Calico Games

Negative experience: Nice

Fantastic experience: My family and I have been loyal customers of Calico Games for over five years, which is why I wanted to share this experience in a constructive way. Overall, we’ve always enjoyed coming here and appreciate the selection, the trade-in options, and the welcoming environment. Recently I brought in several video games to trade in that were no longer being used in our household. The trade-in process went smoothly and I was genuinely impressed with the value offered. I was given the option of 30% cash or 50% store credit. Since my kids had been eyeing some items in the store—figurines, plushies, and other collectibles—I chose the store credit so they could pick something they were excited about. One of my sons chose a boxed figurine. Because it was sealed, he waited until we got home to open it, only to realize it wasn’t a movable figure like he expected. Naturally he was disappointed, so we came back the next day hoping to exchange it for something else. At that point we were told that figurine sales are final. I completely understand that stores have policies, and I did notice afterward that the receipt mentions there are no returns on sealed/brand new products. However, because boxed collectibles can’t really be inspected before opening, it would have been very helpful if this had been mentioned verbally at checkout when we made the purchase. The figurine also wasn’t an inexpensive item, which made the situation a bit more disappointing, especially since we returned the very next day simply hoping to exchange it for something else in the store. We truly do like this store and have supported it for many years, which is why I’m sharing this feedback. Small communication details like this can make a big difference in the customer experience—especially for families shopping with kids. If the owner happens to see this, I’d genuinely appreciate the opportunity to resolve this in a way that keeps our family happily coming back. Update: The owner responded. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and for offering to make this right. I truly appreciate it. This is exactly why our family has enjoyed supporting Calico Games for so many years. Your willingness to listen to feedback and help resolve situations like this speaks volumes about the kind of business you run. We look forward to stopping by soon and continuing to support the store!

Fantastic experience: Keep the legends alive!! ✨️ mod my 360.. retroArc time..

Fantastic experience: Super helpful and friendly staff made me feel welcome. Prices on games are very fair

Positive experience: It was okay but honestly it seemed that the cashier working there seemed like the owner and I got the vibe he wanted us to leave I went with my brother and his friend we spent about 40 minutes there I'm never going to go to a video game store to spent just 5 minutes there we took our jolly time and if you want our money that's the way it has to be

Fantastic experience: Old school to new school they have it all at unbelievable prices ✅

Fantastic experience: Only downside is there are not a whole lot of N64 games, but overall selection is pretty good, always friendly staff.

Fantastic experience: this store is pretty cool but i miss when joey used to work here

Negative experience: I love this store but the employee blasting Bible stories on both TVs today made me never want to set foot in there again. It wasn't even the nice parts of the Bible. This was old testament, human-animal hybrid, cookoo stuff.

Fantastic experience: Amazing collection of games for all tastes! Staff is great at helping you find what you are hunting down. Unbeatable prices for any collector or anyone wanting to play that one special game for the vibes/nostalgia feels. Always have a great time geeking out with the staff ♥(ˆ⌣ˆԅ)

Fantastic experience: Wonderful place. Trevor helped me greatly—he solved a puzzling problem I was having connecting an N64 to my TV (and it wasn’t an easy/obvious answer). Great service!

Fantastic experience: This palce is great Alex help me whith trade ins and help me pick up two good games

Fantastic experience: Super friendly and knowledgeable, helped me troubleshoot a glitchy 1985 NES console. True professionals.

Fantastic experience: Great place for used games , a hidden gem in Escondido. I found 2 great PS5 games for the price of just one new one . And u also bought a game gear cartridge. Surprised to see all the great retro games they even had Legend of dragoon! The service has also been great the 2 times I have been here.

Fantastic experience: Awesome little retro-current game store, and I mean retro. You can find some amazing things here!

Fantastic experience: Probably the ONLY video game store in Escondido but despite being the only one here, it's a very good location and I highly recommend visiting if its just to look around. Game consoles come with cables, a controller and everything to get you started so if you're looking to buy a console, this is your best bet. I have purchased a Dreamcast and a PS3 from here with trade in credit and they've worked flawlessly. The staff here are very nice and will help you with whatever you need.

