Guardian Games — Local services in Corvallis

Let me start off by saying I have been coming to the guardian games in Portland for nearly 12 years, since I was a literal elementary schooler, and have participated in events, summer camps, new releases and spend a large sum of may parents money on games and toys growing up. Recently I’ve been unable to buy more than simply Christmas president, and haven’t been a frequent shopper for some time. My experience with the Portland store was abysmal. I was trying to purchase an item from the location in Corvallis online, as it was one I’ve been looking to gift my brother to get him into Warhammer and other tabletop games that are similar. There is no shipping option on a store in Corvallis, one that has a perfectly optimal online store that allows you to browse and buy there entire catalog. This is only useful to people who live in Corvallis, and is almost insulting when you’re trying to purchase a rather expensive piece of plastic. I called both locations a number of times, first Corvallis then Portland, and quickly realize that these people were not communicating to each other. Corvallis told me I needed to put in a special request with Portland, and that would allow them to transfer the item from one store to the other, solving the shipping issue and alowing me to not pay for the item before I could see it. This made sense to me, but apparently I was misinformed. After speaking with someone at guardian games for a third time about my worry that it would be sold before they were able to take it off the shelf ( I offed to pay for it in advance several times), they said they would write in the request that it was needed before thanksgiving (in time for my brothers birthday), nearly a month away from when I put in the request. Each day after talking to them I would check the online store, and sure enough it was still there. I finally, feeling worried that it would be sold before they could transfer the item, tried another solution and had a buddy who goes to OSU drive it down. I called Corvallis hopping to buy it and have him pick it up, only to learn the item was sold, they had never received my request or information I had given the Portland location, and had no way of telling when it will be back in stock (likely never). I wouldn’t even care about it if they had not gotten my hopes up and made it seem like something was being done to fulfill my requested purchase. I don’t think I will ever want to choose buy from them when I couldn’t even trust them to do this one simple request. I feel awful, as I’ve bought from them before fully knowing I could find a better deal on Amazon or eBay. Don’t think I will ever bother with trying to buy anything from them after this, which is something I wouldn’t imagine feeling before...

Imagine price gouging your community for OVER market prices and 2x-3x MSRP. Seriously, even some of the staff knows it’s ridiculous. I’ve been coming here for the past several years, and it’s been sad to watch them slowly raise prices to take advantage of the hype. I guess true colors shows when money gets involved; they definitely care more about that than the community they’ve built. I’m recommending to everyone who reads this review to NOT feed into their behavior by buying from them. And to management who is reading this review; I urge you to reconsider your decisions and understand that the community is what keeps your shop running. If you turn on them like you are doing now, then nothing good will...

Staff is really great. Pricing, especially on Pokemon cards, are ludicrous. $80 for a prismatic booster bundle, $8 for a single DR pack. I understand there’s a market for these, but this isn’t even close to market price. They charge higher than the average scalper. I noticed that when DR first released, they had acceptable (still a tad higher than MSRP) prices. A few weeks later, they raised the tag by 20% or more. I can’t imagine their supplier increasing the price by that much, and if they are, then maybe they should be looking for another supplier. Seriously takes the fun out of the card game community when stores like these are charging this...