The Rip-Off That is DKOldies [RANT] 

Glad to see so many people checking this video out, thank u for watching! But it’s been brought to my attention through the comments that this website isn’t actually a scam but more of a rip-off. And after searching the definitions I agree and wanna apologize since I used those 2 words interchangeably not realizing they had different meanings. Will likely change the title soon.

Who else remembers walking into GameStop in the early to mid 2000’s and being able to buy a N64 for $20

I will never get over the fact they charge almost 40 dollars for Wii sports. A game that game stores used to practically throw at you when you entered the store, and a game that came free with every single Wii. You can literally go into any charity shop or vintage gaming shop in the UK and there's a 75% chance you'll find a copy in there for a few quid.

I remember seeing them for the first time like 6 months ago thinking "wow how convenient" but then slowly saw how much they're actually charging

Another awful thing about DKOldies is that they put a lot of RU-vid shorts showing stuff that they make it sound like is a very obscure and unusual like a unicorn but is something that anyone with fair knowledge on videogames already knows.

I'm from Mexico and the retro consoles are very cheap on flea markets. When i see the prices from DKOldies for GTA V on PS3 i have a heart attack, specially when i bought GTA V for PS3 on a flea market for about 8 dollars. And the most hilarious thing about DKOldies is when they make the "ultimate" console and they just attach a lot of random addons

I used to work for DKOlides and seeing these kinds of videos are warranted. I was on their cleaning team (and testing team for a little bit) also the guy who's all over their tiktok and Facebook is literally hired to be a personality for social media. That's all he does. Also I personally never saw anything thrown in for free when working there. I assume that's for show. Also they buy all their consoles and games from eBay or good will or auctions, they then clean them and then sell them

I’m surprised DKO hasn’t come into the crosshairs of Nintendo’s lawyer ninjas with their name alone.

The reason you’re NES was grey screening is because the cartridge reader has gone bad but the good news is you can get them fairly cheap and it’s very simple to install. Hope this helps out.

My experience with them is when I bought an old phat DS that was "cosmetically flawed" and when I got it, it had a few dead pixels on the top screen. I asked them to replace it or repair it because I don't think a bad screen is a cosmetic flaw, and they claimed to replace it but they sent the exact same one back

DKoldies is mostly popular with older people who just want a nostalgia kick and arent aware of the games actual value, or people who dont trust ebay. They tend to justify paying so much for the "quality" and safety of these items, but lately there have been a lot of complaints about people getting dirty or faulty consoles. DKoldies is also known to remove bad reviews or complaints on reddit and other places. Their customer service also seems god awful

Your channel is under rated as hell! Expected you to have at least 100k. You'll definitely get there someday ur doing great 👍

everytime i see their prices i remember buying a nintendo 64 and an extra controller for 20 dollars at my local disc replay. it is INSANE they think this stuff holds that much value

I never heard of this website until they started pushing their tiktoks on RU-vid and Facebook, which as a retro gamer just just kinda set off alarm bells in my head because most retro gaming stores I know of don't need to advertise their stuff that hard to get customers. So hearing that they are doing this type of crap tells me all I need to know to steer clear of them.

The funny thing is if you go to their website you’ll see some nice sale prices for games. But then you click it and realize that the good price is for “cosmetically flawed” and 90% of the time they don’t have those in stock so it shows you the price for the good condition one which is like 3 times the price. Which is crazy to me.

It’s at times like this that I’m glad as a kid I held onto all my retro games like gold 😭

I remember walking into GameStop, 2011, buying a mint editition game boy advance SP, and used Pokémon leaf green for 40$, around 55$ with inflation these days, still good deal. Those were the days fellas!

I remember seeing DKOldies on RU-vid. I thought “wow, this looks like a really professional retro company.” Then I saw the price of Pokémon Emerald and said “yeah screw them.” Lol

I'd never buy their products, but what annoys me most about them is they are actually contributing to the inflated prices of the retro market as a whole.