Fantastic experience: These types of stores do not exist anymore good to see there operating. Showed as much support as I could .

Fantastic experience: Nothing but helpful and enthusiastic staff, great experience and will definitely return.

Fantastic experience: i could spend all day here. oh man, all these relics of my childhood.

Fantastic experience: Such a great game store, the employees genuinely care about your experience and just want to make every customer have the best time possible! Thanks so much guys!

Fantastic experience: Love this place decent for trades. People working there are great.

Fantastic experience: Super friendly guy that runs the one in Escondido. He answered all of our questions even though he was crazy busy that day!

Fantastic experience: Knowledgeable staff, I think it was Joey who gave me a couple stickers. Good understanding of prices, products, availability, and warranty. 10/10 would come back with cash in hand.

Fantastic experience: Good selection and lots of accessories at this location.

Fantastic experience: Rad place, good place to exchange games for cash

Fantastic experience: Bought action figures

Fantastic experience: This store surprised me with the amount of DragonBall figures available and they were very affordable. I ended up leaving with 2 I really liked. I will definitely be going back.

Fantastic experience: Excellent retro game store! Highly recommend!

Fantastic experience: Great place for nostalgia and niche interests. Cool environment and employees

Negative experience: Called in to get info on trade it, whoever was on the phone was just rude and condescending for no reason. I understand you don’t do info on trade in over the phone but no reason to be rude and condescending. I’m not coming in there at all.

Fantastic experience: Kind and helpful

Fantastic experience: It's such a cool place. I buy old controllers from all their locations, support these places, or they will be gone forever

Fantastic experience: THANK YOU JOEY!! He helped diagnose and fix my son's xbox within 15 minutes!

Fantastic experience: Very cool retro video game store. Huge inventory. Pretty fair on trades

Fantastic experience: Awesome store, great collection, very good prices and a helpful and friendly staff. They also offer disc repair!

Negative experience: Hello Calico and all others reading this, The problem is they stopped hosting game nights for Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Super Smash Bro players. This is a game store and is suppose to be a home for geeks and gamers but now it is a place for old antiques to collect dust and rarely be purchased or replenished due to their lack of replaceable stock and are bad for a constant source of income value (they lack replaceability like MTG & YGO cards have). I know they replaced the tables for stock due to lack of income but I think the real issue is the amount of disks and old consoles they have lying around that will rarely be bought. Bring your community back, bring the players back to Galico and you'll make better profit margins (if you are yet) from your close community who actually have a passion for these products. Though, before you do this, replace all the antiques and disks with a consistent renewable source of up-to-date game cards, board games, and more merchandise—that alone can revive any games store business in addition to bringing your community back and game nights! Hopefully game nights will return, because until then there really is a lack of a need to go into the store other than to buy something I can already order online or a quick cash grab for collectors (but how does that benefit Galico?). Your competition across town us hosting game nights and stealing all the slim geek tabletop community, don't let them beat you down, bring game nights back and rethink your stock. Sincere thanks for the read, Gamer!

Fantastic experience: Cool retro games and very friendly, helpful staff

Fantastic experience: Good gaming community and staff is amazing and hilarious 10/10 recommend for old and new gen gaming

Fantastic experience: Fun selection of rare game and anime stuff. Colin and Joey were super helpful, and I loved Joey's Bob Ross costume. I can't believe they have the Bee Movie Game, the greatest video game of all time. Truly an amazing store.

Fantastic experience: Great selection of games for all formats all game series and game consoles

Fantastic experience: I love this store! There is so many retro items that it feels like a Time Machine. I have been able to reunite with my favorite games from my childhood because this store exists. They are always posting updates on their Instagram page. I love the different items such as anime figures, stickers, plushies, keychains that are available. The employees have always been friendly and helpful with any questions I’ve ever had, there really is passion put into this place.

