Phat Catz Gaming

EDIT: changing to 1 star. The owners consistent narrative of availability and reasoning to charge these actually absurd prices is malarkey and is taking advantage of being one of 2 gaming stores in town. They are also charging 75$ for a STARTER deck for Riftbound, the new LoL TCG. It is 20$ IN STOCK to pre order on Riot’s official page. Do not do business here if purchasing. There is NO reason to upcharg 300% on a pre order starter deck. This price has been confirmed numerous times in person and over the phone. I recommend everyone take business to Spellbound or online if you want actual normal prices. Do not feed into this ridiculous marking up of every product, especially ones that are still in print. It’s sad and the excuse are ridiculous. I’ll start off with the good. So far everyone has been nice and helpful with my questions. Lots of product to choose from and clean store overall. The main reason for 2 stars is I’m *extremely* disappointed in the pricing practices of this store. Let’s break it down MSRP & “Dynamic” Pricing: Almost everything that’s card related is above MSRP at an outrageous rate. We’re talking 50-70% or even higher than product that is IN STOCK on various sites and other stores. The claims I’ve seen is to be “anti scalper” but that isn’t anti scalper and does nothing to prevent. Many other stores have at MSRP prices and still maintain limitations on scalpers. And we all know most scalpers don’t go to LGSs. Some examples I’ve seen is their commander decks that are priced higher to take advantage of the popularity. Example: Endless Punishment is a MTG deck that has grown in popularity than its MSRP price of 60$. But they have it at 130$. This is in stock at 60-80$ unopened in the box at multiple stores online, in person and TCGPlayer. Another example: Counter-Blitz and 2 other Final Fantasy MTG decks are 140$ at PC. These are IN STOCK at Walmart and other stores, online, and even other local LGSs for 50-60$. These are just two examples. They have spider man bundle boxes at 100$. These are in stock everywhere for 60-70$. Now let’s talk about their dynamic pricing. I witnessed first hand with a photo that for the MTG Spider-Man prerelease, they priced the scene boxes that MSRP at 40-50$ at over 100. I’m pretty sure they were priced at 199$ initially. But once the pre release weekend ended, they’re now down to 49.99. You can faintly see in the photo the 2nd sticker. Their Pokémon section is even worse. The point is I see multiple complaints on price and the owner responding about “anti-scalper and market price” but none of these sealed products are traded in. They’re all new and bought from distributors and marked up artificially. If they were traded in I would understand the mark up. These aren’t anti scalps tactics, as there’s so many other ways to go about it that many many other LGSs implement. It’s taking advantage of customers and popularity under the guise of anti-scalp and the market. It really disappoints me that a store that provides such a good gaming place partakes in these practices, making it more difficult for entry into these games. Let’s not forget if you pay for their 50$/month patreon you can buy ONE item at the price they bought it at. Besides the other benefits that are arguably negligible such as waiving seat fees (I have never seen another store charging seat fees for events, even for 80+), you don’t get your money back in that MSRP purchase UNLESS you’re purchasing an item that was marked up higher than 50$ artificially or some outrageous priced item. So you’re paying to pay for a normal price once a month. I’ve seen many of the comment responses and I know the store will continue these pricing practices regardless. And in that meantime I recommend people to take advantage of the awesome gaming space and events they host, but to not purchase product from them. Stores like Spelbound may be smaller and less active, but the fact that they have Spider-Man collector box at 449$ but PC has it at 600-700$ is showing.