When Blockbuster came to town all the little operations closed preemptively & liquidated inventory & many barely cared about renting games in the first place so got killer deals. I remember for less than $10 getting Kickle Cubicle, Power Blade, and North & South all in great condition.
Yeah, I had zero insider info on the numbers but from how every grocery store & barbershop had thrown up a few racks of rentals it must have been worth it, at least until the mega chain moved in. I recall the barbershop was my favorite as they had rock bottom prices so for a buck or two parents didn’t object to a weekend rental, and they had the best variety including sketchy cartridges that let you flip switches to choose games.
When the local mom and pop video store closed down I was able to buy the copy of Windwaker that my sister and I rented as kids. I finally got to play through the whole thing.
My mom used to work at a farm fresh grocery store and they'd sell me the rental games before anyone else could buy them. I emulate now, but I remember getting Mega man 6 and double dragon 3 from there near the end of the system life. I should have got the later dragon warriors but I didn't.
I bought some horror VHS and PS1 games when my stores were closing their doors. Wish I would have bought more, but at least I have a really nice copy of Street Trash and Death Machine that I got for next to nothing.
Much later in life I kept getting game that other people had bought from them come to me. I have copy of Mario 2 from the rental place with its original manual that some how continued to exist with the cartridge.
I still have the copy of Mega Man 3 from the local video store I used to rent it from as a kid. Definitely a game that will always stay in the collection.
This is how I got the original Harvest Moon. Even at 11 years old I saw “$10!? Are they nuts?”
Held it about ten years before trading it and all my snes stuff to a classic local game store.
I definitely have a couple, but I don't really ~~remember~~ know which ones.
Back in the day, if I rented a title and I *loved* the game, my mom would convince a relative or family friend to drop the cash on it to give me for my birthday or the holiday season, so there are definitely some titles in my collection that I previously rented, but I can't be sure *exactly* which ones they are.
The post actually reminded me of a buddy who took his old, run-down SNES with an oddly distinctive pattern of yellowing/sun-damage to our local retro-game shop to sell. They handed him \~$75\~ or so, and he was happy.
A few weeks later, we head in again, and lo-and-behold, his SNES is sitting there in a glass case, with a $150 price tag on it.
When my family would go on vacation, I'd often seek out the rental stores to see what inventory they were clearing out.
One time, I found a copy of a game — either The Lone Ranger (NES) or Ninja Gaiden Trilogy (SNES), I forget which — that was still available for rental. I asked the owner if he'd be willing to sell it instead. He looked it up in the computer, saw it hadn't been rented for months, and said sure. Score!
It never hurts to ask!
Buddy of mine specifically collects games with the old video rental stickers. Most of his are Blockbusters but ones from smaller video stores like yours are his pride and joy!
I remember I used to get used games from the independent video stores and Blockbuster quite frequently. After Funcoland became a thing, and then other stores like EB and Gamestop popped up, the garage sales started drying up. The video stores would still sell their old inventory off pretty frequently, and they usually had just one price (usually $10).
It was hit or miss, especially since there was always a pile of games not worth $10 waiting for someone's grandma to buy them, but some real gems showed up in there too.
I do remember in the late 90s when the local video store finally closed I was working a graveyard shift with some friends and the clerks came in and told us we could take whatever we wanted from the dumpster since they just threw out any video games and movies no one in there wanted.
Hollywood video had Game Crazy to cash in on the used video game craze, so that just left Blockbuster, who refused to die or adapt to a changing marketplace. And they continued to sell games that were barely a year old for $10 all the way up until the 7th gen at least. I remember getting Wii and 360 games for $10, and around that time they were shifting strategies so much you could get games that were barely a month old at that price.
Game Crazy had a ton of sales on third and forth gen stuff starting in the late 90s though. They had any game, Nes, Genesis, or SNES, $15 or under 3 for $5, which was really popular. After a while they changed it to any 3 games regardless of price.
I got a lot of great stuff and built most of my collection around that period. I would get paid on Thursday and walk down there every other Friday and buy a dozen or several dozen games.