Fantastic experience: Honestly this place is great. I love going in at least once every two weeks ti say hi and shop around before my shift.The Workers are great people with a great sense of humor. Keep Up TH Good Work Guys!!

Fantastic experience: Great selection of games. Very well organized shop. Knowledgeable staff and very helpful.

Fantastic experience: Great games shop, got into my first car accident here! 10/10 would do it again

Fantastic experience: Located in North San Diego… Escondido. This is 1 of 3 locations in San Diego. Retro video game store I frequently visit for my fix for older games, consoles and accessories. Good variety of selection of games and consoles on hand. I mentioned in my review of their Mira Mesa store check their Instagram for latest trade ins for sale. Staff is friendly and extremely helpful… I was looking for a specific n64 game I wasn’t able to find on the shelf - they looked in the back for the game and was able to find it. Thanks . If they don’t have a game in store they can also check their other locations for you.

Negative experience: Cool shop and nice employees. Problem is they sold me two busted consoles in a row.

Positive experience: This is a great place to find all of your gaming needs as well as a good place to either make a few bucks or credit at the store if you have any games or other gaming equipment you want to sell. The staff if very helpful and knowledgeable and you can always find whatever it is your looking for. The only reason I didn't give them five stars was because the last time I went in to sell a few games they couldn't take them that day because they didn't have the cash to pay me. This has only happened the one time, so maybe it's an isolated incident. It won't stop me from going back though unless it becomes a regular occurrence.

Fantastic experience: Really impressive game store chain, they grade their games and know what their talking about. Great store with a unique collection of games! Super friendly staff :)

Negative experience: Dont go here. I called about selling an old system and was given a price on the phone only to get lowballed ($30.50) when I actually went in.

Fantastic experience: Very cool place! Got my Xbox 360 Kinect there, Kinect games, and original Xbox games.

Fantastic experience: BEST VIDEOGAME STORE EVER!! Sold some of my old games/consoles/controllers and got a really good price to use as in store credit that I was able to use immediately to get some awesome stuff!! Great selection of games and collectibles!! Staff is super friendly and helpful!! This is THE place to go for all your retro gaming needs in the San Diego area!! 10/10!! Support your local businesses!! <3

Fantastic experience: Got me some games that I couldn't find in any other places

Fantastic experience: The perfect Retro Gaming Store. love this place, been coming here for years. Bought multiple consoles, tons of games and toys. Always treated well, The guy who runs the shop is always respectful and as helpful as I ask him to be. Best experience: I went in and bought a PS3 controller for 20$ took it home, it was ghosting (analog stick or d-pad moving without touching it) I drove it back to the shop, the guy took it back, apologized, and gave me a 30$ PS3 controller with upgraded battery life, no extra charge. He said he apologized for the inconvenience and that I was a good customer so he wanted to make sure I was a happy customer. At the time I had been going there for about a year so building a relationship with them was totally worth it. hard to find mom and pop shops like this where they care about the customer. Able to order things they don’t have in store sometimes. Sick of game stop. Calico Games

Negative experience: Need to be update on google that it isn’t a card shop anymore they only do video games but the guy I spoke to on the phone was insanely helpful & referred me to another location.

Fantastic experience: Super helpful! Super knowledgeable! Very friendly. They were able to help me problem solve. Glad I found this place.

Fantastic experience: Tons of knowledge, tons of stuff you didn't know you needed. Awesome.

Fantastic experience: Folks are amazing and prices are right. Love the retro selection.

Fantastic experience: Not too many stores now nowadays that are able to give you a blast from the past and this place is certainly the go to. Whatever old game you can think of you name it they may have it and if they don't they can find it for you online and call you when it's ready for pickup that's how convenient this place is.

Fantastic experience: I have a question if i would sell u a new game nlt scratched modern warfare how much will u guys be able to offer

Fantastic experience: Given there aren't many game stores that deal in trading used games and consoles from generations past this place is a gem. Give them a visit, there's bound to be something you're looking for.

