It's no secret that Gamestop is one shady, questionable cult of people who's sole goal in life is to make as much profit as they can squeeze out of desperate gamers. I for one am thankful for Toy-R-Us coming into the trade-in scene, because a little more competition has almost straightened up Gamestop's shady tade-ins. The only problem here is that its come to my attention time and time again that Gamestop has to put out two, sometimes three special deals with trade-ins just to be able to slightly compete with the competitors. For example, last week I was playing with the "trade in six games, get 40% extra!" deal. I grabbed six games, each of different age and obscurity to test this out. I called Gamestop for trade-in prices, looked up the same games on Toys-R-Us tade-in site, and called my local BuyBackGames.
The results:
If you were to be doing these six trades during a month where Gamestop was doing their "trade in 6 games get an extra 40%!" deal, the total would come out to $66.50. And if you had bought an Edge Card prior, you could get a whopping 50% extra, as the card adds an extra 10% to the deal, causing a maximum total of $71.25. That's right, even after adding two special deals on top of their trade in values, it's STILL $10 less than you could get at Toys R Us. But I'd recommend trying out your local independent game store, as they seem to be the most giving this day in age, which is funny to me because I remember when EB Games was in the scene, they put local game stores to shame on trade in credit.
On another note, I just came across another Gamestop deal where if you trade in any two "select titles", you can get a new game for only $60! ($65 after tax).
It may sound semi-tempting until you give it just a simple moment of thought and realize that you'll be giving them back $120 worth of product, and still spending $25 (with tax) on top of that, leading to a grand total of $145 for something that is only $65. That's over double.
I for one am getting pretty sick and tired of Gamestop's ludicrous trade-in program.
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The list isn't just brand new $60 games. It consists of around 50+ titles, some even dating back 2-3 years. For instance, I traded in the outdated Left 4 Dead 1, and Call of Duty 4 for $20 each: that's not really a bad deal, considering I can get them used online for $20 straight up.
Also, you aren't really considering the fact that all of your select games happened to be more at Toys R' Us. With any number of other different titles, that one extra 40% promotion could push it over the edge compared to Toys R' Us. The point is, you have to shop around no matter where you buy/sell goods. Pigeonholing Gamestop is just as bad as NOT considering Toys R' Us.
I guess you're arguing that we should get more money for something... we wouldn't have gotten any money for at all if the program wasn't operating.
I'm all for getting more mileage out of something, but this sense of entitlement among gaming consumers is really just ridiculous. GameStop is a company. It is a retailer which provides you goods, and you pay for those goods with cold hard cash. They don't like you, they don't love you, they're not here to nurture you or be friends with you. They just want your money. And you, along with everyone else, are not entitled to be treated well or even good by them.
You can take your business to another retailer which provides different services or different treatment to their customers. But expecting GameStop to behave any way other than as a business just because they're selling games instead of furniture, is... well, stupid.
I've researched alot of games between Gamestop and Toys R Us, and nearly every time the price offered at Toys R Us is higher. Now, granted, if you were to sell 6 games worth $25-30 each and they so happened to have the 40% extra deal going on, then it very well is worth it. But considering how fast games lose sell-back value at Gamestop, you'd have to buy a game and sell it back within a month of it's release to ensure $25-30, so the chance of having 6 games of that value that you'd be willing to sell is probably not likely. The simple fact of the matter is that without the 40% "bonus deal" they're offering for the time being, their trades are insulting when compared to nearly any other company.
Blindfire,
I agree that they're not obligated by any means to give a trade in program, but under the fact that they've always had one and it used to pay alot more before they lost some competition is a little irksome to me. Especially since they make most of their profit in used game sales, anyways.
Back when games were only $53 new (with tax) they often offered $35 back, leading to a 66% money return, which still gives them a nice profit when they end up re-selling it. Now-a-days, such as with Uncharted 2, it's a 38% money return for games that are also more expensive. All it is, is simple business economics for profit, which I'm not arguing is right or wrong, but it certainly does give them alot more money for the same services they've always offered.
Now, as for saying they don't need to love your or treat you well... I never even touched that area. That's your own battle.
One thing your study forgot to say if you dont have the box or cover art to what your trading in ToysRus cuts your trade value by half......WHAT!!!!???
GameStop still gives you the full value for you trades in most markets if you dont have a case. The most they used to charge before they did that for free was .50 cents
So toysrus is charging you 15 bucks if something happens to your uncharted 2 box or artwork. And you maybe be thinking that you dont see that often TRUST ME it happens ALL the time.
So Gamestop still beats them in that sense.
DID you know you know toysrus take old nintendo games?? N64, NES and more!!
Wow i wonder how much i'll get... .50 cents per title!!!WTF!!!! so i can trade in a copy of Megaman 3 that sells for on avg 15 bucks for .50cents???
And you thought gamestop ripped you off??? HA
Also so used prices between the two
Gamestop sells ps3 resident evil 5 for 32.99
Toysrus sells the same game for 49.99
Gamestop sells Left 4 Dead for xb360 for 24.99
Toysrus sells the same game for 44.99
One more for ya for fun. one from your study list.
Gamestop sells Timeshift for 12.99
Toysrus sells the same game for 19.99
So yes your right toysrus beats Gamestop on trade-in values but the amount they are selling you product for alot more then what gamestop is sell it for.
so before you go on the rants get all the facts of whats going on from all sides of the dice.
All the info I found was on each companys Website if anyone wants to check my homework.
Yeah, I got on kind of a tangent with that. It's got more to do with that laughable controversy business with the PC version of Modern Warfare 2. I've been building up on this "Businesses don't love you. They don't even like you." thing for awhile.
You get more money for your used game, the person buying pays less for the used game.
Its a win win. Why everyone doesn't do that is beyond me.
Posts like this make me glad I ignore trade in offers entirely and just put my old games up on ebay where I actually make money and don't have to solve an ACT problem to figure out where the deals are.
I don't think German Gamestops abide by the same rules as their equally savage Norteamericano counterparts. And yes, Ebay is win. I think about half of my collection is from said magical website.