Don’t you just love fictitious game sellers.

I sometimes buy games from Amazon when I can get a deal, and I shop at other places too. So I am familiar to getting some e-mail advertisements about deals and promotions. Yet, when i get an e-mail from a company saying that I can sell a product back to them, which I originally bought from them, I think that is really crummy. There is a reason I bought the game, it is because I wanted it. So even if I beat it and I’m hardly playing it now doesn’t mean I want to sell it back to you, nor do I need a reminder.

Also, as much as I hate Gamestoppo and they practices, I have never got an e-mail or call from them being like “Hey, I see you recently purchased this game, and we buy used games, you can sell it back to us for credit”. So, It’s cool you got a used game program now, don’t use my shopping data to shove it down my throat.

Thanks.

Well would you look at the new GameStop! Gone are the particle board counter tops stuffed to the brim with strategy guides, up-sell tchotchke trinkets and fast food stains from the workers’ lunch hour.

In their place? Hard wood floors, comfortable seating and ample lighting. Nintendo products will no doubt remain in their prime front-of-store position.

And that’s fitting too, considering these pics look like any number of Wii and DS kiosks I’ve seen at the malls during my holiday shopping.

(more…)

Santa Claus is filling his bag with major holiday Wii titles a little early this year, but there’s a problem.

He’s not allowed to have them yet.

Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party and Animal Crossing: City Folk are hitting the streets early at select GameStop and Wal-Mart stores.

Beneficiaries of the early sales are showing proof of their purchases across the Web. Both Wii Fanboy and GoNintendo have published reader-submitted photos of opened cases, game discs and instruction manuals over the last 24 hours.

Major retailers have been breaking street dates for years. This year alone, blockbuster titles such as Rock Band 2 and Fallout 3 have slipped by cash registers prior to their scheduled release dates.

Though pleasing to lucky customers, publishers can levy penalties for broken street dates. Retail chain K-Mart was fined $10,000 in October for selling copies of Fable II in Australia prior to its release date.

A more serious financial wrist-slap, K-Mart was also prohibited from selling Gears of War 2 for the first two weeks of its availability.

Ubisoft’s third Rayman Raving Rabbids minigame installment, TV Party is scheduled to release Tuesday. Nintendo’s City Folk, the latest in its popular Animal Crossing simulation series, is due out Sunday.

I’ve had bad experiences at GameStop in the past, and I’ve let them be known here on Infendo, but today I think the cold, hard lump of ice that is my non-beating heart has begun to thraw. Just a little though.

Infendo reader Casey W. writes…

I just had a pretty good experience at Gamestop. They are having a special trade in bonus when you trade in games towards Super Mario Galaxy or Guitar Hero III (20% bonus). I traded in a ton of Wii and DS games that I wasn’t playing anymore and put it towards those games. On top of the 20% bonus, the manager signed me up for their “edge card” which gave me an additional 10% on trade-ins (and a year of Game Informer for free). Then, their was still some kind of special going on when you traded in Wii games and I got even more trade-in value! Seriously, some of the games I was trading in I got almost 50% of their retail value back in trade! I paid for Mario Galaxy, paid for Guitar Hero III (that’s $90 retail!), paid for Yoshi’s Island DS for Molly, and still had trade-in money left so I picked up Carnival Games for $10!

Like I told the Infendo crew this morning, I think I know how I’ll be getting myself a few games for an upcoming flight to Chicago (and Galaxy for, well, whenever)…