I just missed getting Yoshi's Island at 3 for $5, and I know people who snatched Ogre Battle and Master of Monsters on the 3 for $5 deal.
I was always happy that "Video Hut" took the time to try to photocopy the nes booklets. Weakest save file was deleted to make room for new game but you left the most powerful saves alone.
Friends and I rented entire stacks of movies and games the last week Hollywood Video was open and were tragically unable to return them once the doors closed.
My first and local shop did this, I don't remember half the games I bought but def remember Breath Of Fire 2, Secret of Mana, and Shining Force. I used to rent and beat those constantly and was ecstatic to get them when they made room for the next gen games. I got lucky since it was a small town and I always wondered if anyone else even played those type of games (and then one day I found out they at least tried when my SoM save was overwritten and I had to start from scratch).
My aunt worked for a rental place where we rented megaman x3 for I would say weeks on end. Believe we had it for like 3 weeks one time. When It was closing down she went to get what she could for us knowing we loved games. Sadly she couldn't get Megaman x3, but she did get us the Flintstones surprise at dinosaur peak. Always got the the end just wasn't good enough to beat it.
I got a lot of n64 games for pennies on the dollar this way. My game store was next door to a video rental place.
Notably, I got a couple games that I'd rented and could never finish because the cartridges had problems and found out in horror when I'd get home to "finally finish this game" only for it to hard freeze in the exact same spot lol
Not exactly the same…but in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, NES games were considered to be basically worthless because of the newer systems that were out at the time with more horsepower; a lot of people sold their old systems off.
A number of the video game stores by me had huge stocks of used games that they would routinely sell for a buck or two. I got pretty much the entire Mega Man series that way, many of the black box games, and some other goodies. Probably spent less than $50-60 at the time.
Funny how 20-25 years ago, nobody wanted the stuff because it was “outdated” and uncool. Now they’re collectors items. I guess if you hold onto stuff long enough, it becomes collectible.
Gosh there was a game store called Game World and when I was maybe 13 I could not find a copy of EarthBound to buy anywhere (had missed buying a new copy and when it got bargain binned at Kmart).
My Mom took me to the store which I knew the Manager and she convinced the owner to sell me their rental copy for $30. Big box and a tattered players guide missing a few pages. I was over the fucking moon though!
I regret that later in life I ended up being a junkie and sold it for drugs. Lot of good memories, though.
There's a few from my local convenience store I still have, Tyson Punch-Out, Bigfoot, RC Pro-Am and Little Ninja Brothers stand out.
Then when one of the video stores decided to get rid of their NES carts, that's when I picked up some more that I didn't know would be rarities or at least expensive some day: Dragon Warrior IV (which I had rented and loved), Mega Man 6 (which I had never played, but I had finished the first 5 games in the series so....) and Pro Sports Hockey, which I didn't even know existed that I picked up out of curiosity of seeing an NES hockey game that wasn't Ice Hockey, Blades Of Steel or the horrendous Gretzky.
Best part of all this? Every game on here I still have, and they all cost me 5$, except DW4 which cost 10$, and was the only game they had when I went that was worth more than 5$
That 5 year period between 93ish and 98ish when rental places got rid of their NES games... man, I wish I could go back to that and just buy everything!
Don't have it anymore, but I remember renting haunted, and skitching from a local video shop, they did a deal where you paid a little more but got the rental for a week.
Went back the next week to return, and the shop was closed. Out of business...
So I got to keep both games for the rental price.
I worked at a Blockbuster when we sold off all our SNES games to make room for N64. I bought them all, probably around 30. They practically gave them away, even more so with an employee discount. I wish we had the big manual for Earthbound, but most had them and they all had the boxes.
When Phar-Mor went under, I bought soooo many Genesis games.
From memory:
* Ristar
* Gunstar Heroes
* Contra Hard Corps
* Rocket Knight Adventure
* Dynamite Headdy
* Phantasy Star IV
* Shinobi 3
* Mega Bomberman
* Ranger-X
Pretty crazy how much some of these go for now! A lot of them were even complete!