I went to school in Senatobia, MS which is a shitty, small ass, country town. In its “downtown” area, this old woman opened a game store. I always went to GameStop at the time (2011) and I thought I’d try this new store. My grandmother took me there after school one day, and the store used to be a boutique, and the old woman kept it looking that way. She had an insane amount games in this store. I got super excited seeing how many games were there. I walked up to one of the rows/aisles and noticed all the games were either og xbox, nes, ps 1 & 2, gameboy, Nintendo 64 or PC games. She had 1 row of 360 games that were all games you’d never see advertising for, like Saw, Naughty Bear, and hunting games. Every single game there was priced at $45, for obviously used games. ALL of them. She had the related systems behind like a jewelry store glass display countertop. All systems were $250-$300. And she told my grandmother that she has a store rule that kids must have a parent with them in order to buy T or M games. I left super disappointed. The store was open for 5 months and closed. All my friends went there, and no one ever left with a game or system.

I was in the market to replace a bunch of GameCube games I lost when my family was forced out of our house when I was younger, and ofc Dkoldies was the first site to pop up and HOLY SHIT, they were selling 007 night fire for like 70 bucks and I got it from a local comic shop with the case and manual for $17

I remember finally checking out there site only to shit bricks laughing at how much they charge for everything. Who pays for that?

Their "sale price" is just the actual price with a falsely inflated price to make you think you're getting a deal.

I discovered these guys when I was looking to buy an old PS2 game, The nearest store that had it was still an hour away from me so I decided to try and find an online store. I see DKOldies and click... Search for the game I'm looking for... A PS2 game, The store that was selling it an hour away had it listed for $10, I was down to spend that. And then I see that DKOldies is selling that exact same, used game for 70 DOLLARS. A Playstation 2 game.

It was fun collecting a few years ago. Now i cant go in to any retro store without seeing ridiculous prices. Theres a few that still have decent prices but i feel like most are not even worth going to anymore

Discovered DKoldies few months ago, Instantly laughed and said to myself you'd have to be absolutely brain dead to pay for their asking prices.

I used to sell my garage sale and flea market finds for a few bucks over what I paid for retro to buddies. It was fun to share nostalgia with friends, once the retro market boomed I shut that down when apparently everyone started reselling my crap on marketplace. It was never about the money; I paid nothing for my massive collection and always offered to "buy/sell back" to keep the fun in my friend groups.

This video really does show all my gripes with DKOldies. It's frighteningly easy for someone to get scammed using this website, especially for someone who doesn't know all that much about retro gaming. Just this summer, i was looking into buying one of those old wiis with the GameCube ports since my own childhood one did not and I was really looking for some clean GC controller functionality and another shot at enjoying the Wii's titles. When I searched online, I found that DKOldies had Wiis sailing for far over $80-$100 if you want all the wires and some games included when I ended up just buying a simple lot which came with the console, all the wires, 2 nunchucks (no wiimote unfortunately but I already had that covered) and a copy of Wii Play totaling to only $40. And even then I increased my own value of the Wii way more since I filled it with homebrew so now it's my ultimate retro machine for only $40! Please spread the word of DKOldies and help guide people away from these scammers

I looked into getting an Atari from them, but when I saw the sale price and clicked on it for the cart, the price shown then didn't even match the sale price shown on the previous page. I thought it was maybe the USD to CAD exchange rate but after a quick Google of that current days exchange rate, it wasn't even close. No idea what was on the go there. I didn't buy anything in the end.

This shit is why I emulate, yes it's not the true experience, but it absolutely will not stop until everyone else starts doing this, it's called "Voting with your wallet"

Alot of my childhood hobbies such as video games and anime have been ruined by scalpers etc lol

One of the most ridiculous prices on their website is the Wii balance board. $50 for one of those guys. Literally every goodwill I've ever been in has one of those things going for $10. My local retro game stores stacks them up like a deck of cards on the floor. They're worthless.

