The Experience Share Video Games — Local services in Alameda

Just wanted to share my experience with this place.

Back in late June, I dropped off a box with some old consoles and games—Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, a Sega Dreamcast, and a Super Nintendo. The owner told me they’d call within two days with a quote after checking them out.

Well, two days passed—no call. I tried calling them myself, but they ignored my number. A couple weeks later, I stopped by in person and asked one of the employees for an update. All they said was, “We have over 8 boxes to go through, including yours.” At that point, I felt like it was a waste of time.

If they had just picked up the phone, I wouldn’t have needed to show up. So I let another month go by. Eventually, I called again—this time from a different number—and they actually answered. I asked about my box, and one of the female managers said, “Oh, we’re ready to purchase your games. Not sure why nobody reached out to you?” It had been over a month by then.

I told her I wasn’t interested anymore and just wanted to pick up my stuff. I went the following week to grab the box, trusting everything was still there. But when I got home and looked through it, my Super Nintendo was missing.

I called them again using a different number. The manager I spoke to didn’t have a clear answer and passed the phone to the owner. I asked him about the missing console, and his reply was, “There was never any Super Nintendo in the box.”

At that point, I just said thanks and hung up. Honestly, be careful if you’re thinking about selling or trading stuff with this store. I’d suggest just buy what you want and leave it at that. Selling or trading there? Not worth it. They lowball offers and tax hard on their own inventory.

Poor customer service, and yeah—they stole from me. It wasn’t about the value of the Super Nintendo—I can replace that. It’s about the principle. Trust and honesty went right out the window.

Thanks...

This gives me local GameStop but so much better vibes.

The people here are very friendly and quite helpful with information. You can tell that the people that work there have a wide variety of passions and interests relating to video games and collectibles of all genre types. If you are looking for a nostalgia trip this is the place. There are also lots of new titles from recent releases as well.

It has a really great variety of used games. If you ever had an old console that you want to buy games for this place is worth checking out.

If you like collecting Pokémon plush, also a great place to check out.

This place also offers repairs of old consoles and they also sell spare parts. I haven’t tried it but it’s also worth asking them. A few folks working there have tinkerer mentalities and seem quite knowledgeable. I asked about repairing an old game boy with corroded battery.

Right now Pokémon cards are a hot buy with the recent Pokémon surge and they sell them here, there’s smaller packs that can be purchased as well as booster packs. The folks there are quite helpful, if you are a parent that needs help buying Pokémon cards they’re quite friendly and may offer an idea of what to potentially buy, these cards are all random so they may not get their favorite Pokémon or it may not be...

As a long time video game collector/player I was so excited as a east bay resident for us to finally have a retro game store that wasn't Gamestop when The Experience Share first opened. I have been shopping here ever since they opened and have had nothing but positive experiences:The store owner and his staff are amazing,they are all very friendly and knowledgeable when it comes to different genres and time periods for video games. I have been rebuilding my collection ever since it got stolen,and it is so nice to just stop by here and have the many options to chose from on what part of my collection I want to rebuild. In the time that The Experience Share has been open I have been able to complete my GameCube collection, find rare titles for Super Nintendo/PlayStation 1,and as well pick up modern titles for my Ps5 and Switch whenever I want to play what is new. When it comes to trade ins I definitely feel they give you a better deal here that other game stores...