He Quit His Day Job To Play Video Games

Jason Brassard's hobby, like a lot of guys who grew up in the age of Atari, is video games. Not just playing them, but collecting them, too. He loves to collect the games that he couldn’t afford to have when he was a kid.

Twelve years ago he decided he could turn a profit on his hobby by selling extra games on eBay. His online sales were so successful that he quit his day job and opened a retail store, , in Fenton.

His wife is pretty happy about the career switch too. He said that once he had a retail location he was able to move his massive game collection to a storage room in the back. He owns nearly every title for all the classic consoles.

He no longer keeps old Atari games at his house, but he does have current systems for his two kids to play. His wife doesn’t play at all.

“I try to leave the work at work,” he said, but he admits that he keeps a smart phone handy to answer customer questions from his website.

Brassard’s store sells used video games, from classic Atari cartridges to nearly new Xbox 360 disks, and everything in between. And we mean everything. A stroll through his shop reveals cartridges from several nearly forgotten 80s consoles, like Freedom Fighters for the Magnavox Odyssey², Donkey Kong for ColecoVision, and a He-Man game for Mattel’s Intellivision.

If you long for your old Atari 2600 or Nintendo NES, Brassard has you covered. These consoles turned out to be more durable than their competitors, and their former popularity means that many working units are circulating in the used video game market. Brassard and his staff frequently rebuild these old systems and place them for sale in the shop.

“For the price of a brand new game, you can buy a whole system,” he said. A fully functional Atari 2600 with joysticks, paddles, cords and 18 games costs $70 at Trade-N-Games. He points out that while there may be other stores in town that sell classic games, none sell old consoles.

He said most game collectors are from 20 to 30 years old and are seeking Nintendo games they might have played as kids. He said the Nintendo NES had a long run, from 1986 to 1993.

“To them, it’s not retro. They had it and maybe only had a few games because they were expensive,” Brassard said. Now Nintendo fans can pick up old games for as little as $5 at his store.

“They’re classic and it’s fun to go back and play them,” he said.

Trade-N-Games isn’t just a place for collectors seeking the games of their youth. Brassard’s 10,000-title inventory includes newer games for current generation machines, like the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii. He also stocks handheld games and machines, from black and white Gameboys to Sony PSPs.

Customers interested in saving money can find quite a few bargains at his store. He said that handheld games are hot items in the summer when parents are looking for cheap portable entertainment for their kids. You can pick up a refurbished first generation Game Boy for $20 and games start at $5 each.

He also buys used classic and modern games from his customers, which is how Brassard maintains his massive inventory. He buys games for cash or gives customers a better deal if they take store credit.

All the games are cleaned and tested before being sold.

His retail business dovetails nicely into his collecting hobby. Over the years, customers have traded in games that were missing from his collection, or had nicer boxes. Those games he bought for himself—though his collection was fairly complete before he even opened his business.

The collection also helped him to write a book, Classic 80s Home Video Games, which he co-authored with Robert Wicker. He sells the book in his shop, or you can pick up as an eBook.