Fantastic experience: If I could leave more than 5 stars I would. This place is great, fun selection of games, accessories, etc. at very reasonable prices, and the staff is amazing. I had a box of ~30 Dreamcast/Saturn games that wouldn't play, I called ahead of time, Allen was in the shop whom I was told was the person you wanted to take your scratched discs to, I dropped my box off and within a few hours I had my beloved set back looking brand new and working perfectly. Super friendly, helpful, and honest. Nice job!

Fantastic experience: It was great I got 3 Indiana Jones games Nintendo wii 1 James bond game Nintendo wii Bionicle Heroes ps2 I was with my Grandpa

Fantastic experience: This is a great shop for any gaming fan to visit. Cases of gaming collectibles to marvel at, Great deals for retro and modern games, friendly and dependable service by the staff and of course games galore on the shelves!!! This place is basically Gamestop but it being a small shop with friendly service forces me to say that id go here before stopping by any Gamestop.

Fantastic experience: So much nostalgia and organized place also v knowledgeable staff will come back here for sure.

Positive experience: Calico Games in Escondido is great, im grateful to have an independent game store here. Its got great selection, from the Atari/Intellivision and more retro stuff, to the current gen PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One stuff. Accessories, games, peripherals, collectibles, magazines/books/guides, and anything in between. If its game related, you can find it here. The staff is kind, knowledgeable, and always have time for questions and related convo, inspiring the culture and fun. You can bring in your games & accessories, the better condition and complete for best results as far as trade in credit or a lil less in cash. Ive brought in plenty and walked out VERY happy with my trades, these guys give better credit than elsewhere. Come in an take a look, its a place you might not wanna leave right away, they have alot to look at, and it feels special. Im 40yrs old, i love video games and its culture, lets frequent this business, keep it alive, its only good for the industry, independent shops, and mostly US. We cant let the corporate places be the only places around, or we'll lose. These independent shops will always have more for us, collectibles, and u might walk out with new friends and ideas for your lifestyle. Remember to tell your people about Calico Games, theres also a San Diego store in around Mira Mesa, right off the frwy there, and its also a gold mine. Stop by and gaze at perfection, they carry IMPORTS, SYSTEMS, and best of all, they love games too. Be respectful, and youll get the same, im headed there now. See you there! #GameOn

Fantastic experience: Clerk was very knowledgeable of what he had and about gaming systems. Lots of old gaming systems and accessories.

Fantastic experience: Very friendly and helpful staff. Superb prices. If you're looking to sell your console, accessories, or games you no longer play, I highly recommend selling to them. They offer cash or store credit at a great rate. I've been going to them for years and almost always find a game to add to my collection.

Negative experience: Horrible customer service. I asked a simple question on their Facebook Page and they left me on read. So my next option was to call the store and I got hung up on. I used to like coming here but now it has just gone down hill. Lost a customer..

Positive experience: Calico Gaming is a nice place to shop for video games but most importantly retro video games that were made decades ago and no longer at places like Walmart. The only thing that preventing me from going there more often is the male employee that works in cashier. Every time I visit the store that employee is always there and always gives bad vibes. While he not necessarily rude, his communication to customers is too direct which makes him make him seem like he angry and that gives the store a bad look. Overall, I suggest giving the place a visit as long as that employee can fix his act up.

Fantastic experience: If I could somehow give 6/5 stars I would. Incredible customer service would be a HUGE understatement and an insult to the quality and care I have received while making my purchases in this fine establishment. Cordial and helpful are words that come to mind when I think of Calico Gaming, immediately followed by the words caring and safe. By taking, and enforcing, the necessary precautions being mandated by the state of California this business has allowed myself and others the luxury and joy of purchasing masterpieces such as Nintendo's Super Mario 64™ and Shaq Fu™. Update: This place still rocks

Fantastic experience: The employees there are very helpful and nice! I bought Spider-Man for the ps1 for only 20 dollars!? On amazon, I have to pay nearly 100 dollars! They have a lot of retro video game stuff if u are interested. Overall, I love this Place!

