Gamers In Control

The cash back value you get on your games is decent. However the gentleman who owns the business is really cold, standoffish and his customer service skills need some refinement. In other words, he’s very rude.
I don’t understand how someone who owns a business such as his doesn’t understand that you require good customer service in order to maintain your cliental and loyal customers. People don’t want to come back to a place where they feel the business owner isn’t happy to help them. From what I see his business isn’t doing well and has a potential to grow its cliental but his lack of people skills and his attitude are going to hinder his business’s growth.
He really needs to reevaluate the way he runs his business and what he needs to do make his business thrive.
I’m speaking from a place of experience, my family owns a business and I’ve come to understand what is needed in order for your business to be successful. Your product and concepts can be great but if you don’t have the right attitude and customer service there just isn’t any room for growth or the possibility to make your business thrive.
I understand the pressure and stress of owning your own business but you need to maintain a good attitude and good customer service if you want to thrive as a business owner. There have been times where our family has had to deal with difficult situations and people but we’ve been very successful because of our WANT and GOAL to make our company thrive, so we continuously provide customer service no matter the pressure we’re under.

Updating my review from last about this time last year. I upgraded to 5 stars cause i this is my favorite place to go to in salinas! Since my last review i have obtained about 27 N64 games. I have been in a collecting mood. :) Buying my childhood back. :D hahaha. Its cool when the people that work there start recognizing you, to the point where if you use a card and you show your i.d. they say you dont need to see it cause you have been there before. :D
I havent bought a system from them yet but it might be a XBox360. We shall see.
Upgrade the stars to 5

Retro games rock, great store, great service. They do trades and also have some new stuff. Help support local family businesses!

Gamers in Control has a wide range of titles for newer consoles like the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as vintage favorites including NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64 and Sega Genesis. The retro game selection ranges from boxed and complete to cartridge only, including some rare and unusual finds.
This is the type of shop you need to check, and check often to see what new titles have hit the shelves, because it is constantly changing. I recommend following their Facebook page for pictures of their newest arrivals.
The prices are incredibly competitive, everything I’ve picked up has been well under the prices charged by online retailers. More desirable and hard-​to-​find games can go for a premium but I feel the rates fairly reflect the rarity and condition, which is paramount for collectors.

The selection isn’t very huge on the retro stuff. The owner is alright he’s sort of mono tone but that’s how some people are, the guy that works there every now and then is kind of a jerky nerd. He doesnt know much of anything when asked and is rather rude. I don’t think I will be going to this place anymore, but I’m sure this is a store for regulars as this is the only spot there is for retro gaming in Monterey county. It might work for you, I’m just saying it isn’t for me.

I’ve always had great service when my son wants to purchase newer or older games and consoles! I’m glad I found this store for my son to purchase his games, I would definitely recommend it! Very honest and trustworthy!

Wow! What a monumental disappointment! No selection… and the guy working there was rude and not knowledgeable… don’t waste your time… I know there’s not many stores that sell games in the area…
has the best selection and prices, if you’re willing to wait a few days for shipping… :)

It’s cool to see all the old school games but customer service could have been better ! Idk alot about games and I would have bought more if somebody would talk to me and give me tips on what to buy for a pro gamer like my bro

Very poor customer service this guy who works there always ignores you watching his laptop watching movies sad to see him angry.

Came in here just to check out what the store was all about
they pretty much had all games starting from regualr nintendo the 360 and ps3 games.
what i really liked was how cheap their 360 games were, i usually buy games on
but this guy was selling them for just about the same if not cheaper, definitely a score.
they also had Arcade machines for 25 cents to play!!! what? marvel vs capcom too! dope!
its not a big place but they do have a good selection of games at great prices and its always goot to see the games you used to play back in the day, definitely a cool place to at least swing by!

As a vintage video game collector, this store is a great find for Salinas area residents. Thank you GIC for satisfying my retro game fix.

I’ve stopped through here a few times on my way up and down from northern California. It has a lot of games you wouldn’t find anywhere else other than the internet. The service was great and the guy working was helpful and knew answers to all my questions.
As far as price in concerned, i compared many of the items i’ve bought to similiar items online and don’t feel like i’ve been ripped off one bit.
For any avid video game fan in the area, i recommend you stop by this shop.

I love taking my boys to this store and showing them what mommy used to play (Super Mario and Contra, baby!).
Support local businesses and shop at Gamers In Control!

Every time I’ve gone back they’ve had something I was interested in, and when I attempted to trade in a big stack of games they bought every single one of them from me on the spot. Yes! That’s awesome. I didn’t get the biggest return ever, but it’s still better than Gamestop.
And the last time I was there, they had actually added two arcade cabinets right there in the store! That is genius, and it mostly makes up for the shady pencil-​drawn sign asking kids to pay them to play Xbox for half an hour while their parents shop. Come on, guys.
The only real downside to this place is they take a lot of games with no manual or case, which I’m really not down with.

If you want to buy/​sell used games this is the place to go. They have some rare stuff, it’s a good alternative to the bigger stores.

The place is great for finding old games. Dreamcast, Super nintendo, n64, playstation. You name it, it’s there. There’s just one thing that i have a problem with.
CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Now, i work for a video game store, so maybe it swayed his opinion, but when my wife and i went in there, the guy was incredibly rude. He didn’t seem to care about anything I had to say, and he never once looked up from the movie he was watching on his laptop. Personally, I would rather get my old games elsewhere, because their customer service leaves something to be desired.

