Blockbuster South Keys closing!

Stopped by the Blockbuster at South Keys yesterday (actually, was going to the bank right in front of it, but I digress), and saw the store closing signs indicating many great rebates and everything must go posted on all the windows! Of course, being the responsible consumer that I am, I had to go investigate what potential deals I could get.

As soon as I walked in, I could see that I was not the first one there. A sizable portion of the newer merchandise had already vanished. I did take a cursory look at the new releases wall and did not find anything appealing. So off to the X-Box section.

I went in looking to see if I could find a cheap copy of Homefront, as that is a game that I am waiting for bargin bin prices before I buy, and was disapointed to not find one there. I did find a copy of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Two Worlds II though, and these are also games that I am interested in, but not at full retail price. Note: These were repackaged rental copies of the games, not full retail.

Nothing else really peaked my curiosity, so I went to search the older movies section in the hope of locating a copy of Mel Brooks Robin Hood spoof. I think it's the only one missing from my Mel Brooks collection.

No luck. I did see Austin Power Man of Mystery, but I think I will just try to get that as a box set. Or as a B-Day present. Hint Hint.

I went back to the new releases wall where I did manage to find a Blue Ray copy of Paul. Missed it at the theaters, and the Simon Peg & Nick Frost duo is usually a good bet, so I took a chance and picked it up as well.

Nothing else of interest, so off to the cash. Line up was not too bad, and got served within 10 minutes.

Now being the responsible consumer (as previously mentioned) that I am, I asked how much were they selling the used copies of the two games that I had selected, as there was no price listed on the boxes. A quick scan with the barcode reader and the nice lady told me the prices. I think they were $44 for two worls and we'll say $25 for the sake of the story for MUA2 as I cannot remember the exact price. Even though these were prices that were before the 15% going out of sale discout, I was still not very impressed. I asked her what the full retail prices of the games were and she gave me a price that was $5 more than the old rental copies.

Nice. Using the same pricing structure as the big chains do for used games. But the big difference her is, these are rental copies. So I asked to inspect the disks. You can see where this is going now, don't you. If you guessed that they were pristine CD's not narry a sratch on them, you would be wrong. I think one of them was used as a coaster for hot coffee. Ok, maybe not that bad, but bad enough to make me say "Hhhhmmmnnnyah... Full retail - $5 - 15%, final sale, no refunds for two scratched up games that may not even work? I think I'll pass."

I know I could possibly have had them buffed in one of those CD scratch recovery machine, but then that would have been an extra cost that would have negated the savings made, and require an additional stop that I was too lazy to make. Not to mention that I could still be out $60 and have two coasters. And I certainly did not want to take a chance that the game woudl start, play for a while, the crap out when I was at the end game.

So buyer beware. If you choose to try to get a better deal at Blockbusters and purchase one of their rental copies, inspect it before you walk out the store. Or they'll F$&*@# you at the Walk Through!