American gaming stores.
 

Alright, I'm looking to purchase american games but I can't seem to find anywhere reliable or trustworthy.

I've tried ebay, but I've had some rusty deals (again) so fuck that. I've used videogamesplus.ca before, but their postage is ridiculous. I've tried dvdboxoffice, but they took over a week just to accept payment and I ended up cancelling in the second week.

I've had rusty deals with yesasia as well, and well, they don't have much of a library of american games. So I'm still on the hunt for a store that has reasonable international shipping (or free shipping) and has a supply of american games.

Any suggestions guys?

Play-Asia ships nearly everywhere, and they do carry American games despite their name. I've ordered from them before and got great service.

Amazon.com ships games to certain countries, but I don't know which one you're in, so that could be good or bad. Their shipping looks pretty reasonable, $7.48 + $.99 for each game in the shipment.

GamesUniverse.com seems to also offer international shipping, so that's another option. Their rates seem alright, depending on where you're shipping to.

Play-asia have a very, very limited amount of american games, otherwise I would just order from them and not complain.

Oh and amazon only ship internationally on books, the last I checked, which was a month ago.

I'll check out gamesuniverse sometime.

Uhh, no dude. Look, I have an amazon account, and I've tried to buy games from them before. I get this:

*** We're sorry. This item can't be shipped to your selected destination. You may either change the shipping address or delete the item from your order by changing its quantity to 0 and clicking the update button below. ( See geographical restrictions.) ***

So that's out of the picture.

Does EBgames ship internationally?

Yeah, but thier shipping prices are RAPEAGE.

EB Games ship worldwide, but they charge out the ass in shipping, so that's out of the picture.

So far, my only options are yes-asia and dvdboxoffice. Which isn't getting me anywhere, since I've had sour deals with both of those companies before. I don't want to trust some random ebayer and their "store" because this has proven to be a gamble as to customer service.

Seriously, what the hell do I do?

You find a buyer, that's what you do. I'm not entirely certain how the system works, because I don't do it. However, my girlfriend collects cels and uses a buyer to acquire cels from Japan and Korea that would otherwise be nigh-impossible to efficiently purchase on her own.

The buyer, who lives in Japan and is accredited in this occupation (as it were) purchases the desired cels as long as they remain priced within a specified range. He then calculates shipping costs to America, tariffs, insurance, and a 15% surcharge for his service. My girlfriend electronically submits payment to this man and he sends the package with a tracking number.

She's been using this system for three years and has yet to complain about the arrangement. I don't know too much about how she found the person, but I do know that she frequents a webforum at Rubberslug.com, which contains many cel enthusiasts, among other collectors. Since they face the same obstacles you do, it might be worth a shot to look around their boards and see if anyone knows about arranging American buyers.

That's about the best suggestion I can offer, as you seem convinced that Amazon and other big name distributors have unexplained issues with shipping to New Zealand.

It's not that I'm convinced that Amazon have issues with shipping, it's just that they won't. And I purchased Valkyrie Profile 2 on the 13th of October from an ebayer with his own store. And it's the 30th and I'm still waiting. I'M STILL WAITING. If he doesn't respond to the dispute I've raised with paypal, I'll have to escalate it to a claim.

See, I don't want to do this. This shouldn't of happened in the first place. I expected to receive the item and it still hasn't arrived, thus I'm screwed if paypal won't refund. Where the fuck will my money be then? I can't trust ebay and I can't use Amazon. I could take my chances with yes-asia and dvdboxoffice, but with yes-asia I've had an order delayed for 2 weeks without any response, and I've purchased something through dvdboxoffice which they apparently didn't have in stock, but "forgot" to update the website.

How would I go about finding myself a buyer? It doesn't sound as easy as visiting rubberslug, since it's all anime based.

=/ That's weird that Amazon won't ship to where you live; sorry to hear 'bout that!

I'm really not sure where else you could go for American games, but I think there's some eBay stores that ship internationally.

Again, it's an eBay thing, but technically it's a "store" so the service should be good...?

As for finding a buyer...well, this is a pretty good place to look for someone! There's also cheapassgamer.com, which is, in my opinion, a pretty excellent place to buy/trade used games and whatnot.

Just curious though, what kind of games are you looking for?

At the moment I'm looking for mainly american PS2 and DS games.

Looking through this thread, I don't see any mention of NCSX so far. They aren't so bad, ya know? Not even remotely as good as Play-Asia, but pretty decent. I don't know for sure if they will carry what you are looking for, but they do have some USA PS2 and NDS titles. It's probably your best shot.

http://www.ncsxshop.com/cgi-bin/shop/index.html

I'm from the Netherlands and I usually order my games from Videogamesplus.com. Very reliable and very fast shipping.

Another problem with buyers and Crash's system in these specific cases, is that 15% finders fee/commission/whatever will probably be the same as the cost he'd pay for the games themselves plus shipping from a site like EBGames. It's a different story entirely when it's something that just can't be shipped out to you for whatever reasons, and you need a middleman to take care of that. I know some people here use one to buy from some Yahoo Japan auctions for VGM when the seller won't ship outside of Japan.