Warning!!!!! Joey shits in all the consoles before they ship them.

its about time someone starts talking about this. hopefully DK recognizes their greediness and lowers their prices.

The thing about their "sales", it's that they are simply a marketing tactic. If you go to the wayback machine on their website, their prices have ALWAYS been like that. Those "Sale" prices have been like that for years. As for their bs excuse for their prices, they always go for "It's because the shop is at the slow season. So they have to up the prices" and if it's not that one you get another along the lines of "We have very little in stock so we don't want to run out of stock". It's either one or the other, You always get different people giving you a different answer. Which doesn't even add up, they make it sound like the world supply of mario bros games are running out or something.

What makes it worse is that even if you think the games are decent price at first glance but the prices shown are for the flawed condition and once you click on it, the game in good condition costs considerably more.

"Game stop is the worst game store ever"... Dk oldies... "hold my shitty controller"

Retro games stores have turned into what is essentially a pawnshop for games.

I was looking for a replacement for my NES and when DKoldies came up I was curious. Looked at their prices and pretty much laughed my balls off and ended up buying a Raspberry pie until I could find a decent deal for a NES.

I’ve been seeing them advertised a lot and have almost been suckered into going through them. Thankfully I was smart enough to go on eBay instead and snag a pokemon blue version for about $40

I plan on starting my own games store in the future. I have the capital and the games for the start up. The difference is, I'd be fixing consoles, games, and more, as well as sales. And not for the crack prices these people charge.

Same thing happened to me while looking for games / consoles to buy. Saw DKoldies and thought "neat, I can finally start a collection instead of emulating" Just to then go on ebay and make a list of everything I wanted for literally half the price.

The moment I saw them on shorts I knew it was fishy. Anyone recording their sales to show how "good" they are immediately turn on red alarms in my head. Edit: To those that were defending them in the replies, I wonder if you still have that opinion with everything that has come out now.

I noticed the forever sale thing with league of legends starter bundle. They say oh it's on sale this week. So new players think oh I gata pick that up before it's gone. Then as you play you see it's on sale every week. So that sale price might as well be the retail price. Idk the legality of this.

Saw the video on tipster's stream and man this is impressive! Just earned yourself a sub! Definitely love to talk about retro games.

Another thing that they removed/changed on their page recently was the switch oled... before they changed it they were charging over $600 canadian for a REFURBISHED switch oled (they are normally $450 canadian brand new)... there were a bunch of comments on that, so now they lowered the price to around market value and said it is complete in box, however it is still not in new condition... if you want proof that they had it like that, look at the switch oled reviews.

I used to work for DK games the amount of plain right stealing we did was crazy we would pay about 10-20$ for a NES, 25$ for n64 and about 1-5$ per game

The worst thing about this situation is that Facebook mom's and casual eBay sellers are going to think they're sitting on a gold mine because they found a box with a PS2 and a Wii in decent condition 💀💀

Got into the retro stuff mainly cause I wanted to repair my 2DS. Bought a solder and trying to get experience to refurbish or clean stuff. Most of the its just cleaning stuff cause they got dirty and dusty. I try to somewhat sell it for an affordable price depending how people see the prices. Which my prices ranges are: Gameboy DMG & Pockets go for around $40-$50 depending on condition and model for the Pocket if it a Power LED indicator or not. The GBC are like $55-$60 Regular GBA ranges are $60-$65; the SPs are like $70-$80 Gameboy Lights - $120-$150 Gameboy Micro - 140-170 I know some of those prices can be a bit out of whack. I do make sure the stuff is working and comes with a replacement aftermarket battery cover of it missing one or a charger if the system has a rechargeable battery. Still need more experience for other consoles as well. Plus I have also gotten selling some limited editions too and region editions found only in Japan. So yeah...I hope those prices are somewhat reasonable to buy and not over the top expensive like these kind of sites

I love how they have a “is DK Oldies a scam” video on their own channel. Of course they would say they are not a scam or their business would be taken down

It seems a lot of companies that are also viral on social media are a rip-off that charges way too much, some even legit scamming people. I feel skeptical of any of these businesses when I see their channels.