I was unsure if this place was opening its doors or closing them, but it turned out they had been a part of this mall for a long time.
I personally thought, for a no frills trade in place this place was very good. They gave a much higher rebate for used systems and games and just to be sure, or to figure out how much to give, he called gamestop about some of the trade ins I had.
All in all I would recommend this place to anyone looking to trade in video games or systems since they give a much better deal than any of those bigger places. Plus they take reservations on games yet to come out.

Small selection, and to echo the previous reviewer, a little bit of a hole in the wall place. I am sorry that MH had such a bad experience, but there you get to see the Unilocal Business reply in action. Good to see that working, even if it is becoming adversarial.
I wandered in to this store earlier today, and was happy to see some old school NES and PS1 games in there. I did get a little bit of the same treatment that MH got, muttered responses to questions and comments and almost no eye contact. I tried to make a little small talk, again thinking it was cool to see stuff like «Jackal» and «Ninja Gaiden» in the case. But the guy working there was absorbed in something else on the computer. Oh well.
It makes it hard to give a better rating when walk in customers aren’t really acknowledged at all. I don’t need you to swarm me, but at least say «hello» or something. Seems to be a trend at Oakridge. Maybe it’s the lack of sunlight…
It seems like its all business here, and no fun. I thought they were called video «games».

Gamers in Control is a growing video game store that sticks to it’s roots for retro but offers modern games as well. The staff are very savvy in the language of gamers and offer hard to find games at affordable prices. The selection and catalog of the games they offer are based on first come first serve so finding the game you seek is easy and at the right price. So if you are in the Oakridge area and your looking for games, movies, services, and accessories and more, stop by and support more down to earth stores like this.

As you can see from the owners reply at the bottom, he successfully illustrated my point for me. Plus, whoever he is referring to in his response was not me. :)
The Good:
The store is a quaint little «mom and pop» store in Oakridge with a decent selection of video games and even Blu-​ray movies.
The Bad:
The service! I will never come back here again!
I was referred to Gamers in Control by GameStop as they no longer take XBOX games, but suggested that I try this place out because they still bought them. I was grateful that they offered somewhere else to go to get these games off of my hands.
A few days later I had some time to go all the way over to Oakridge Mall finally, so I decided to call up Gamers in Control first so that I would know where to park based on where they were located in the mall. I called Oakridge mall and could not remember the exact name at first, but I knew it started with «Gamers», so I asked them for the stare that started with Gamers… They said they only had GameStop in the mall and I asked them to check to see if they could find any other video game stores, and they did and said sorry, only GameStop is here.
I decided to call GameStop again and asked them what the name was etc. and one of the guys was there that had helped me and he gave me the name again «Gamers in Control» but he did not know the number, so I called 411 and asked for Gamers in Control and they did not have any listing, I asked them to check in the Oakridge Mall and they still said there was no such name. I then called Oakridge back again and asked for Gamers in Control and they said that they did not have a listing for them in the mall that there was no store there by that name…
Thoroughly frustrated now, I called GameStop back and they were nice enough to tell me where in the mall that Gamers in Control was located and assured me that they were still in existence. I drove all the way out there and got some up front parking right away (WHOO HOOO!) and went found the store easily based off of the GameStop guys information.
Once I walked into the store, I thought it was a cute little store and I liked the layout. I lugged my bag of literally 50 or so games and asked the guy behind the counter if they still bought XBOX games and he said yes and pointed to the counter on the side (a little dismissive I thought, but I chalked it up to me probably being sensitive). I went to the counter and put my bag on the counter and asked him if he knew that he was not able to be located when I called 411 and he did not even look at me but shrugged his shoulders in an «oh well, I don’t care» response and did not utter a word to me. I thought to myself, this must just be some disgruntled employee and they don’t care if their bosses company is listed or not.
He started looking through my games and I was perusing the store and then I realized I forgot to mention that the Oakridge mall people said that his store did not exist. So I told him this and that when I called that they could not find his store name and «at first» I had the name wrong so I had to call back once I had the complete name. Once again he would not look at me when speaking to me and told me he was there for years.
I asked a few other questions about the store and he was very abrupt and would never look at me when he talked so I asked him «Do you have a problem with me or something»? he responded with, «Yeah I have a problem with you, you come in here making comments about how small my store is and complaining about not being able to find the number». I was all «What?! If I were YOU I would be concerned that my store was not listed with 411 or even at the mall where my store was located». He then responded with «Maybe if I had gotten the name right when I called maybe they would have found his store. it was then that I realized that HE was the owner, not some young kid employee. I decided not to point out that I had called back with the right name and they STILL could not find his store. I told him. «Look, I was simply trying to be helpful and let you know that it was really tough trying to find you so that you were aware of that because it could be costing you business». He told me «I don’t care, I have a website and it works fine and makes plenty of money». I then said, «Look, I was trying to be helpful, you don’t need to be an ass about someone trying to help you out».
Then he put his hands up and stepped away from my games he was looking at (Once again NEVER LOOKING AT ME) and made a face. I walked over put my stuff back in the bag that he had taken out of it and I told him, «You have got to be kidding me, GOOD LUCK IN THE FUTURE! (Sarcastically of course) and I walked out.
I DEFINITELY RECOMMEND AVOIDING THIS PLACE AT ALL COSTS!
I will never give this store my money! If I find a cool spot and the customer service is great I will be a loyal supporter, ESPECIALLY of locally owned stores, but NOT in this cas