As it stands though, Lix probably wouldn't save any money using a buyer for things of this nature. He also shouldn't expect that the buyer would have access to cheaper shipping methods than the big chains do. For example, you know that D2 set I sold on eBay, Lix? 18 bucks for 11 day shipping to the US. It would be extremely pricey to ship to NZ with any sort of haste. You're going to get hit hard by that no matter which option you choose.

Yeah... this isn't helping.

Double Post:
Has anyone ordered with dvdstars before?

I buy games from the US - usually on ebay. Elixir's right, amazon won't ship games to NZ. I've always assumed it's because the games are NTSC and we're on PAL. I have a friend here who collects games and figures and she got pally with a trader on ebay who now buys to order for her then ships the stuff over when there's a full box. Seems to work really well for her.

Another suggestion - have you tried any UK online shops? Some of the games that don't come over do actually get a release in the UK so you may find some of the games there. And as they're PAL as well there should be no issue with sending them here.

If you're in NZ you must've checked TradeMe? There's always a few US games on there and traders advertising that they'll get in any game you want. You'll pay a bit more but then, they're going to the trouble of importing them so it's only fair really.

The only other suggestion is to stick to one or two particular traders on ebay who are reliable and just order from them. At some stage they'll start asking what you're looking for and maybe source them just for you. Worth a try anyway.

I have to say that so far I've had no problems buying from ebay. One game took 2 months to arrive. I'd written it off, gave the trader the benefit of the doubt and good feedback saying it had been lost in the mail. When it turned up he had sent it airmail but it had been delivered by sea so not his fault at all. I'm so glad I didn't get shitty with him!

Postage is a bit of a rip off with some traders. Last time I bought a USPS envelope cost $9US and could hold 2 or 3 guides or about 4 games. Some traders charge $24US per item so check your freight charges and stay away from those traders!

Trademe never, ever has anything I'm interested in. More specifically if someone's selling a game from the US there, the chances are it most likely isn't new. I don't want to pay a 10% or whatever amount in their own profit when I could get it from an american store and possibly save myself a few.

Like? I've only had about 4 deals on ebay, and 2 of them were reliable. They're pretty outdated with their stock though and I doubt they'd go to the trouble of tracking down games for someone half way across the other side of the world.

I've ordered a game through National Console Support (ncsx) so I'll see how well they do. Currently I don't trust ebay regardless of how much feedback they have. The fact is, they're in america, paypal don't always refund 100%, and I'm pretty sure the disputes center in Wellington will get sick of me bugging them.

Also, I don't want to wait 30 days before I can claim a refund, which is what I'm going to have to do for one or possibly two of the items I've purchased off ebay. Actually two, but one definitely isn't arriving. The other I just don't know yet.

I really like ncsx's website, and it looks promising. $11US for international shipping sounds pretty good. I was going to go with dvdstars, but they've had negative reviews. Same shit with dvdboxoffice, which nobody recommends (even if they do have free international shipping) and yes-asia will take 7-14 days before they'll even ship it.

Why is so expensive the shipping on EBgames and gamestop? Only the shipping costs me like 60 bucks!!! That didn't happened when i bought in amazon where they only charged me with $10 for a big package!

What's the difference between ebgames and gamestop? They looks like they are the same...

And....Do you guys know where else can i buy the limited edition of FFXII...'cause i cant pay 60 bucks only for shipping.

Most of the issues you are having seem to be specific to Middle Earth New Zealand. The chance of you finding your answers here is pretty slim, and you'd be much better off asking your question on some kind of NZ gaming forum rather than getting irate that no one is able to help you here.

You could try Video Game Depot. Here's their Ordering info. I suppose the best thing would be to send them an email about buying from NZ, if you're interested in them.

EBGames and Gamestop are now owned by the same company.

I think you're being a little bit hard on ebay! I've made nearly 50 purchases on there from about 30 different traders and not one of them has gone bad. Delivery usually only takes a week which I think is pretty good.

Maybe you just need to be a little more selective when you're choosing who to buy from. My biggest problem has been finding traders willing to ship to NZ. There are so many now who state US & Canada only. I guess there have been a few scams with overseas buyers and paypal so they're much stricter now on who they'll sell to. I find asking a question about shipping to NZ and quoting USPS rates usually works and they're happy for me to buy. Only a few traders add extra onto the shipping for time and extra packaging - which is perfectly feasible.

It isn't so much being hard on ebay as it is the fact that I shouldn't have to wait something over 12 working days for stuff to arrive. Since this has happened, I'm not going to purchase something from ebay, pay immediately, and have them wait 5 days before even shipping it.

I'm not the most patient person in the world, but shipping shouldn't be so slow that it makes you question whether the item will actually reach here, or whether it was even shipped.

This is my main reason for avoiding ebay. But I've found some other alternatives which have either free international shipping, or are cheap. I'll see how it goes from there.

Yeah it's rubbish. There's no way in hell I'd order something from ebgames or gamestop, simply because their shipping is beyond comprehension. I don't understand how they can get away with shipping costing more than the actual game itself and not have people question it.

Then again, it seems ebgames worldwide has been making a poor reputation for itself.