Video Game Bargain Bins are one of the purest joys a gamer could have. Sure, you’ll get Madden 2006 or “Cool Hand Luke : The Game” in the bin most of the time, other times you’ll find classics like Burnout : Paradise or Marvel vs Capcom 3. It really is like looking for Buried Treasure.
However, it’s nearly impossible to sell the crap games, and still end up with a profit.
Alternatively, it’s really difficult to entice people into buying bargain bin video games.
Luckily I have the solution – Blind Boxes!
If you’ve been to an Urban Outfitters, a Toy Store or Disneyland in the last couple years, you’ll know exactly what these things are. People pay $5-$25 for a box, they do not know the contents of the box until they open it and once it’s been opened, there is no going back. Your $10 investment hoping for a “Peter Griffin” figurine might end up giving you Meg Griffin. It’s almost “High Stakes Capsule Toy Buying”.
Here’s my idea – take that concept and adapt it into video game sales.
The idea is simple – you wrap around the game case a black piece of paper, if you want to make it easier for the customers – separate the wrapping per console – PS3, 360, Wii, whatever. Maybe add a bow during Christmas shopping.
Next – you place them up against the shelf, like most video games. But it’ll be confusing because the entire wall is littered with these black cases.
Then, you charge people $10 to pick a game from the shelf…
If you want to be nice about it – you can give off the list off possible video games. Be sure that you wrapped a major AAA Title and placed it on the shelf, to make it the “rare” video game, that way you know it’s not entirely made of crappy video games and you’re making people waste their money.
When they open the case, there is no going back. If they want to sell it back to you, they are only getting $1. Who knows if they’ll get two copies of “Guitar Hero 2″ sans controller, or if they’ll actually get “Skyrim”. It’s all random chance. And no doubt it’ll increase the number of buys in the game store. Madden 2006 or Madden 2012? Deus Ex : Human Revolution or “The Simpsons Game”. The choices are in their hands.
Strangely, this is actually a good idea.
If this idea worked for my local charity store (where the majority of the used games are nothing but the same boring sports titles for both the PS1 and PS2) the best thing about it is that the profits would be going towards a good cause!