So is there some kinda lawsuit that can be thrown? Something along the lines of artificial inflation making it easier to call whatever price you want and then jacking it up higher because you're price at first was only 200%markup? Is there something like that? Civil?

Once I saw an eBay listing which was 2 n64 controllers one grey one green they said it was brand new very rare( the sticks were loose). It was 18,000 dollars

I was really bored around quarantine and decided to go retro again. Dkoldies was the only website at the time but way overpriced. I loooked for my consoles at yard sales at swap meets later on where my collection costs me around 200 total whereas dkoldies I would’ve paid at least 5k for what I have now.

this is why emulators have grown on me over the years

I love how they sell console bundles as ‘Player Paks’. It gives me the impression that they treat selling a console bundled with its *own* controller as a privilege, not a basic consumer right.

I have been a customer of theirs for over 10 years. Their prices have gone way up over the years. I used to buy stuff when the prices were fair, I haven’t purchased anything in a few years because of prices obviously. The retro market has been ruined for us real collectors.

I had a great experience with DKOldies years ago. I’m saddened that they are doing things like this now.

There's a retro store that has Klonoa for ps1 for nearly $1000 and Dragon ball z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 for about $250 near me so dkoldies isn't the only scam retro store. Correction: $350 for the dbz game.

I had seen their account on tiktok, and as someone who is largely a Nintendo fan, their prices + shipping costs are absolutely inflated, and in my opinion, a scam.

Bethesda did the same thing on 76’s marketplace- sell something at a permanently “discounted” price to give urgency. But its actually illegal to do so in the UK and other European countries.

Homie dressed like he's a Seattle molly dealer on Drugs Inc

The absolute best part about all of this… you can play all of the old games for free. You can also buy a knock off retro controller and a pair of Rose colored of sunglasses if you’re jonesing for nostalgia.

In my opinion, the fact they ships you a third party controller as DEFAULT with the console is even worse than their pricing, if possible. You have to MANUALLY select a first party controller with the console you want to purchase, which of course costs more. That’s pure madness and I honestly don’t know what to say.

Isnt showing first party Controllers on the product page but not giving you it after you pay considered false advertising?

There’s this antique store in my hometown that frequently sells retro games and one day I saw an orange zapper with duck hunt/Mario and it was priced at like 23 dollars. To me this seemed like a good price for me to have it right now so I went to purchase it. After having small talk with the owner he decided to give it to me for $2. Obviously I took that price and I still visit him to this day. And yes it’s original I cracked it open already to check.

I walked into a rando game store last year and got a mint nes with 2 controllers, Mario/duck hunt, Mario 3 and a blaster for 60 bucks before tax. I can’t believe people will pay that much for that crap. Hell Facebook marketplace shows a nes with the original packaging for 150 right now.

While we’re exposing shitty companies, might I recommend making a video on Dice and Dragons on tik tok? He posts videos about being a small business and had these mugs for sale, wanting to support a small business I purchased a mug. It took hundreds of comments, and unanswered emails and a year and a half before I finally received it. Others have been waiting over two years. The lack of communication has everyone feeling scammed. There’s Facebook groups, and TikTok pages dedicated to exposing him as a scammer. I’d be happy to share a full account of my experience and why I’m so passionate about it.

At this point when I see a business that is more social media oriented than anything else I am very skeptical. Plus Ebay is my go to for old stuff like games and toys.

100% agree on the console pricing. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I’ll never purchase any console from them. However, I will say with my experience buying mainly OG Xbox and 360 games they’ve been fair as far as price. Now I’m a huge Pokémon fan and have been since Gen 2. Since the Pokémon boom during Covid, those games are priced astronomically high. So just taking advantage of the trend. It sucks but at the end of the day at least we have eBay for some of the ridiculous shit.

