Well... This happened.

[telly]

Btw their store is Punch Out Gaming in forest lake MN and eau claire WI. Avoid their business.

Just googled them and they have horrible reviews. Lol

I'm not suprised that a store called Punch Out Gaming would be run by a bunch of jerks 

[kashell]

Punch Out gaming is about to get a Yelp review. 9.9

[rayne315]

I checked their booths and good lord where they over priced. $55 for a gold NES Zelda? $50 for FF7 GH? ouch. Anyway after they bought what they wanted they contacted the people running the show upset I was selling games so cheap and where threatening to leave to show unless I was gone. They tried to iron out the issue but in the end they asked me to leave. 

I never thought this was a thing at cons, that bigger vendors can muscle out the little ones so they don't have competition. What BS. 

That is called price fixing and it is very illegal by the way... it can be argued that the convention and punch out gaming were working together to stifle competition and raise the overall price for items.

If you haven't done it by the way I would demand the money back for your spot under threat of legal action.

[shepard11]

I have dealt with similar situations in all the years of running my comic shop. It's the point now I got so sick of it that I rarely do cons. But I'll add that the list of store I won't ever bother with. And I'm actually heading up to Eau Claire here in a few weeks to visit a friend. Buncha jerks. 

[theflea]

If I bought the booth, yes I would look into talking with a lawyer. But I was a guest.
My youtuber friends got the booth to promote and sell merch. DVDs, Books, T-Shirts etc...
But this was a Pokemon Con so they asked me to bring games to sell at the convention.
Help bring people to their booth and maybe not just buy games but their stuff as well and it worked.
They had people looking, asking and buying their stuff as well, the games brought the attention they wanted.

When I was kicked, I told them they didn't have to leave but like I said earlier they where more mad about it then I was. They have cut ties to the guy running the show and after telling their fans of the treatment they got the owner called them up and apologized and they got a full refund. They told him if they wanted to threaten you with leaving you should have said okay bye, no refunds. But he was too scared of a larger company not buying a booth next year which is why we left and not them.

I thank you for the support, gamers & collector's know the BS that resellers do and I tried not to be apart of it and got punished. I doubt I would have gotten any of the games back if I asked. The worst part is they acted so nice and even talked about advertising for their youtube channel. Now they wouldn't take their money no matter what.

The most I can ask is spread the word that these guys are overpriced jerks and don't buy from them. Especially if your in the Wisconsin or Minnesota areas. The last game store that pulled shady crap on me is now out of business because I told everyone in my collector / gaming community what they did and they where a sad site the last year they where around. You treat people/costumers like crap and over price everything your business will suffer.   
In my area there was at one time six different (mom & pop) used gaming stores, they all had stupid high prices but one. Only one priced under the going values and they always treated people great. ALL have sense closed their doors but one. The good one, they are still selling today and I buy games from them almost every week.

[burningdoom]

So what about this story I'm hearing on another gaming site where you guys broke contract by having multiple sellers, and not having a selling contract to begin with? From what I'm hearing, it kind of became a big deal. That you guys started with a half table, and by Day 2 you had expanded to 2 full tables and weren't supposed to be selling at all, because it's a YouTube table. Plus I'm hearing that part of Punch-Out Gaming's contract was that they were supposed to be exclusive game dealers there.

I want to clarify, because I was defending you there, and now I kind of look like an ass now that the whole story has come out.

[ignition365]

So what about this story I'm hearing on another gaming site where you guys broke contract by having multiple sellers, and not having a selling contract to begin with? From what I'm hearing, it kind of became a big deal. That you guys started with a half table, and by Day 2 you had expanded to 2 full tables and weren't supposed to be selling at all, because it's a YouTube table. Plus I'm hearing that part of Punch-Out Gaming's contract was that they were supposed to be exclusive game dealers there.

I want to clarify, because I was defending you there, and now I kind of look like an ass now that the whole story has come out.

All of this actually sounds like bullshit.  It goes back to price fixing, as well as a monopolistic scheme.  I've never seen ANY table at a convention be under terms where they couldn't sell something.  Usually youtubers or what have you will sell t-shirts or posters or pins or something.

Again, fuck that noise.

[redblaze57]

So what about this story I'm hearing on another gaming site where you guys broke contract by having multiple sellers, and not having a selling contract to begin with? From what I'm hearing, it kind of became a big deal. That you guys started with a half table, and by Day 2 you had expanded to 2 full tables and weren't supposed to be selling at all, because it's a YouTube table. Plus I'm hearing that part of Punch-Out Gaming's contract was that they were supposed to be exclusive game dealers there.

