If it’s one thing that many older gamer remembers, it’s the little stores back in the days that sold video games, allowed you to trade them in, and whatnot.  Even in today’s age where game retail seems to be dominated by GameStop/EB Games, these small stores still exist.  One said store is GameDeals, a little second hand store in New Westminster (suburban Vancouver) situated within walking distance from Columbia Station along the Expo line.

Just recently, GameDeals’ manager Brian Hughes finished a five episode series in conjunction with Dissapointed People centered around their store that was presented by ScrewAttack:

Although I’m sitting on the fence as to whether I actually liked the series or not, as soon as I found out that it was a real video game store in Metro Vancouver, I literally left to check it out.

Walking into the store to me was like walking into a ScrewAttack feature; If you’ve seen the series, you already know what it looks like.  This really is a true gamer’s store, covered wall-to-wall with gaming memorabilia, fanart, various trinkets, and games and systems that go all the way back to the Atari 2600. The prized possession of GameDeals, it seems, is the fact that they were able to get their hands on the limited edition Megaman 9 box. If you’ve got money to spend, they’re selling it for $500.  To be honest, I thought I’d never see that box with my own eyes; I just did today.

You can find just about every current gaming mag you can think of here, plus they have tons of merchandise, including their own t-shirts that they sell for 10 bucks. (They’re the same ones that you see in the video.)

Contrary to what you might think by watching the final episode above, the staff here are competent and are all nice.  I was browsing around the store when the owner, Brian Hughes, walked in and such. As I went to buy a t-shirt for myself along with a copy of the latest Nintendo Power I cracked a joke from the series.  When I told Brian that I had actually found out about the store through their ScrewAttack feature, he literally said “You’ve gotta be shitting me!” It seems that he wasn’t expecting the store’s popularity to rise. I told him what I thought about the series and how I wasn’t sure if I really liked it or not, and that ScrewAttack had quite a big community: I’m sure he’ll gain a handful of new customers as a result.  There actually was one member of the SA community that had already been there and didn’t realize it.

One other thing I found amusing about the store was the fact that they had cheeky signs in all their display cases that had some amusing lines such as this:

“She bangs! She bangs!”

Another interesting fact is that in April of 2007, a couple of thieves broke into the store overnight. The security cameras inside the store caught the whole ordeal, and after Hughes looked at the videotape, he put it all together and uploaded the camera footage to YouTube.  The robbery made local headlines and the criminal was actually found and arrested.  The story has a happy ending for both sides, though, as the criminal turned his life around afterwards and even paid for the store’s losses after getting out of jail and rehab.

GameDeals is the type of store that’s by gamers, for gamers. You can walk in there and feel like you’ve walked into a place where you’re already known and welcome, and I would highly recommended this place. If you live in Metro Vancouver and still need incentive to go, a lot of the new games they’ve gotten are significantly cheaper here than they are at department stores and retail chains.  Go check ‘em out!