I need to ask, where can I/should I buy retro games online? So far EBay and Amazon have disappointed me. If I wanted to buy DMC3 for the PS2, where can I buy it and what price would be “reasonable”. As a Latin American, the PS2 market is basically non existent (cause of the whole microchip/piracy situation). So either I find overpriced old Nintendo games IRL or some PS3 games on an old game shop. Guess this market will only survive in Emulation/retro offerings of the official developers for those seeking to experience gameplay.

Is the white screen just a screen with the polarizer removed and you’re wearing polarizer glasses?

I have mixed feelings about DKoldies. You can complain, but as long as people buy from them, they'll continue to charge what they want. It's actually quite genius how they can make more money then most resellers. As far as games go, at least from what I heard they're usually in really good condition. So paying a few bucks more for a game you're sure it's going to be in really good condition, is not the end of the world. As far as consoles go, yea they charge way too much for those. If you're patient and don't mind dealing with people, Facebook Marketplace or local game stores are for sure better options then online stores.

DK oldies gives off the same vibes as the game store somewhat near my house. They would sell all the DS games for the exact same price, aside from a few titles that were jacked to around 200 - 300 plus depending on if they had a box or not, or if they were litrally any of the pokemon games, but you could get like barbie princess adventure for the same price as a mariokart ds at around 35 bucks after tax canadian, or 60 - 300 dollars for a nintendo 64/snes/nes ect. game which is absrud. On top of that, the store itself was just was ran kinda sketchily. the workers just kinda intimidated you, the overall atmosphere was just kinda dark, and unsettling almost, and they would practically follow you around the store and were overly nice to you to the point where you felt bad about leaving without anything, and they almost made you feel obligated to pay their arbitrary prices for a crummy game on a near 20 year old console.

I had that exact fake black N64 controller that a friend had left at my place (I'm assuming exact same, it looked the same and the stick felt just as you described), after just a couple days of use on intense Diddy Kong Racing gameplay, the stick snapped in two

it’s crazy how they are selling nes consoles for 300 bucks when i can go to walmart and buy a nintendo switch for 300 and buy nintendo online for about 10 or so bucks and ill be able to play their retro collection. and nintendo still does bundles for their consoles so thats an extra free game. they tried to sell a game boy advance sp for 145 bucks and are selling pokemon games for 40 bucks i then saw someone sell those items as a bundle for 100 bucks like wtf is up with these people.

I recall going on their website a few weeks ago and nearly puking from looking at the prices, I wanted to buy a gameboy and I noticed that I could get a custom modded gameboy with an IPS screen for the price they're selling a "refurbished" unmodded gameboy

The markup on Nintendo consoles by these scalpers (yes they're scalpers not retailers) is insane. They're cashing in on nostalgia. Wish people would just check out their local game shops and Goodwill stores. I got an N64 with a copy of NBA Hangtime for 30 bucks.

Went to my local family owned game shop and got a GBA, Pokemon Sapphire, and a mystery dungeon game for 45 bucks. DKOldies would have charged me 334.97 and idk if there's tax or "handling fees" or whatever.

Are ps5 still hard to get? And when will the price of ps4 go down?

I am so glad you mentioned this, after watching a 30 minute marathon of dkoldies shorts a few days ago the whole time I'm thinking holy cow how are people getting ripped off this badly

I hope this gets more attention, honestly their prices are absolutely ridiclious. A 150$ overhead average on consoles and seeing from other peoples videos some of these have been never dissasembled, meaning they didnt even bother to replace the thermal paste....

NEVER ORDER OLD VIDEO GAME PRODUCTS ONLINE! Not only do harsh temperatures affect the products in transit, but you have to trust the private seller/supplier and pray that it’s not thrown around like a football by couriers. The only things I order online are disc games that are guaranteed to work.

