Bowsers Basement Plymouth Video Game Store — Local services in Plymouth

First of all I’d like to start with saying that the kind young female employee who was working at the front of the store is not involved in this review. This store and the idea of it is an absolute joke, stop claiming to be for the players or for gamers because you are clearly not. Let’s be honest with ourselves you are a business and clearly a business that couldn’t care less about being honest and fair. Came in to trade in a DS, some DS games, and a Wii U. They wanted to only give me $175 for a great condition working 3DS xl, spirit tracks (which is a rare game complete), a wind walker Wii U, and twilight Princess for the WII U. If you know games or Nintendo, you know these are somewhat valuable items and that would’ve at least totaled over $200. I was told that they price according to a system and that they operate like GameStop, so my question is why even bother opening a store like this just to scam and screw over your customer base because most people wouldn’t know better? If it is so similar to GameStop, why not just open a GameStop? I want people to read this review and understand you should stop purchasing from stores like these. They will screw you over, overprice their items, and they will undervalue the items you bring in for trade. I asked could they go $20 more than the $100 offered for the Wii U and DS games, the employee said “I really can’t I’m sorry”. This whole idea of a system creating their prices is crap, if you wanted to base your prices off GameStop you should’ve just opened another GameStop! I never would stop to ever write poorly about a small business but I need to stop people from going here if I can. Please sell on eBay or Mercari if you’re looking to make money for yourself, and if you’re searching for retro games check Facebook marketplace and avoid stores like these that will price gauge you! Another excuse the worker tried to use was they don’t know if these items will sell, another load of crap they will spoon feed you to try to make you sell your items at an extremely low price. The employee will look at you like you’re crazy for not playing dumb and actually knowing the value of your items, and they do know if these items will sell 100%. They keep track of trending games and items constantly they know exactly what games will sell and which won’t, point being is this business is a load of crap. You guys wanna price gauge go for it but then also trying to completely screw your customer base by underpricing to the extreme is disgusting. You know exactly what you guys are doing attempting to market yourself as being for the gamer but you have no problem selling items you got for reasonable prices for more than sometimes 5x the price. I hope at least one person reads this review and from one gamer to another, don’t fall for their crap unless you’re trying to get rid of some invaluable stuff. They will take your high valued items and screw you over by making horrible offers, and then turn around and sell for 5x the price. Finally, they will lie to you and say they don’t know if games that sell everyday for 100s of dollars will sell or not. I accepted the trade offer that was given for the Wii U and DS games because that was fair in my mind, but then the thought occurred to me that I received $100 subtracting a 3DS XL and twilight Princess for the WIIU. The Wii U itself and DS games being around $100 is still low but fair enough, and the original for every item was $175. So they attempted to value my 3DS XL in amazing condition and twilight Princess for the WII U at being only $75 for both??? Again, claiming that this was based off of GameStop prices so let’s do some digging. A 3DS XL on GameStop is valued at $110-$120, and twilight Princess at $30. So that would mean for their claim to be so similar to GameStop my I should’ve been offered another $150 for those items but somehow we magically end up at $75? Again highlighting more lies regarding their...

I had Four VERY Damaged PS2 games from Childhood that I was kinda hoping for a “last resort” fix before replacing them. One of these games happened to be My copy of Silent Hill 3, and another was Star Wars Battlefront 2. These are classics and are cherished in my collection and it broke my heart that neither of these games worked. When I found out Bowsers Basement had resurfacing services I figured I’d give it a go. There were two members of staff (Moriah and Jules[THANK YOU, YOU ROCK!]) who resurfaced these games but were a bit disheartened to see both of them still had deep gouges in them that could not be buffed out. It wasn’t “the best” news but it was something. I’m happy to report all four of these games work as if in perfect condition. The buffing service is certainly worth a shot if you have a game you loved just a little bit too hard. Don’t be discouraged if they’re not perfect, I’m certainly no stranger to roached ass copies of old games from my destructive youth and your PS2 will handle way more than you would think.

Aside from their excellent staff and incredible Disc buffing; I am always happy to visit Bowsers Basement when I have a free weekend for their plethora of nostalgia dopamine I can feast off of at pretty reasonable prices. I’m happy to see this market thriving in a growing environment of digital downloads. I highly recommend Bowser’s Basement and I’m certainly coming back whenever I get the itch for some more...

Not quite understanding this whole "drop" thing. There are a few items I was interested in, but I was told that the items cannot be sold due to being cleaned and that some consoles are for display only. If a customer is willing to pay right there upfront, make the business transaction. Cleaning is irrelevant since I'm sure many of us could clean the device ourselves, and so are these "drops". With whom are you competing? These are fairly old consoles and games. Not to mention, it's a small business so crowds of people are not lined up out the door either. It doesn't make any sense. Business logic would be if an item is on the shelves - displayed or regular ticketed priced - sell it! Why even have it on display if it's not going to be sold? Again, they're old consoles; we know what they are already. This isn't the Switch 2 or anything like that. You're selling yourself short. Case in point, I noticed a customer inquiring about a console that was on display, and he was told it cannot be sold because it's display only. He was confused (as he should have been), and he left. Taking pictures of items and making a huge deal about these kinds of things making customers wait is not business logic. You're punishing the customers by making them wait when they're there in person wanting to pay for the items right then and there. You're losing business and it's frustrating. There's no sense behind this...