I'm a hoarder. I don't trade-in, I keep forever. No matter how bad the game or how much I will never play it again, I keep it. However, the used game market is massive, so I'm pretty sure that I am the minority. If I did trade my games in, I would assume that I would want the most bang for my buck. Before a few days ago GameStop was basically the only nationwide place to do this sort of thing, but as of Sept. 10 Toys "R" Us has begun to offer trade-ins for games. So where should you go?
Well, if you want more money back for your game the answer seems to be Toys "R" Us. Hot Blooded Gaming did some research by using Toys "R" Us' online trade-in center (convenient) and calling three GameStops. They discovered that Toys "R" Us is offering significantly more across the board. You can in fact get a whopping $13 more for Wolfenstein from Toys "R" Us, and most other games have a $4-$6 difference. In my eyes that's a game changing amount if I'm making a trade-in. They also did some research on older games and discovered that no one gives any amount of worthwhile money for them. The full chart of price comparisons is below.
How can they be offering more? I don't really know, but there are a few guesses we could make. The ridiculously high trade-in price for Wolfenstein tells us that they aren't really working off a supply and demand model quite yet as Wolfenstein didn't really sell that well. So it could be that they're just finding where their prices need to be. A more likely cause of the bigger payback though is that Toys "R" Us isn't doing cash back at all, but gift cards to Toys "R" Us. It's easy to offer more money when they know the person will turn around and spend it at their store, especially since the majority of people spend more than the amount of the gift card. So do you stick with GameStop for the cold hard cash (which often nets you another decrease in their trade-in value) or do you duck over to Toys "R" Us so you can use the card to spend less on your next game purchase?
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Contest:
10:00 AM on 09.13.2009
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Amen to that brother.
Open question to anyone: If you were guaranteed a higher turnout for your trade-ins but only in the form of store credit, would you be more inclined to trade as opposed to a lower but cash-based return? For me, I'd probably go with the store credit. Presuming you can still price-match, that'd be a stellar deal, and even if you don't, sometimes the gain on credit will outweigh a sale at some stores.
"We WILL give you the best deals on trades. It's a guarantee. You say the store down the road offers more? No problem! Well match that trade value AND offer an additional 5% on top of that.*"
http://www.gamecrazy.com/difference/
notice the asterisk.
in any case, i don't sell everything (otherwise, I'd probably just rent and be done with it), but i love buying used.
However I make exception for peripherals and sequels that make originals obsolete (like music games or sports games) so I will definitely look into this. I have like 4 different versions of the NES too. I wonder if they'll take my broken one and refurb it. Hmm.
QFT
$0.50 for a NES game, and $0.25 for a Dreamcast game!!!
Then it says "If your games are valued $10 or more, shipping is free! Otherwise, a $2.50 shipping charge will be deducted from the trade-in value."
So, it looks like it will cost $2.25 to trade in a Dreamcast game. That business model will be successful I'm sure.
I'll stick to local game trading stores, thanks.
I think this plan isn't for you if you plan on trading a single dreamcast or nes game. If you've got some stuff from this gen though, the extra 25 cents for your copy of bio freaks or xena warrior princess wouldn't be a bad deal IMO. No one would buy it, you wouldn't throw it away. Starting to sound more appealing now eh?
Toys R Us - $40 for brand new off the shelf titles
Goozex - $60, you just pay shipping for off the shelf titles
If you don't mind getting Goozex "store" credit, the choice is obvious.
I'm just excited about this because once people catch on to this I'm sure there will be suckers who go trade in their old games that Gamestop won't take and hopefully Toys R Us will be kind enough to sell them for a reasonable price too.