Another flawless victory for pirates and emulator users

I've actually had 2 friends that worked there. Said it was completely ass. One of them was straight up fired for not doing orders correctly but the boss never told them. Just straight up fired him. It's crazy that this giant business is only like 20 minutes area from my rural area. Too bad their prices are trash

I think it's insane they don't take individual pictures of each console/controller/game case or anything it's all just 1 stock photo they take and it's basically like playing Russian roulette if you're gonna get something good or not

I'd never heard of DKOldies until the recent drama. Can't believe how high the prices are.

If they tell you the price up front and you agree to it, then it’s not a scam. It just means you were fool enough to pay inflated prices.

very well said. i bought some stuff off of dkoldies a while ago and only just realized ebay has things for like, twice as cheaper. also idk how they’re getting away with their “discounts”, i bought an nes a while ago for 110 and it was still on discount then

As a PA resident, who is only a moderate drive away from the actual location, thank you for finally bringing to light what a joke this place is. We've been ridiculing this place for what seems like forever at this point. Rip off artists. Have been that for years.

Thank you for letting us know, I've been seeing their videos nonstop, and now I know not to get a poorly refurbished console from them, or retro games for that matter. There's a few game stores near me with much lower prices going in person.

I actually recently bought from them a couple of PS2 games that were around the prices of ebay listings and had a coupon for 10% off but they forgot to mention that these PS2 games may not be the original print run of that game but the greatest hits version which pissed me off cause I wanted CIB original runs with the black spine

I actually wanted to join game collecting just like a year ago because of scott the woz, I looked for places to buy "affordable" second hand consoles and games. Like istg every website promotes them either being bribed or having their wives held hostage. Avoid dkoldies and just go to your local second hand shop chances are they do not really care about their prices and sell the same games for like 10 dollars or a ps2 for 70 dollars.

1:25 I think the reason they appear at the top is because of a marketing technique called pay per click where you pay money to Google for example to show your website etc first whenever certain words and phrases are googled. It's a gift and a curse

Yeah the whole market got silly. I quit collecting about 2 years ago. Never bought from dkoldies. Usually ebay. Now I just emulate. A few of the shops I'd visit shut down during COVID. It's getting harder to get into retro collecting. I think those prices are too high, but if someone is paying them they make em valid. The bad thing is this usually spreads.

The controllers they sell are also deceptively named. I was in the market for a new Gamecube controller, and they had two similarly named listings, one called "Gamecube controller" that was $20 and showed a stock image (no mention of it being an Old Skool brand aftermarket one) and one for "Official Gamecube controller" that was $50. I bought the aftermarket one only to find out when I tried it out that it has no rumble feature, something never disclosed on the website.

Is there any better options to buy retro consoles compared to Ebay? Or has Ebay worked on helping people who get scammed?

That’s not the first video about them I came across so I decided to check their website and they are so overpriced. I’m living in Europe so decided to compare prices with CEX as they also test products, offer 1 year warranty, basically have all “benefits” of DK. PS3 (PS2 backwards compatible) is 35% more expensive on DK NFS: Underground 2 is 23.06 for disk only on DK while I can get one with box and manual in good condition for 15. Decided to go for live chat with them pretending I want to build my retro collection they were my first choice since I saw their shorts but prices seemed a bit high comparing to other stores offering same products and benefits. Since I don’t mind paying extra for quality but don’t like being overcharged decided to check with them before making decision where to buy. That’s the answer I got “We have a great warranty where you always know you're getting what you want. We test, clean, and ensure all of our products will work and be cleaned. We allow refunds, exchanges, or store credit for any reason.” Well CEX do exactly same but for less so you don’t have to use ebay and still get warranty and fully tested hardware/software for less.

We feel the SAME EXACT WAY! Saw them on TikTok but their prices are outrageous. I understand there’s overhead and team member salaries but damn.

One thing I found unsettling about their videos is that everything is somehow neatly organized and the guy finds everything with minimal effort. Also, the selection of the items shown in videos, doesn't seem to translate over to the website. Meaning, they show items that aren't even on their website.