my worst fears about them.

When I went in, they were running some kind of trading card event which I was initially happy to see. However, the staff seemed to all mostly be behind the counter barely paying attention to the event except when the photo opportunity and good PR came along for them. I was happy for the people enjoying the event but disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm from staff as an onlooker to the whole thing.

Still disregarding that, the shopping experience was just as poor. I was hoping to get some retro video games I was struggling to find in my hometown, and when I found a few games from my list of what I was looking for, they had no pricing.

This seemed quite strange as generally most stores worth their salt put pricing to streamline the customer's experience. I tried asking why they do not price their games, but ended up waiting 10-15 minutes for one of them to notice me waiting for help. They were just chatting amongst themselves and paying zero attention to the customers.

When I finally got their attention I asked the guy working and he said it is because they update their prices to whatever the market is currently indicating. He then spent way too much time getting me prices on the stack of games I was interested in.

He then proceeded to tell me absurdly high prices that did not make any sense. Every other used game store within 200km of this place has better prices.

This was disappointing as I had wasted time waiting to get prices only to be told ridiculous values. I have been a collector for over a decade so I understand the market quite well and can confidently say even Ebay can give you better deals.

I normally never do this, but I asked if prices were negotiable. At most normal game stores there's almost no need to haggle as they keep prices fair and know how to run a business properly. I was immediately denied so I left everything behind except for one game which I literally could not find anywhere else, Ebay included.

Super disappointing to see, as lately I find the Ottawa gaming store options have been fantastic and consistently outdoing themselves. Unfortunately, these guys reminded me about how bad a retro game store can be.

On top of this, I caught them sending family members to gaming conventions in the Ottawa area to try and get them new inventory. I am okay with this practice for gaming stores looking for inventory. Totally fair game. I draw the line however, at them offering extremely low values to the vendors at the convention that are not sustainable for them. Let the people who can pay closer to asking or collectors buy the games they need. These guys do not deserve it.

Their bold claims on radio advertisements and social media ads about being the best game store in the Ottawa/Carleton Place area were unfounded.

To conclude, I would recommend every other game store in the Ottawa/Gatineau/Carleton Place region before recommending these guys at GT Games.

I am always for second chances, so if you guys amend some of these terrible practices and do better...

DO NOT DONATE any games or collectibles to this business.

They are using misinformation to make it seem like tTHEY are making charitable donationg to CHEO when in fact they are paying you for your items and then using YOUR money to make the donation to CHEO. They are donating $0 themselves and in fact are actually getting tax rebates off of your donation.

If you actually want to get rid of your items and make a significantly larger donation I recommend joining some local groups and asking for aid selling your items in order to donate the proceeds to CHEO, you will be able to donate multimes times the amount that this business will offer you in a trade in.

This business donated $2300 last year (2023) from peoples "donations" and sold the items for multiple times that amount lining their own pockers off of YOUR donation.

Another thing to note is that they do not give you a trade in value for your items at the time of donation, they will inform you of the value 1-4 weeks later so if you dont think that the value that THEY decided on is enough you are out of luck and have no recourse to get your items returned to you as it was a "donation".

This whole scheme is preying on people not knowing the value of the items they have and on parents whose kids left home and left stuff behind. They are not doing this donation drive out of the goodness of their hearts, it is a thinly veilled way to get high value donations at a fraction of the normal cost and to use your trade ins to get...

Issues with shipped orders (seems to be an ongoing issue looking through the reviews here) and very unpleasant interactions with the manager.

I made an order around 6pm on November 3rd and paid for expedited 2 day shipping. I explained to the employee on the phone I had a tournament this weekend and was told it wouldn't be a problem (no mention of issues with their shipping provider)

I called today to ask when I should expect to receive my order and was told it would be here on November 13th. The manager Alex claimed it was shipped on November 5th but when I told him that was the day the label was created he changed to it was shipped today November 7th and would arrive on the 13th.

He then changed his story to the delay was due to processing countless orders and that they've been having issues with their shipping provider. I asked why wouldn't the employee mention this and why isn't there a message on the site explaining this? Alex seemed very upset about these questions and began talking over me quite aggressively and when I tried to speak he hung up the phone.

I called back a 2nd time and asked if we could discuss this like adults to which he accused me of raising my voice to him so I raised my voice to show him the difference. Unsurprisingly he hung up a 2nd time.

Alex doesn't seem to handle being caught being dishonest to customers and changes his tone very quickly. I will continue to support Canadian businesses just not this...