Fantastic experience: Great staff always super helpful and friendly. While some of the older cartridges are a bit of a messy order, it still was relatively easy to look through everything and find what we were looking for.

Fantastic experience: Great place. Bought SMT4 and a Corrin figma. Always satisfied whenever I go there.

Fantastic experience: Lit

Fantastic experience: Really cool game shop with tons of old stuff like Dreamcast and Gameboy games.

Fantastic experience: Retro prices are all going up but what I was looking for here was fairly priced for the condition. Staff were very helpful and obliged me by opening the cart to confirm it was legit. Very happy, and will definitely be back on a future visit!

Fantastic experience: Best people, best selection!

Fantastic experience: My son said it was "AWESOME"! I'll believe him.

Fantastic experience: The staff is awesome! The store is always so organized and in great condition it's always exciting to walk inside, to see games I loved when I was younger with the chance to play them again, I always recommend this place to my friends when I can, and I spend a lot of time talking to the staff who always do their best to help me out! 10/10 Will visit again!

Positive experience: This place is amazing for retro gamers like me as they have friendly staff and a wide variety of games the only flaw which I have with it is that there markups are a little too high and only got one game below value which was body harvest which I got for 10 bucks cheaper and that was only because there was a mislabeling on the sticker so they gave me the sticker price instead of the real price

Fantastic experience: Great prices and super friendly service always find what I'm looking for will recommend all friends and family

Fantastic experience: Great

Fantastic experience: Great source for retro gaming gear, console repair and all other things video gaming! Helpful and friendly staff!

Positive experience: This guys are awesome and pretty knowledgeable.

Positive experience: Good selection of retro games and consoles.

Fantastic experience: One of the best video game stores ive been to. Thoroughly impressed by the service of the staff. Alan in particular is really knowledgeable and helpful. Their inventory changes constantly so if you see it, buy it because I thought i could come back a week later for a copy of Marvel vs Capcom 2 for ps2 and when i came back, sold. Good prices. Well organized store.

Fantastic experience: Great place for retro games and trades

Fantastic experience: This place is awesome when trying to find older generation games with any system. The guys there are knowledgeable and helpful. I bought a game that had three discs and one didn’t work so they replaced it and gave me a couple more discs just in case, for free.

Fantastic experience: Amazing place. The selection is incredible and the prices are even better.

Fantastic experience: Great place to buy games. I love this place and will not shop elsewhere for old video games. I have bought old PS2 and XBOX games here for years now. Game ADX is horrible; come here to get great prices and great games. They have accessories that work for every and any system imaginable. This place is GREAT and 5 stars does not do it justice.

Fantastic experience: Train runs on sunday

Fantastic experience: They had an awesome selection at fair prices. And the customer service was great and friendly awell. Awesome place very clean and you can just tell they take care of the place. Will definately come again.

Fantastic experience: One of the cleanest and best organizes retro game stores around. Fair prices and friendly staff put it over the top.

Fantastic experience: great place to get vintage games and good customer service %

Fantastic experience: I love classic games

Fantastic experience: Nice place to browse for that used video console or used game cartridges that will add to the collection at home. The prices are fair. The inventory will vary from week to week, so if you don't find what you want the first time maybe later it will show up.

Fantastic experience: This is a great little gaming place that takes trade ins like Gamestop. The staff is super chill. Just some cool peeps who love games. They take trade ins and sell some cool gaming accessories.

Fantastic experience: Very nice employees and excellent trade-in prices. This is the best place out of all the classic gaming stores in North County.

Fantastic experience: Great selection - except I do wish they had more N64 games. They have everything from PS1 to Dreamcast. They sell gaming systems and random gaming merchandise. The staff is friendly and will help you if you are having problems with a game you bought. They have always fixed any problems I have had. Great shop for gifts for fans of new and classic gaming.

Fantastic experience: Great collection of old gaming hardware. Come here to find any old school gaming devices.