When I was around ten years old, an older friend of mine (he was two years older) offered to ride bikes with me up to "this really cool place" that he had found. After some wheedling, and consultations between our two parental groups, we eventually got permission to do so. The place that we ended up going to was called the Video Game Trading Post and it is one of the few life changing places that I've ever gone to. Generally, when people think of life changing places you think of things like the Empire State Building, the Tower of London or the Vatican. You don't think of a dingy little shop tucked into a little shopping district within biking distance. But really, I've been to all three of the places that I mentioned above and none of them really ever had the sort of profound effect on me that the dingy little shop in the middle of nowhere had. The Video Game Trading Post was run by a guy named John. John was back then, and remains today, a bit on the eccentric side. The first time I visited his shop, he had one display case full of gaming paraphernalia (mostly NES stuff) and his dirty little pig in his store. But he had this really cool idea. Anyone who wanted to could come into his shop, play any game he wanted, and trade in their old games for new ones. He rated each game either A, B or C. An "A" game was a top shelf title. A "C" game was your typical generic piece of crap. For $5, you could trade any game you wanted for a game of the same rating. Alternatively, you could trade two games of the same type (say two B games) and get a new game completely free. To make sure that everyone felt that they got a game that they liked, he had consoles setup in his shop and you could put in and try out the games you were interested in. To make doubly sure, he even let you come back into the store and return the game you got the next day if for some reason you weren't satisfied. (This last thing he usually only applied to repeat customers that he knew well enough to know wouldn't abuse the generosity.) I spent an ungodly, and probably unhealthy, amount of time at that store over the next few years. As the years passed, his store expanded. Eventually he was dealing in all manner of games ranging from original NES to PS3 titles. Consoles, games, accessories. He stocked it all. He would beat any price you'd find elsewhere if you gave him the chance to. He also always knew what the games to try out where. Before the age of the internet came along, the best I could do was go into his store, tell him what genre I was looking for, and nine times out of ten he'd pick me a winner. When I hit my college years, I lapsed on video gaming for a while except for the occasional PC game like Fallout 2. I had so much other stuff going on. A couple of years ago, I stopped into the store again. Even though I hadn't seen him in about seven years and hardly recognized him since he looked so different, John still recognized me as "Jimmy", the kid he'd let hang out at his store and play all his video games. I told him that I hadn't done much gaming since I'd been busy with college and out of the state for a few of my college years. He welcomed me back and, when I told him I'd just gotten a new PS2 slim console, helped me pick out some new games. Before I left, he gave me a memory card for free just to welcome me back.

Chili and I started going back again frequently, and the old magic returned. He always had something new for me to play and always at a better price that I could find it elsewhere. I didn't really need to trade in my old games like I used to since I make a lot more money than I did when I was a kid and when I was a teenager, but I wasn't opposed to buying used games at damned good prices. I backfilled the PS2 library that I had missed during college nicely, and even got a good start on an Xbox one. Alas, good times don't last forever. In September, the Video Game Trading Post closed down for good due to bankruptcy issues. Since then I've tried, and failed, to find a place quite like it. There is an "A1 Video Game Exchange" (which always sounded like a barbeque sauce or something) on the same street. I tried going in there with the ChiliDragon to find a new game about a month and a half ago.



The first thing we noticed was the lack of anything resembling a friendly greeting, or any greeting at all for that matter, when we walked in. At the Post, we always got a greeting immediately, no matter what. It wasn't that we demanded immediate help. No, we were more than capable of browsing on our own. It was the fact that it was always nice to have our existence acknowledged. The young woman "working" at the A1 store couldn't even be bothered to look up from her computer screen. (She was in the middle of a Yahoo chat from what I could tell from glancing over her shoulder as I circled around her to look at the games behind her.)



Well, the selection at A1 was incredible. They had tons of games everywhere. They had tons of everything really, except warmth or good prices. There was no consoles setup for us to try games out on. No paintings of famous characters like Samus and Link on the wall. The place was just cold. We left without buying anything. The clerk never looked up. Not once. It has been two months now without the Trading Post, and I miss it more than I ever thought that I could miss a store. Sure it wasn't the best run business in the world. (It DID fail after all.) But it wasn't just about being a business. Visiting the Post was like walking in and chatting with a peer, or one of the fine folks who comment on my blogs. I always felt a sense of belonging at the Post that comes from being around kindred spirits. Back when I was younger, before video games entered the mainstream, feeling that with regards to video gaming was a precious thing. So this blog is a tribute to the Video Game Trading Post, and to all the happiness and warmth that it brought to the local video gaming community over the last couple of decades. One final thing before I sign off on this blog. Those of you who have been hanging around my blog for a while know that Max Payne 2 is my favorite shooter game of all time. Here's what John from the Tradiing Post took off of his wall and gave to me before he closed his shop down for good, and what is now hanging on the wall of one of my rooms. For a sense of scale, it is larger than my 61" Samsung HDTV.