Gamers In Control

Locally-owned since 2003, this Salinas shop mixes retro and new video games with Pokemon, One Piece and MTG singles, sealed and buy-sell-trade.

Gamers In Control has been a Salinas fixture since 2003, and the longevity shows in how comfortably it straddles two hobbies. Half the store is a video-game vault — old-school cartridges through current-gen systems and accessories — while the other half has grown into a legitimate trading-card destination, which is why it keeps turning up on lists of the best Salinas card shop options despite the GameStop-style first impression.

The card lineup is broader than most game stores bother with: Pokemon leads, but you'll also find One Piece, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Dragon Ball Super, stocked across singles, booster packs, and sealed boxes. They round it out with the practical stuff — binders, sleeves, and top loaders — and run an active buy-sell-trade counter for both cards and games, so it's an easy place to offload a collection or trade up.

What regulars rave about is the pricing and the attitude. Reviews repeatedly call out fair, often-better-than-competitors prices and a genuine "people first" vibe from a locally owned crew that actually plays the games they sell. It's a chill, unpretentious room rather than a tournament hall.

Hours are mall-friendly: noon to seven on weekdays and an earlier eleven-o'clock open on weekends. Whether you're hunting Pokemon cards Salinas players trade or a boxed copy of a retro classic, this is the rare shop that genuinely serves both crowds under one roof.