LogFAQs > #900085009

Depends on the store. I've heard a lot of Goodwill stores like to take the older games and sell them online but the ones near me sell them in store. That's how I got a good chunk of my NES collection (including games like Super Mario Bros. 2 & 3, Contra and Mega Man 2 among others).

And then there are places like Value Village who don't even sell games online (to my knowledge). This year alone, I got a set of 5 complete Genesis games for $15 total and it wasn't too long ago since I found a bundle of loose SNES games (including Tetris & Dr. Mario and Super Mario Kart among others) for $7 total. Pawn shops get these kind of games in, too, but they differ from place to place. Some set all of their games at one price while others price each individual game based off of what they saw on eBay or Amazon.

I don't doubt that some employees might be taking these older games home with them but I believe that the main reason why games like these aren't found at thrift stores as often is because of retro gaming and collecting gaining more popularity as the years go on. Some people will even go to a thrift store early and stay in there for hours and hours waiting for finds like these to show up. Still, whether or not you find something depends mainly on being at the right place at the right time. Someone can stay at a Goodwill from 10 AM to 3 PM and go home only to miss a stack of NES games or a Dreamcast system that the store decided to put out at 4 PM.