I want to clarify, because I was defending you there, and now I kind of look like an ass now that the whole story has come out.

can you provide a link to the article?

[burningdoom]

It's not an article, it's people in a gaming group talking about it. Including Punch-Out Gaming owner who explained some of this. After hearing both sides now, it makes a lot more sense.

From what was said, I'm learning that Flea may have tried to circumvent the seller's fee for the con, and was far from a small set-up, at that. If Punch Out Gaming paid for their space fair and square, and suddenly Fleas table is twice the size on the 2nd day, and didn't pay for that space, then how were the other guys bullying Flea just for finding that justifiably unfair?

Let's see what Flea says. Because this guy came off as honest, and his story made sense.

[burningdoom]

I did as you asked, as a fellow VGCollect member. And I spread the word about these guys. Except now that the entire story has come out on both sides, this group has found it necessary to attack me and ruin my reputation within the biggest game trading group I'm a part of on Facebook, because your story held as much water as a paper cup with a hole in it once Punch-Out Gaming showed up.

I'm still getting shit for it, today.

It would be really nice if you'd come back to the thread that you created and and make some sort of comment on the validity of what Punch-Out Gaming has claimed or not.

If your side is true, then please post a link to the YouTuber so I can share the video you mentioned about him being pissed. Because right now, it's getting real hard to believe your side after not replying to this for days now.

I guess I learned my lesson about trying to help out, though. Won't do this again.

[spac316]

It's fuckwads like them that are the scum of the Earth and love to take advantage of honest people like you!

[dashv]

Might just mention this on the show!

Sorry that happened dude!

They sound like a tool bag factory.

[ffxik]

I did as you asked, as a fellow VGCollect member. And I spread the word about these guys. Except now that the entire story has come out on both sides, this group has found it necessary to attack me and ruin my reputation within the biggest game trading group I'm a part of on Facebook, because your story held as much water as a paper cup with a hole in it once Punch-Out Gaming showed up.

I'm still getting shit for it, today.

It would be really nice if you'd come back to the thread that you created and and make some sort of comment on the validity of what Punch-Out Gaming has claimed or not.

If your side is true, then please post a link to the YouTuber so I can share the video you mentioned about him being pissed. Because right now, it's getting real hard to believe your side after not replying to this for days now.

I guess I learned my lesson about trying to help out, though. Won't do this again.

I don't know man.  Since I don't know the whole story I'm not going to take sides officially, but if they (Punch-Out Gaming) are trying to ruin your rep within a trade community, especially if it's already established.  Speaks volumes about the content of the character you're dealing with. 

Them answering questions and explaining things are understandable, and PMing you to get a redaction on the smear campaign.   These I could see them doing.  I can even understand that they would be terse in the communications.  Since they are on a character assassination spree, I feel as if thefleas' story may have a bit more weight behind it than they are willing to admit.  They are a business after all and most will do what it takes to keep revenue flowing and stories like that theflea are telling and word of mouth across social media can ruin a business.

I went through their online reviews most of which are favorable.  The few bad ones they had basically boiled down to the same thing.  The owner is an absolute ass who will not honor his guarantees.  So do with that information what you will.

[sworddude]

To be fair

If this story of Flea's isn't really true I can somehow imagine why they are attacking you.

If you have spread the word it will cost them publicity and money, It's pretty fair why they are giving someone who spread the word bad rep if you would like my opinion.

You are costing them money and potentially ruining them resulting in them being out of business. Pretty fair if you'd ask me if you know what's on the line for them as a game store going broke if this would get out of hand. Sure you get some bad rep on facebook groups yet they can be out of business. They have allot more to lose pretty reasonable.

It still sucks that you are getting bad reputation for helping someone else while you were not connected to this issue I won't deny that.

Also as far as bad reviews go, you always have a few bad apples as far as customers go and in combination with prices being high many people can complain. Not always the truth so you cannot really go of on that.

Maybe the few customers were really unreasonalble and scammers you never know, especially smaller companies are easy targets since reviews have so much influence when your not to big.

[burningdoom]

Like I said, Punch-Out Gaming actually sounded honest and their story made sense. Which is why everyone else piled on me.

But now it doesn't matter. The thread attracted so much heat that I'm now booted from the group.

Hell, I even fixed the post after me and Punch-Out Gaming both posted on the thread saying how we talked and it was a likely misunderstanding. And I'm still booted just due to the amount of heat the post kept getting.

Oh well, can't let it bother me that much, it is just a Facebook group, after all, and there are others.