Walmart and Best Buy cease used games trade-in operations

by Griffin McElroy on Feb 1st 2010 5:59PM

Well, that certainly didn't take long. Industry Gamers reports that Walmart's and Best Buy's stab at tapping into the lucrative used games market will soon come to an abrupt end. E-Play, the company that distributed used games kiosks to certain locations for the two retailers, suspended operations earlier today -- and as a result, said kiosks will be shut down and removed within the next three weeks. Neither Walmart nor Best Buy looks to be pursuing similar operations without E-play.

We had an inkling that the two retailers weren't seeing significant returns from dabbling in the used games market through third-party vendor E-play, but the brevity of this venture is still a little surprising. Even our "mullet and horn-rimmed glasses" phase lasted longer than eight measly months.

Source

Tags: e-play, Microsoft, Nintendo, retail, trade-in, used-games, walmart, Wii, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (32)

I used a wal-mart kiosk to trade in some games. They had good trade-in values, better than gamestop, and in some cases (the crappier games), the gave a buck or two more than the average completed listings on ebay.

I kept checking back at that kiosk to see if there were any good games for rent, cause it was a good deal, like a buck a day I think. Thing is, the rentals relied on what people traded in there, and there were literally like 15 games, most of which sucked.

Shame. I would have rented games from it if they kept i stocked with a handful of newer titles.

Why bother with it when you don't even have to leave your house to trade in games online?

I ask this with 0 sarcasm: You don't?

http://www.goozex.com/trading/asp/welcome.asp

http://www.amazon.com/Video-Games-Trade-In/b?ie=UTF8&node=979418011

Of the two, goozex has more awesome included ;)

What's it like to live in a post office and/or shipping facility?

Most idiotic "you can do that on the Internet post I've seen". The reason we want kiosks is to compete and give instant gratification as opposed to goozex's poor system and amazons horrible prices. Sell craigslist or gamestaq.

"What's it like to live in a post office and/or shipping facility?"

Hmm, I wouldn't know, but there's a really cool trick. If I put a game in an envelope, and stick it in my mailbox, the postman (or faeries, I really couldn't say) picks it up and sends it where it is addressed.

"The reason we want kiosks is to compete and give instant gratification as opposed to goozex's poor system."

Yes, instant gratification is expensive, so if you are willing to give up most of your trade-in value for that, then Gamestop is a great setup for you. For those of us who aren't happy with Gamestop, Goozex has an amazing system that lets me play anything I want for $1 a game.

Oh, then what's it like living on the street right beside a mailbox?

Oh no, I just read your post properly.

Apparently you put your games in your OWN mailbox.

My bad.

Btw, how does that work? Do you have to set that up with your post-office or mailman in advance or if I for example just put mail in my mailbox tomorrow would my mailman pick it up and mail it for me?

I thought most mail people did that... you just leave a letter (With a stamp), and they will pick it up for you.. I guess they do it with Netflix and Gamefly type stuff too

Jason,

The tradition is that you have a mailbox at your house, place the outgoing mail in it and raise a metal flag. The postal worked sees it and takes it while dropping off your mail.

However, newer construction and some older neighborhoods are seeing boxes for every couple of blocks of homes instead of 1 per box. for these, you have a slot you can put outgoing mail into. For parcels that fit in a slot, you really don't need to go to the postal carrier. However, even for this, USPS will stop at your home and pick up your package, or drop off packaging boxes, if you ask them.

Indeed, you don't really need to leave your home to mail something in 2010 USA (and I'm sure, many other countries).

I didn't see this succeeding anyway.

I never even saw a kiosk to try it out. Still I was curious how well this would work.
Gamestop is like the Gestapo examining your disks for scratches. I think there's too many logistical problems for it to work.

I wonder how Amazon is doing with their trade-ins? They gave me a good deal on games I traded in.

There's a Jay Leno joke somewhere in this.

I miss Coco.

One of their biggest problems were Higher Used Prices on Games.
Sure they gave you a tad more for trade in, but a lot of their prices were 5 or so higher than gamestop and such.

Which probably turned a lot of people off from buying it.

The only other trade in service that is worse is FYE.
Unsure of their trade in values but their prices are ridiculous.
In the mall their's a FYE and a Gamestop right across from each other.

