Seriously.

I know that many prominent Destructoiders have already sang its praises, but there is literally no reason that any self-proclaimed gamer should be without Goozex, the ultimate game trading site. Anyone who has been in the business of buying and ultimately selling video games must be familiar with the systematic process of rape that constitutes retail buyback. Companies, most notably GameStop, are literally in the business of screwing you over by 'buying back' your games at a ridiculous portion of the original price. If you have never felt the pang of defeat from one of these transactions, let me walk you through a hypothetical one:

First, the employee assesses the 'quality' of the game; mind you, they don't actually check to see if it works in its corresponding console, they just cursorily scan the disk for visible scuffs and scratches. In my time, I have most definitely sold major retailers broken/defective versions of games and gotten away with it solely because they never test them. The employee then offers you a pathetically low number which he can give you in cash (it is slightly higher when used for in-store credit), which I would like to believe comes from a standardized list of values that is universal across all retailers.

Which, after it is all said and done leaves you standing at the register in GameStop watching them print a yellow price label that is CLEARLY 20 or 30 dollars more than what they just gave you. You summarily storm out of the store, clutching your pithy amount of money that you might use for lunch tomorrow, thoroughly pissed that there is not a better way to turn your used games into better ones.

Well, in case you have been living under a rock for the past 2 years, there IS a much better way to cycle through your old games. They are probably worth more than you think! Heres a brief overview of how Goozex works:

1. You make a list of all the games that you have and are willing to trade. You state the condition, such as "Disc Only" or "Full Package" or "Disk + Manual."
2. You also compile a list of all the games that you want. Literally every single game all the way back to Dreamcast is available; there are almost 5000 trades going on at any single time.
3. When your "Offers" list (the games you want to trade away) gets a hit (someone wants one of your games and the system matches you), you send the game away through the mail to that matched person and receive Goozex points, which are a predetermined value for each game. The particular value of each game is based on demand, availability, actual retail value of the game, and other factors.
4. After accumulating enough points, and after matching with other game-traders on your "Requests" list, games will start coming in the mail! Easy as pie!



Any gamer that is either laden with next-generation shovelware or who wants to start a serious game collection (or both) would be doing themselves a serious disservice not to check Goozex out. The opposite is also true; if a gamer has a huge collection of retro games and wants to break into the next-generation without paying out of pocket, they can turn their old library into a new one. Everything 100% guaranteed, and there is an easy-to-read feedback system similar to eBay's that helps you avoid problem traders. In my six months or so with them, I have had absolutely zero problems with the system.

Thanks to a "Wii-bacle" that left me with a crap-load of still-expensive but shitty Wii titles, such as Rayman: Raving Rabbids, Super Monkey Ball, Mario Party 8, etc, I was able to MASSIVELY expand my PS, PS2, and GC librarys. All in all, I have turned somewhere around 15 games into almost 40; I just found a copy of Tactics Ogre for the GBA and got 600 points for it! To put that in perspective, thats a copy of Metroid Prime, Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, WaveRace Bluestorm, Legend of Dragoon, Doom III, and Rise of Nations ALL FOR MAILING OUT ONE GAME.

I simply cannot endorse it enough. Long story short: turn the games you don't want into the games you do, for cheap!

Do you Gooz?