Gamefellas Trading Cards and Video Games — Local services in Austin

First a guy started to help me with testing my console I was trading. That was all pretty straight-forward and surprisingly not painful. So far so good, right? Maaan, I thought so too, City of Austin. I thought so too. Then this other gentleman begins to help me. Older, scruffier. He's not as friendly as the other guy but tolerates my small questions and answers them, albeit curtly. I let them finish up my trade-in paperwork and go looking for some games so I could partially use my credit before closing. As i'm browsing, I heard the elderly gentleman... not sure of his name his handwriting is kind of childlike... John? Maybe jack? I'll call him Scruffy for the story's sake.

"Ya'll close soon, right?" I verified.

"Not till 9:00." Scruffy said.

"It's, uh, almost 9:00." I told him, at this point it is 8:51

"But I'll make sure to get this done don't you worry.

I took a moment and went up to him back at the counter with my trades, I said "Hey man I know you close at 9 but i'm only gonna get one or two things with my credit, I won't be in your hair for too long." He didn't nod, but he did look up at me.

Scruffy said shortly after I started browsing, "You wanna pick something out fellas we close in a few minutes"

At approximately 9:04pm, the time on my smartphone and my watch (OG Casio) I go up to Scruffy at the counter with 2 used games. He hands me a yellow piece of paper, this receipt is to count as my credits.

"Better take that." Scruffy said, "Since you're.... leaving."

He eyed the door.

I held both cases in front of me, "You can't give me a second?"

He didn't say a word. He just leered at me. It was a little scary.

"We're closed." He said flatly, "we closed like 4 minutes ago."

At first I wanted to be angry, and I was, but then I said, "I told you I was gonna browse quickly."

"I don't remember that" He said.

I've never done a 180 on my opinion a store so quickly and so truthfully. This time I actually spent more then 15 minutes there and one of two things happened:

An incredibly rude and impotent elderly man refused to let me slide by with a 5 minute grace EVEN AFTER he made sure the biz took me for all I was worth in my trade-ins, which is fine and expected, but all I asked for was store credit so why not return some good will. In the name of customer service

I thought what if this poor man his having issues and can't reach out? He can barely hold a public conversation. Even the other clerk (the nicer one, burly guy like me) seemed surprised that he was saying the things he was saying

And if the answer is "store closes at 9 bro" well, fair enough, but maybe make the timeline clear before your business gets your obvious profit, but I miss the ability to use my credits, despite stepping into the establishment 20 minutes before close. Even though I let my intentions known to your employees to no response. It was clear that i was worthless to you after the fact. Prepare your customers with some common decency instead of drooling on your polo while you look up the price of a game. (actually happened)

After there was enough silence I said "Oh... kay. That kind of sucks." Silence still, "Alright thanks for uh..." and I trailed off and began to walk out.

I had nothing to thank him for. He took my stuff and gave me some yellow paper as tender (which is worthless at any other business besides Gamefellas) and then refused to let me use said tender even partially.

THEN, icing on the cake, I see the elderly man in the reflection of the glass windows flash the biggest smile, as if the biggest customer service blunder in Austin local business didn't happen, and he waves, "Thanks, hope you come back real soon!"

I was literally in that store YESTERDAY telling some other guys how much I loved this place. Now I will not be back. Please either follow up with this employee's behavior, or revisit the aptitude evaluation you give employees to ensure they are mentally/physiologically capable and do not need assistance from others to successfully...

Hello everyone. First of all, I am a longtime retro gamer, and collector. I also collect music, movies, art, books, gemstones and more. Every city I live in or visit, I search out used media shops. I currently live in South Austin, and my three favorites here in the hill country region of Texas are GameFellas (South Austin), The D-Pad (New Braunfels), and Game Over (Several locations).

I have been going to Game Fellas for about SEVEN years now and have NEVER had a bad experience. Bobby, who is the GM of the store, is always helpful and knowledgeable. This also goes for the employees at the store as well. Sal, who is one of the current employees, is fun to talk to and has the kindest energy. Truly a wonderful human being.

As for the store, the selection and prices are some of the best in the Hill Country. In my 33 years of life, I have been to 52 countries and almost all 50 states in the US. Please hear me when I say, GameFellas is a well-rounded used game/video store with great prices, a solid selection (better than solid depending on trade-ins), and good customer service. They have good science fiction and horror movie selections, as well as great animation films. If you are a Disney or Don Bluth collector, this a cool place to check out. They of course, also have a substantial retro game library stretching through all generations. From the 8-bit NES, 16 bit SNES, PC Engine, and Saturn, on through to the PS4. Their handheld library is also great. PSP, PS Vita, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, GBA, DS, 3DS, NeoGeo Pocket, and more. Truly, it's hard to touch on everything that they have, but these are just a few libraries that I find them to have an above-average selection. Please remember that because their inventory is based on trade-ins, their selection is going to vary. Of course, these are just some of my personal favorites, so know that their selection is not limited to the genres I listed.

Many of these negative reviews I have read here and on other local used game/video stores seem to be one-off bad experiences or simple misunderstandings. For instance, ALL used game stores, pawnshops, and record shops have a no-cash refund policy on trade-ins. I will not attempt to address more reviews, but, it seems that many of these customers did not get exactly what they wanted, and were therefore disgruntled or upset. This is NOT a substantial reason to give a store an exaggerated and poor review. If you are going to post a review, one should look at the store experience objectively and without bias.

As a gamer and collector living in Austin, this store is ALWAYS my first stop when I make my game/record/movie store rounds. Thanks for SEVEN great years GameFellas. Here's to...

Trade in worth has gone down a lot on games. sold a game to them just to see it marked up at a super high price. why couldn't i have gotten any close to partial of that price. what ive come across is the price adjustments on their app they use can be manipulated. make sure you contact a few places before jumping to one quote. remember you can get your moneys worth at multiple places.ive gotten better deals from their competitors. this is from their guidelines " The prices in your Game Price Guide profile can be adjusted each store owner/manager to better reflect your market condition. Used Sale, Credit Trade-in and/or Cash Trade-in prices can be adjusted across the board to adjust prices on all video game platforms. You can also adjust Used Sale, Credit Trade-in and/or Cash Trade-in prices by platform if you want to raise the prices on one platform, but lower on another. For example, it is possible to lower the Cash Trade-in prices for Genesis by 35% but raise the Credit Trade-in prices for PlayStation 2 by 15% and raise the Used Sale prices for Nintendo Wii by 8%. All of this functionality is built into our system and can be adjusted by the store owner/manager at any time.

Note about competing with GameStop & EB Games:

While we understand wanting to have lower prices than the competition, we feel that focusing primarily on price when competing with a 2,000+ store chain can be, and often is, a losing proposition. While the Game Price Guide allows you to lower selling prices and raise trade-in prices to whatever level you want, we encourage all independent video game retailers to focus on service and selection and a little less on price when competing with GameStop or any big box retailer. Chances are good that you already have friendlier sales people and offer better service than GameStop. As GameStop moves away from older platform, there will always be a number of Vintage Game Platforms you can offer your customers without competing with GameStop, EB Games or any other national retailer. When you open your 10th, 50th or 100th store, you'll have better economies of scale to compete with the big boys, but until then focus on your strengths including items they don't carry like Controller Mods and High End Accessories. Over time, customers will glady pay another buck or two for a game in exchange for better customer service and selection worthy of a video game...