Game Castle — Local services in Thomaston

I drove almost 2 hours to patronize this small business. I was more than happy to make the drive because I thought I’d found a place to scratch my retro gaming itch. I purchased a GameCube game and drove my nearly two hour trek to get home, excitedly popped it into my GameCube and was met with a disk read error.

I noticed there were a few scratches on the disc so I decided to try cleaning it. No luck. I contacted the store and spoke to Mary (who I believe is the shop owner) and she informed me she’d be happy to swap out the game for another copy. Great! So I drive another 2 hours and she looks at the disc and says she won’t be able to swap it out. why? Because she claimed it looked like it had been run through a disc dr. (It hadn’t.) So, I asked if she had a disc refurbishing machine to run it through because I’m not as interested in another copy insomuch as just having a working copy.

She takes it to the back, runs it through the machine and after about 20 minutes of waiting she brings it out to her associate to boot up. As she’s handing the disc to her employee she tells her flat out “it’s not going to work, it’s got a warp on the side.” She was right. It didn’t.

So, I ask if she’d reconsider exchanging it. She said she wouldn’t because she claimed I’d damaged it by cleaning it. I told her that I’d never have had to do anything to it if it worked to begin with. Besides, any damage she was claiming that I’d done was repaired by the machine she used. And she plainly told her associate that it had nothing to do with the surface and that there was a warp on the side.

She said she wouldn't honor my purchase because - get this- it was the second time that week someone had brought back a damaged GameCube game. That's right, I would be out of 40.00 because they'd already fixed one of their mistakes that week and they had reached their weekly limit.

I was surprised and frustrated, but mostly disappointed. Not only had the small business not honored their word, stood by their product, or taken care of their customer, but now I have to continue to my search for my one-stop retro-shop.

It’s a shame. Poor decision making like what Mary displayed is what sinks business. I’m sure she’ll respond as she has with other low rating reviews with some off topic suggestion of how I can patronize their establishment again, but it simply won’t happen.

I’ve disputed the charge with my credit card company. Unfortunately, it was a split arrangement payment. I’m out 10 bucks on a 40 dollar game even if I win the dispute. That doesn’t factor in the time I’ve spent driving or the gas money that I invested in this shop that has such low regard for their customers they won’t even admit they messed up and sold a faulty game.

As much as I’d like to recommend them, I can’t. I simply and genuinely do not have confidence that anyone can be sure they won’t be taken for a ride as I’ve been.

Purchase at your own risk...

EDIT: One more thing, I was able to purchase the same game that I bought here along with FIVE OTHER GAMES from Gamestop for the same price that I paid for just one game from...

Ah Game Castle, the fond memories I have. The staff here is pretty awesome and most if not all are local. However, there seems of late to be a bit less of an emphasis on, well, games, as maybe a 10th of the store is taken up by this ugly smart phone section these days. A couple old school consoles used to have much larger selections and are now relegated to about one shelf. Some are still healthy sizes like for the ps2, but my friend the purple lunchbox (the Gamecube) has long since past it's glory days in the collection of games Game Castle offers. However, you should support this store if you want that collection to grow. There is also a movie selection if you're someone who never got over blockbuster dying I guess? Most worthy of note is that it's a local game store that sells the more "nerdy" things, like dice for Dungeons & Dragons or Magic the Gathering cards, though these items don't have grand prominence in the store. My suggestion is that if you're looking for a game that you consider an old school "classic" don't bother looking around the store, go up to the display counter and look in it, because most of the games that you think are classic are probably more valuable than other games on the store shelves and they keep the good stuff locked up in that...

i bought copy's of game genie, super gameboy and zelda link to the past. the copy of link to the past was cracked in a spot that didnt allow the game to be played. i could have broke off the piece stopping the game from playing but i thought for $35 i should a least get a good copy so i had my step mother take it back because she was in town the next day.. she took it back with no trouble at all. the replacement copy didn't work right away, so i cleaned it and now it works fine. it was so dirty it seems they don't clean any of the games they got. the other things i bought had to be cleaned too. but all in all i do have working games. just next time i will make sure to look closely at the game...