Amazon vs. Toys R Us vs. GameStop: Which is the best trade-in service?

I think Toys R Us will probably be the best overall. I never sell anything back to Gamestop because they give you like 15 bucks for a brand new game you bought less than a week before and resell it for 55 dollars instead of the retail of 59 lol. Amazon could be great tho! I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon and its always good business.

I hope the conclusion isn't guaranteed. I would love to see a "Gamestop Liquidation" sign in front of the mall. Oh the joy!!!

Pretty useless analysis. Basically anyone can debate the pros and cons of each store and their strengths and weaknesses.... but I want a dollars and sense analysis. If I have a copy of Halo 3, NHL '07, and Sneak King.... where can I take those games to get the lowest price on Halo Wars? I know it would be virtually impossible to track trade in values at all 3 places and keep up to date used game prices.... but that's what I'm hoping for. Until then I'm smart enough to know that selling games directly on Craigslist or Ebay always nets you more $$$ than trading in at a store.

I was going to say Gamestation, but then I remembered 2 weeks ago when I enquired about cashing in my old consoles.

For a:

Xbox
N64
SNES
PS1
Dreamcast

All in working order, with all connection leads, I was offered a grand total of...



wait for it...












£7.50 ($10.28)

Moral of the story. eBay it.

Gamefly has a trade-in service as well.

"GameStop does an excellent job of maximizing profits by not offering too much for trade-ins and by reselling those used games at a competitive price."

By "not too much," does he mean "fuck nothing?" And by "competitive price," did he mean "300% of what they paid you for it, and $5 less than a new copy?"

Does this guy work for them or something?
I'd think as a "cheap-ass gamer" he would have taken a different point of view.

The answer to this question is clearly Play N Trade.

Try goozex. You don't get direct cash for your games, but you get fair value. You basically trade away games to get points, then spend those points on new games. Sure you have some waiting lists, but I just recently traded away Fable 2 to get Fallout3 and it only cost me 3 bucks ($2 to mail the game and another $1 transaction fee). So I basically got $57 for Fable 2.

http://www.goozex.com/referral.asp?idr=556829171504

Cheapy D gave Toy's R Us negative points for possibly offering you prices that were "too high" for your used games.

In effect, his assessment weighs "which company will do best with its service" not "which is the best service for the consumer."

He also fails to take into consideration that Amazon and TRU have other sources of income, whereas Gamestop only sells games. That means that if used games takes a hit overall, GS would be in a world of hurt, while TRU/Amazon could shrug it off.

*mandatory anecdote emphasizing Gamestop's evils*

Also, as pointed out before, there are only two ways to sell games for a decent price:

Craigslist
eBay

All other options result in less money, or worthless excess store credit to spend on already overpriced products.

My vote is for goozex.

I looked at Amazon's trade-in site last night. Its not really any better than GS it seems. Maybe a couple better deals and even though the postage is free, you still have to have the packaging as well as the effort to ship it and the patience to wait for the credit.

I love Amazon, and I am glad they are giving it a shot, but I really think they are going to have to intice traders with better trade-in values. I know the profit margin wouldn't be as big but, say an extra 15% on what they are doing.

The only other thing I could see Amazon doing is reselling them at a much lower cost than what GS does, even $5 below what they do, and it probably would make it worth it. As then your trade-in money would go farther.

eBay it or Craigslist.org is your friend for buying/selling used games. The end user wins not a company making profit off us

GAME FLY!!!!!

Ebay, anyone?



Anyway Gamestop wouldn't be so bad if they didn't rape the holy shit out of you on how much they pay you for your old games. Bitches tried to give me $2 for mass effect 6 months after it was released!!

You guy do know that Toys R Us is scraping by due to being privately owned.

I like how people get all booty about GameStop giving you $10 and turning around and selling it for $50, like it's all some crazy evil scam. It's called business. There's nothing shocking about it.

What matters is you maximizing your personal gain, not what your buyer will be making later. So go wherever you get the most bang for your buck. Craigslist and eBay may be your best bets.

In Canada, some Futureshop locations have started taking trades for store credit!
Overall, ebay or craigslist is prob your best but its more work.
Its so easy with EB/Games Stop but they don't give you much.

word, my vote is for Goozex for trades, and private sales online or offline for sales... don't bother with these middle men re-sellers....

middle men make me sick.

No what Gamestop does is called extortion, not business.

A Gamestop employee actually told me that they lose money selling new games and that is why they have to give you so little for trade-ins. Also that they only make 10% on selling used games.

I laughed so hard I almost collapsed on the floor. I gave the moron a quick lesson in retail business and walked out laughing my ass off.

Part of the quick lesson was that Gamestop would not sell new games if they did not make money, even if it is only 15% which is what the margin is on AAA titles. Shovelware is aorund 40% margin. Then I said that if you buy a game for $60 and Gamestop makes 15% and then trade it in they make 100% profit off of the resale. When the game is bought new it is paid for. If Gamestop gave you $1 for the used game and then sold it for $2 the $1 they made is 100% profit.

Used games are 100% profit people. The least they can do is give you 10% below what they paid for the game initially.

I don't understand why people would trade in their games with Amazon. You can just sell them on there! Sure they take a certain amount for profit after it's sold, but it's not a ridiculous amount. You can still sell games that are still fairly new or a couple years old and get a good amount of money for them. It beats trading in games ANYWHERE. I've sold over 10 games within the past year on Amazon already.

I don't think either one will overtake Gamestop, but I do see Amazon being somewhat successful.

First is the convenience. Personally, I'm interested in trading in games every now and again, but I rarely want to deal with going to the nearest Gamestop which is 15 minutes away, then have to deal with standing in what could be a 10-20 minute line (not all that unusual near me at the times I can go). Being able to surf Amazon's site, pick the games I want to return, then just ship them from my office is a huge bonus. Sure I miss out on the instant return, but it's easier for me to set it up through Amazon a couple weeks before a big release and have the game shipped to me, than to deal with two trips to Gamestop (or one on the day of release and hope they have a copy available).

Secondly, using eBay, craigslist, or Amazon merchant may give you a higher return, but there's no guaranteed sale. I could be waiting weeks for someone to be willing to give me my asking price for a game. Personally, knowing that I have guaranteed sale at a guaranteed price is worth losing the theoretical $10 or so I could have made selling the game to another gamer. I place a high value on my time, so anything that takes more effort effectively costs me more in a non-renewable resource. I'd rather lose money than time.

By using Amazon's service I am able save around 20 minutes or so of my active time vs. Gamestop, and probably at least 10 minutes vs. selling a game myself (plus the guaranteed sale). Personally, I can see myself using Amazon for a majority of my trade-ins and using some other method for games not listed by their service, or that have a much higher margin on eBay and the like (i.e. Ico, FFVII, etc.).

While I doubt Amazon will overtake Gamestop entirely, I know that I will probably use them much more than I use Gamestop for trading in games. Helps that I buy a good 30% of all my purchases through Amazon though.

Does US just have Gamestop to buy games from? like Games-only retailers? As well as being the only place that does trade-ins?

My town has 4 Games-only retailers, all do trade-ins, 1 Games/DVD trade-in only store, and (upto two of them going under at Xmas) 3 stores that sold CDs/DVDs n Games. which HMV recently started doing game trade-ins too.

Too bad the Amazon one seems to be US only, I tend to get a few off my games n films off them so it would be nice to have a bit of cash off.

No mention of Craigslist?

I've sold well over 100 games through half.com (which is a part of ebay) and I've had awesome experience with it. I definitely recommend that over trade in if you don't mind putting in a few minutes to sell a game.