I see the same thing all of the time.

I can understand why they don't want to budge on certain vintage titles, but I think that they should consider having sales every now and then, or perhaps offer some sort of rewards program to help move some of the pricier titles that just hibernate on their shelves. Offering BOGO deals helps everyone, too. They could get you to bite and move the pricier titles by offering you discounted or free lesser titles that they don't make that much off of anyway. I think mixing things up is a good way to get people to move on things that they'd otherwise sleep on.

At least most comic book stores will usually work with you to move product. I feel like independent specialty stores should be about more than just turning a high profit. I mean, they could be doing anyone else, but they chose to deal in what they do (in this case selling classic video games). Sometimes I'll take a little less profit on something (be it a comic, video game, poster...whatever.) if I know that it's going to a fan. I'd like to see shop owners take that attitude, too, though I understand they still need to make money.

With that said:

I've gone into these places here and there over the last few years and have made what I think are reasonable offers for certain games (maybe asking them if they will knock $10-20 off a game)
Depending what games you're talking about, that can be quite a bit you're asking them to knock off.