Cartridges Galore Video Games- State College PA — Local services in Ferguson Township

This is a great video game store. The staff are always friendly and helpful, stressed out but who isn't, and I actually appreciate the honesty and candidness about that. They have video game music playing in the background near the check out counter which as a vgm lover I always enjoy hearing that over the same ads that run constantly at somewhere like GameStop. The store and items always look clean and not covered dust or anything like that.

Arianna (apologies if I misspelled) is very friendly and great to chat with about anything. The store always looks presentable when I go in and I see when they aren't busy with customers the rack games are getting sorted and the showcase games are getting stocked. I also appreciate the daily pictures posted to their overall Instagram which features all CG stores, but also at the State College store whomever is posting them to their individual Facebook store page always does a great job in letting you see something interesting that may have come in to the store, from collections of classics in a series like Silent Hill, to games celebrating an anniversary milestone since being released and then to the latest Nintendo/Playstation/Xbox releases!!

I traded in a large quantity of retro games and game consoles in March 2024 and Nick and Nick (there are two Nicks!) made it really easy for me to bring them in to drop them off and had a quote within just a couple of days. They were able to split it up to have instant cash using PayPal and store credit too. I have used the majority of that store credit on games for the Nintendo Switch as I do still collect for that and PS5. I had thought trading in such a large quantity may have been a hassle, but instead it was really simple and easy.

Since the trade in I've been stopping in weekly if not more often to see what they have, and while the stock of newer games from my experience doesn't change that much, you never know when you could walk in and find something unexpected you have been looking for and there's something about that excitement for me that makes it a thing I look forward to again and again. One day I walked in and someone had just traded in the Deluxe Version of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth which was just a few months old at that time. I was really excited to walk out with that one and add it to my collection. It looks great next to my Deluxe version of Final Fantasy VII Remake!!

I love stopping by to see whatever latest Limited Run or other limited-print games are available, what newer games have been traded in looking at the "retro" games from my childhood, it's all great stuff and I'm glad a place like this exists in State College.

They also have monthly sales and a loyalty membership which are great and help save money all the time. There is also a monthly freebie that always goes quickly.

I do have a few suggestions for improvement. If you could carry video game soundtracks on CD and vinyl that would be great as I love them but have to order online always. Would be so much fun to stop by the store and find something like that. The obvious more staff coverage would be good too so that they aren't so stressed, but I fully understand how business works and watching the bottom line. Is there a way to get CG shirts for customers? Rotating the stock more between the stores on some of the showcase games that aren't moving at one store may move better at another perhaps? Carrying more new releases would also be good for those that want to purchase them through CG. I was sad that they didn't carry the new Dragonball Sparking Zero game. But they did have Silent Hill 2 and the new Zelda and Luigi's Mansion 2 when it came out over the summer!

Keep up all the great work and see...

First of all, looked up their hours and went during reg hours to find door locked and a sign saying “out to lunch” so I waited a few minutes, and someone finally showed up walking right past me to open the door. Fine that’s no problem I don’t necessarily think it’s bad they couldn’t say hello or hold the door for someone obviously waiting to shop here.

I start looking around and they have hundreds if not thousands of dollars of inventory loose not locked up, cool so I can shop that stuff independently, which I had started to collect a few items I was going to purchase, then when I wanted to see a $16 game that for some reason was locked up in a box, the clerk came and unlocked it for me.

Since the small locked container has game carts stacked on top of eachother, obscuring the full view of each, I asked to see a couple others, and that’s when she told me she has a lot of work to do and can’t give me the time to see all the games i was interested in.

In all, I had eyeballed about $70-$85 (actually wanted to see a $29 item behind the glass too, so it likely could have been over $100) worth of games I wanted. But the issue was there was about 3 other items I wanted that were all behind glass, and didn’t want to take her away from what she was so busy doing, since she made it so clear that was more important, though I can’t fathom what’s more important than serving a customer. After thinking about it for a second, I set my merchandise on the counter and walked out.

I have zero need to go back, there’s plenty of other places to find old games, especially since I felt so unwelcome by the person working. And look I get if you have been tasked with a lot to do, your under pressure to get it done sure that’s fine, then don’t set the store up so some $15 games arbitrarily are locked up and customers NEED the store associates assistant to look at. It was made clear she didn’t appreciate I wanted to see the condition of the items before purchasing, and I can’t be the only one who wants to shop like that. I’m sure when Cartridges Galore buys their inventory, they get the opportunity to see clearly the condition of the item. How you don’t understand that’s a major component of retro game customers is astounding to me.

It feels very stupid to have a store set up that you force customers to be assisted by clerks to do their shopping if you’re simultaneously going to give them so much to do in addition to that. I was also put off by the way she clarified her work was much more important than me wanting to look over these items. I get I need babysat to shop the locked up games, but don’t lock them up and get snippy with me when I ask to see them.

For those reasons, I find your system is majorly flawed, especially when you want to employ only one person in the store at a time, and that person seems extremely irritated people don’t just want to buy items sight unseen, you either have to hire someone more polite, pay a second worker to be there when she has “all this work”, or trust customers to be able to shop for themselves for items that are $16.47. Those ones don’t need to be behind lock and key.

I’ve replied “STOP” to the cartridges galore texting service, and I won’t be going back for fear of being made to feel like me and my money in my pocket im prepared to fork over is a problem. eBay doesn’t let you touch the items either, but atleast you don’t get made to feel your a burden for coming there to spend money. It’s a shame too because I wish I wasn’t basically shoed away by choosing to shop at a brick and mortar.

It’s quite insulting when I work in customer service as well and I would NEVER be able to get away with treating...

I had a very solid Pokemon card collection that I entrusted this store with putting a trade value for. I dropped off approximately 2000 cards to this store in state college. After two days of them evaluating the cards and determining a cash value, they gave me a call to come in. What I was told from the beginning was that cartridge galore pays out 50% of value for cash prices for Pokemon cards but they did not accept bunk at the time. Anything that qualifies as bunk, was any card under the $10 threshold because they did not like to give out less than $5 a card (at 50% value). I used the app Dex to track my collection and know the prices, based off of the TCG website. With that in mind, I got back a good bit of my cards and got an offer that seemed ok at the time. I didn't go through the cards at that point and trusted the employee on what their trade in policies were, which is where I went wrong. Come to find out, a bunch of cards that were considered “bunk” were chosen for the trade, unknowing to me. After coming home and going through the cards they turned down and going back to my tracker, that is when I noticed what cards they had chose from the collection. I had approximately 50 or so cards that were considered “bulk” that were part of the trade in even after they said they didn’t accept those cards. I understand it’s up to me as the customer to do my own homework and have a part to play in the transaction as well. However, I entrusted my collection to a store, thinking I would revive integrity and honesty with my transaction. I do not feel I received that in this case. I was told a value for trade was at 50% for cash, I did not get that. I was told certain cards don’t trade in that were part of that transactions. Some small examples are the eveelutions from prismatic. Just the ex’s. Only the flareon ex holds a value over $10 at $15. I had all of the eveelutions and none exist in my collection after redoing my cards. Another example is a shinny slowpoke from paldean fates. At the time of trade, that card was less than $8. It was no longer in my collection. Many more were taken in for trade at the $4-$8 range. Yes, I accepted the trade and took the cash. The meaning of this post is to inform others to watch out for the actual trade value. I traded in about $7,000 worth of cards (not knowing that was the actual value of the cards until I went back and put in the cards they passed on in my Dex app) and received $2,500 in cash. That is roughly 35% in cash value. Please beware.

Also, this was my VERY first interaction with this store. No other transactions were ever...