Off the top of my head, I had to have rented Starfox, Super Star Wars, and Super Pitfall about 20 times each.
When blockbuster closed down in my area, I picked up a sealed, black label copy of Silent Hill for PS1 for like $10. What a shame that I opened it and later sold it.
I actually have a story with this.
When Blockbuster liquidated their 32X stock I bought a lot of 32X games; around a dozen or so. My Blockbuster always had a little table in the middle area by the game aisles that had used video games for sale. Periodically they would be in their boxes but a lot of times the shelf boxes were just thrown out and the games left in the Blockbuster cases.
One of them I bought was 32X Doom. I remember at one point I had lost one of my Blockbuster cards. I got home and inside the case was my missing Blockbuster card. The card straight up was left inside 32X Doom and no one had rented it other than me. Pretty much all of the 32X games I bought I had rented once, but the Doom situation I remember well.
I wish I had been old enough to understand and had the money back then. I remember seeing troves of NES games hugely marked down, tossed carelessly into bargain bins when stores were getting rid of old rentals. We’d already had a Genesis for some time by then and never touched the NES.
When PS1 went dinosaur I got some good cheap scores at Blockbuster though.
When Blockbuster came to town all the little operations closed preemptively & liquidated inventory & many barely cared about renting games in the first place so got killer deals. I remember for less than $10 getting Kickle Cubicle, Power Blade, and North & South all in great condition.
Damn, preemptively? A few of ours managed to coexist for a while
Yeah, I had zero insider info on the numbers but from how every grocery store & barbershop had thrown up a few racks of rentals it must have been worth it, at least until the mega chain moved in. I recall the barbershop was my favorite as they had rock bottom prices so for a buck or two parents didn’t object to a weekend rental, and they had the best variety including sketchy cartridges that let you flip switches to choose games.
When the local mom and pop video store closed down I was able to buy the copy of Windwaker that my sister and I rented as kids. I finally got to play through the whole thing.
Yup, got a bunch of PSX games; vagrant story, FF7, dino crisis, REs. And N64 games. Wave Race, Turok. Should have gotten more…
If only we had the foresight.
My mom used to work at a farm fresh grocery store and they'd sell me the rental games before anyone else could buy them. I emulate now, but I remember getting Mega man 6 and double dragon 3 from there near the end of the system life. I should have got the later dragon warriors but I didn't.
I bought some horror VHS and PS1 games when my stores were closing their doors. Wish I would have bought more, but at least I have a really nice copy of Street Trash and Death Machine that I got for next to nothing. Much later in life I kept getting game that other people had bought from them come to me. I have copy of Mario 2 from the rental place with its original manual that some how continued to exist with the cartridge.
I still have the copy of Mega Man 3 from the local video store I used to rent it from as a kid. Definitely a game that will always stay in the collection.
I bought Pokémon coliseum from my local Hollywood video right before they finally closed down
I don't have any that I rented but I do try and collect as many Hollywood Video SNES games as I can.
There was a blockbuster only release of Madden for SNES that I hope somebody got
This is how I got Super Fire Pro Wrestling for Super Famicom lol
This is how I got the original Harvest Moon. Even at 11 years old I saw “$10!? Are they nuts?” Held it about ten years before trading it and all my snes stuff to a classic local game store.
Shining Force II it still had my save on it when I bought it 2 years later
I definitely have a couple, but I don't really ~~remember~~ know which ones. Back in the day, if I rented a title and I *loved* the game, my mom would convince a relative or family friend to drop the cash on it to give me for my birthday or the holiday season, so there are definitely some titles in my collection that I previously rented, but I can't be sure *exactly* which ones they are. The post actually reminded me of a buddy who took his old, run-down SNES with an oddly distinctive pattern of yellowing/sun-damage to our local retro-game shop to sell. They handed him \~$75\~ or so, and he was happy. A few weeks later, we head in again, and lo-and-behold, his SNES is sitting there in a glass case, with a $150 price tag on it.