Anyway a 5 dollar used game at gamestop would be 20-30 even higher sometimes at FYE. Very Very rarely do I find deals their. I think I had found one which was Afro samurai for 30 when other places were still charging around 50.

In Canada, both BestBuy and FutureShop offer used game trade-ins. You bring them to customer service to perform the trade in.

Never knew about that, was it any good?

I found Future Shop to be surprisingly good about it. Three games got me $105.00 trade-in last summer. No joke. Fallout 3, LoZ:TP, and I forget the third.

Hm, $1 to rent a DVD for a night? With these inflated prices they can't stay in business? Must be the kiosk costs. My disc-by-mail package (Canflix) works out to 25 cents per disc per day. That includes blu-ray and console games. I've had a membership for 3 years. Selection could be better, but there's always something.

Never done it myself, but I have been tempted to pick up a couple of the used ones.

thats the problem there....outsourcing.....if they would have handled it themselves they would have came out a LOT better....

I didn't even know Walmart had trade-ins. So much for advertising. Not like I saw any trade-in stations either.

I would have gladly tried this if it was in my area. I have a metric ton of used games that are gamestop blacklisted that I would have given to BB or Walmart for a few bucks.

E-play must be run by NBC

Well, that was quick.

I've got a mullet, yes I do,
They're givin' 'em to anyone and that means you!

It would help if I actually saw the kiosks at my Wal-Mart and Best Buy....which I didn't.

i am shocked. SHOCKED. look at my face I am simply flabbergasted holy moley what an amazing turn of events

That is fine and everyone knew it was going to flop my only question is this...WHERE WILL ALL THE USED GAMES THEY RECEIVED GO?

its all flat mail. the post office doesn't care. Unless you have a mailman who likes stealing CD shaped objects which is rare enough ;)

I didn't even know Wal-Mart had the trade-in system. So I'm sure the marketing department had much to blame.

Any here from Chicago Know if the best buys up there are still doing used games. When i was up there 2 years ago they where selling used games and took used games as trade in in the actual store not in a kiosk

Best Buy is still doing trade-ins. THey've changed their trade-in webpage though, you can take only certain things in-store (games not one of them) and they must have been purchased from best buy to begin with. Or you can continue to trade using their online webpage which accepts a lot more items than in-store without the purchased at best buy limitation, you just have to mail the item to them to get your git card which they supply the prepaid label for still.

Sorry, you must be logged in to leave a comment.

Breaking News

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days

Vita 'UMD Passport' won't be offered in US 218 comments
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning review: A tempting fate 152 comments
David Jaffe leaves Eat Sleep Play, layoffs hit developer [Update] 107 comments
Don't call it a remake: Final Fantasy X is a 'remaster,' to be clear 95 comments
Battleship movie adapted into FPS by Double Helix 93 comments

Walmart and Best Buy cease used games trade-in operations

Reader Comments (32)

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:06PM Levi said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:07PM Ghen said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:11PM Nate Addison said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:13PM Ghen said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:55PM ijustw1n said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 7:15PM copa said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 7:47PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 7:50PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 8:23PM SeanR said

Posted: Feb 2nd 2010 12:30AM Dustin F said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:07PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:08PM Cap Morgan said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:09PM Bubbameister33 said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:10PM Psamtik said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:10PM Jawmuncher said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:11PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:22PM Cryo said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:52PM Solar Jetman said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 8:08PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:11PM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:20PM Shadowbender said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:21PM Maulok said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:24PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 6:29PM ch3burashka said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 7:51PM GewurztraminerX said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 10:03PM Bluebreaker said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 10:37PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 10:40PM shimrra74 said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 11:10PM Ghen said

Posted: Feb 1st 2010 11:23PM Misfit Toy said

Posted: Feb 2nd 2010 12:31AM danhawk911 said

Posted: Feb 2nd 2010 12:58PM (Unverified) said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

Kotick: New Call of Duty planned for 2012, Diablo 3 still launching this year [Update: Diablo 3 in Q2!]

Featured Stories

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier brings information warfare to the front

Rhythm Heaven Fever review: Crazy into you

Remedy not done with Alan Wake

The most popular postsin the last 7 days

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days