The rollercoaster of buying pre-owned games

Well, first of all you need to know the backstory:
I live on a very small island where if you want to buy anything that's not either food or clothes you must go to another island, sound great huh?

Two years ago I went to the neighboring island to buy some games in a videogame store and I found a pre-owned Sly 2 for 5€ (I love that saga so I instantly bought it).
I arrived home, and surprise! the game didn't work!, that store has a warranty of 10 days, so I went to the store the next day and they repaired it... and it still didn't work... even after taking it 3 times to repair it, so I finally gave up on that, they have one of the worst CD/DVD repairing services I've ever seen (I still have that broken game).

Now back to the present day:
Yesterday I went to that same store, mostly because it's the only videogame store I can go to, and I saw Tekken TAG 1 for 5€ and Tekken 7 for 40€, both pre-owned.
I'm a big Tekken fan (and TAG is my childhood), so I bought them, but I remembered what happened with Sly 2 and I was lotsa skeptical about those games. I was 100% sure that one of them (TAG) wasn't going to work.

I went to my house, plugged my PS4, inserted Tekken 7 and let it install it's 10GB of data. In the meantime, knowing that it would take quit some time to finish, I hooked up my PS2, inserted Tekken TAG, and booted up the console, expecting it to sound horribly loud because it was an early CD PS2 game.

PS2 booted to BIOS fine and it started reading the disc, but it made a weird sound, like it tried to read the game, failed, and started trying to read it over and over again, kicking me back to the Memory Card management menu everytime I tried to boot TAG. To make sure it was the game and not my PS2's fault I tried other CS games like Crazy Taxi and DVD games like Ratchet and Clank 3, which booted without issues.

"Holy shit what a surprise, a pre-owned PS2 game from that store wich doesn't work... Let's play Tekken 7, it should have installed itself on the meantime" I thought meanwhile I was turning off my PS2 and changing the dial of my TV to play PS4... Only to see that Tekken 7 magically paused it's installation by itself!

"What is this shit? I didn't touch my DualShock4!". I pressed X to unpause the instalation, but the only thing it did is try to continue the instalation, fail completely and kick me back to the home screen.
"How great ladies and gentleman! 2 out of 2 games aren't working! It's a new record!!" I thought while desesperately trying to make Tekken 7 work, which I wasn't able to do.

After fighting (no pun intended) with the game for half an hour I finally managed to install Tekken 7 and I started to play with no issues (Well, the game stutters quite a bit on the "Get ready for the next battle!" screens and some loading screns are long as fuck, but it's playable), but TAG refused to work, so I will have to go to the store and make them repair TAG, hoping that it will work (cue in flashbacks of Sly 2 not working after 3 "repairs")

The problem is that the store opens from tuedsay to saturday, and I will be on another city from Thursday 2 to Monday 6 of November, so I hope they can get TAG fixed this Tuesday, because I won't be able to get it repaired again in time :/

Tuesday/Wednesday I will inform if they have repaired it successfully or not (Probably not, Sly 2 makes me think this way...)

Moral of the story:
Be careful if you want to buy any pre-owned game.

Anyway, see you on the next blog!
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My experiences buying second hand games these last 25 or so years.

Looks on shelf/table.
1)If shelf/table has something I want to play goto step 2, else walk out and go to next shop/wait until next week.
2) If something I want to play is price something I am willing to pay, if no walk and go to next shop/wait until next week, possibly haggle if in certain shops.
3) If disc check disc(s) for scratches and existence for multi disc games, most places I would have got things from open them to show you anyway. There technically is a if unacceptable then walk out and go to next shop/wait until next week but it never happened to me. Only time it ever did was for a brand new game (my copy of PS1 classic final fantasy 7 of all things). Cartridge, floppy disc and tape games may also have a check routine but for the most part eh there and it is not like I play battery pokemon.
4) Pay, go back to house and play.
 
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@FAST6191 The problem is that in that store the game cases (new and pre-owned) are empty, so you have to grab the empty case and bring it to the desk, and then the employees grab the case and put the game in, so customers can't see in what condition the game disc/cartridge is.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll go to that store to get TAG polished, I hope it works after that but my expectations are as lowest as they can go
 
"and then the employees grab the case and put the game in, so customers can't see in what condition the game disc/cartridge is"

Speak up for yourself then. Nowhere in the world has the right to sell you defective goods you have not otherwise agreed to buy.
I have met the same thing too, indeed most things that are not behind glass or on a table at a car boot sale are empty on the shelf. You ask.
 
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Elementh, don't forget that you can only polish a disc so many times.
If the scratches go into the data layer then it will be unfixable.
Regardless of how many times you polish it.
 
pre owned CDS even looked bad for me... even carts I was afraid fo like " it may stop working in some part ..." but this happens :T
 
Welp, I've just came back from the store, and they didn't polish it because their machine broke, so they either gave me back my money or gave me a 6 euros discount on any game.
At least I got a brand new Mario Odyssey a bit cheaper even though they didn't gave me TAG back.
Happy halloween guys!
 

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