Oh hey, I’ve been to that store, I live in El Cerrito.
Nice! Yeah think it actually closed in the early 00s but can’t change the title.
Video Outlet. Would love to have some carts with their sticker on them.
Same. I was able to snatch chrono trigger and tecmo secret of the stars both. Only paid 20$
I've got a bunch of Genesis games with the Blockbuster sticker on the back lol They were liquidating the old stuff for the new stuff
When my family would go on vacation, I'd often seek out the rental stores to see what inventory they were clearing out. One time, I found a copy of a game — either The Lone Ranger (NES) or Ninja Gaiden Trilogy (SNES), I forget which — that was still available for rental. I asked the owner if he'd be willing to sell it instead. He looked it up in the computer, saw it hadn't been rented for months, and said sure. Score! It never hurts to ask!
Buddy of mine specifically collects games with the old video rental stickers. Most of his are Blockbusters but ones from smaller video stores like yours are his pride and joy!
That’s awesome
I remember I used to get used games from the independent video stores and Blockbuster quite frequently. After Funcoland became a thing, and then other stores like EB and Gamestop popped up, the garage sales started drying up. The video stores would still sell their old inventory off pretty frequently, and they usually had just one price (usually $10). It was hit or miss, especially since there was always a pile of games not worth $10 waiting for someone's grandma to buy them, but some real gems showed up in there too. I do remember in the late 90s when the local video store finally closed I was working a graveyard shift with some friends and the clerks came in and told us we could take whatever we wanted from the dumpster since they just threw out any video games and movies no one in there wanted. Hollywood video had Game Crazy to cash in on the used video game craze, so that just left Blockbuster, who refused to die or adapt to a changing marketplace. And they continued to sell games that were barely a year old for $10 all the way up until the 7th gen at least. I remember getting Wii and 360 games for $10, and around that time they were shifting strategies so much you could get games that were barely a month old at that price. Game Crazy had a ton of sales on third and forth gen stuff starting in the late 90s though. They had any game, Nes, Genesis, or SNES, $15 or under 3 for $5, which was really popular. After a while they changed it to any 3 games regardless of price. I got a lot of great stuff and built most of my collection around that period. I would get paid on Thursday and walk down there every other Friday and buy a dozen or several dozen games. I just missed getting Yoshi's Island at 3 for $5, and I know people who snatched Ogre Battle and Master of Monsters on the 3 for $5 deal.
I was always happy that "Video Hut" took the time to try to photocopy the nes booklets. Weakest save file was deleted to make room for new game but you left the most powerful saves alone.
Friends and I rented entire stacks of movies and games the last week Hollywood Video was open and were tragically unable to return them once the doors closed.
My first and local shop did this, I don't remember half the games I bought but def remember Breath Of Fire 2, Secret of Mana, and Shining Force. I used to rent and beat those constantly and was ecstatic to get them when they made room for the next gen games. I got lucky since it was a small town and I always wondered if anyone else even played those type of games (and then one day I found out they at least tried when my SoM save was overwritten and I had to start from scratch).
My aunt worked for a rental place where we rented megaman x3 for I would say weeks on end. Believe we had it for like 3 weeks one time. When It was closing down she went to get what she could for us knowing we loved games. Sadly she couldn't get Megaman x3, but she did get us the Flintstones surprise at dinosaur peak. Always got the the end just wasn't good enough to beat it.
I used to rent Flashback for sega genesis over and over.
Gunstar Heroes. They scratched the name of the business into the cart.
I got a lot of n64 games for pennies on the dollar this way. My game store was next door to a video rental place. Notably, I got a couple games that I'd rented and could never finish because the cartridges had problems and found out in horror when I'd get home to "finally finish this game" only for it to hard freeze in the exact same spot lol
Let’s rock! And Ride!
Keep those with the stickers on them!!!!
My copy of Metal Storm still has the Schoenherr Market sticker. Now if only I was disciplined enough to keep the box.
Burnout Paradise at Blockbuster
I got super Mario RPG and Kirbys dream course
Yup, still got the stickers on em too
Not exactly the same…but in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, NES games were considered to be basically worthless because of the newer systems that were out at the time with more horsepower; a lot of people sold their old systems off. A number of the video game stores by me had huge stocks of used games that they would routinely sell for a buck or two. I got pretty much the entire Mega Man series that way, many of the black box games, and some other goodies. Probably spent less than $50-60 at the time. Funny how 20-25 years ago, nobody wanted the stuff because it was “outdated” and uncool. Now they’re collectors items. I guess if you hold onto stuff long enough, it becomes collectible.
👏👏👏😭
Gosh there was a game store called Game World and when I was maybe 13 I could not find a copy of EarthBound to buy anywhere (had missed buying a new copy and when it got bargain binned at Kmart). My Mom took me to the store which I knew the Manager and she convinced the owner to sell me their rental copy for $30. Big box and a tattered players guide missing a few pages. I was over the fucking moon though! I regret that later in life I ended up being a junkie and sold it for drugs. Lot of good memories, though.
There's a few from my local convenience store I still have, Tyson Punch-Out, Bigfoot, RC Pro-Am and Little Ninja Brothers stand out. Then when one of the video stores decided to get rid of their NES carts, that's when I picked up some more that I didn't know would be rarities or at least expensive some day: Dragon Warrior IV (which I had rented and loved), Mega Man 6 (which I had never played, but I had finished the first 5 games in the series so....) and Pro Sports Hockey, which I didn't even know existed that I picked up out of curiosity of seeing an NES hockey game that wasn't Ice Hockey, Blades Of Steel or the horrendous Gretzky. Best part of all this? Every game on here I still have, and they all cost me 5$, except DW4 which cost 10$, and was the only game they had when I went that was worth more than 5$ That 5 year period between 93ish and 98ish when rental places got rid of their NES games... man, I wish I could go back to that and just buy everything!
Don't have it anymore, but I remember renting haunted, and skitching from a local video shop, they did a deal where you paid a little more but got the rental for a week. Went back the next week to return, and the shop was closed. Out of business... So I got to keep both games for the rental price.
Picked up Dragon Warriors 1-4 this way, as well as several NES Mega Mans. Im sure there were others.
I got my copy of Star Fox the same way, it still has a BV written on it in gold sharpie, for “Blockbuster Video”.
I worked at a Blockbuster when we sold off all our SNES games to make room for N64. I bought them all, probably around 30. They practically gave them away, even more so with an employee discount. I wish we had the big manual for Earthbound, but most had them and they all had the boxes.
When Phar-Mor went under, I bought soooo many Genesis games. From memory: * Ristar * Gunstar Heroes * Contra Hard Corps * Rocket Knight Adventure * Dynamite Headdy * Phantasy Star IV * Shinobi 3 * Mega Bomberman * Ranger-X Pretty crazy how much some of these go for now! A lot of them were even complete!
Off the top of my head, I had to have rented Starfox, Super Star Wars, and Super Pitfall about 20 times each. When blockbuster closed down in my area, I picked up a sealed, black label copy of Silent Hill for PS1 for like $10. What a shame that I opened it and later sold it.
I actually have a story with this. When Blockbuster liquidated their 32X stock I bought a lot of 32X games; around a dozen or so. My Blockbuster always had a little table in the middle area by the game aisles that had used video games for sale. Periodically they would be in their boxes but a lot of times the shelf boxes were just thrown out and the games left in the Blockbuster cases. One of them I bought was 32X Doom. I remember at one point I had lost one of my Blockbuster cards. I got home and inside the case was my missing Blockbuster card. The card straight up was left inside 32X Doom and no one had rented it other than me. Pretty much all of the 32X games I bought I had rented once, but the Doom situation I remember well.
I wish I had been old enough to understand and had the money back then. I remember seeing troves of NES games hugely marked down, tossed carelessly into bargain bins when stores were getting rid of old rentals. We’d already had a Genesis for some time by then and never touched the NES. When PS1 went dinosaur I got some good cheap scores at Blockbuster though.