Trade-In Deals at EB/GameStop, Game Crazy, etc.
Every so often, EB, GameStop, Hastings, and pretty much every other retailer that accepts used games will have an offer where you get bonuses for trading in games. Offers such as an extra $10 for every three or four games, an extra 30% credit, or trading three or four or five older games for a brand new release make trading in games actually worth your time because without these deals you would get only a fraction of what your games are actually worth.
There are some games that won’t be accepted (most sports games and other bargain bin fodder) but this is a great way to cash in on older games you don’t play very much and get something new. If you want to work a bit for it, you could take advantage of clearance sales and other good deals and then use those games as your trade ins – provided of course that the trade in value of your games is going to be more than you paid for them because paying $5 for something and only getting $4.99 in trade in value is obviously not worth the effort. If done right, these trade in offers are a great way to build up store credit quickly and get the titles you want for a fraction of the cost.
Half.com
Half.com is eBay’s sister site, but instead of auctions and PayPal buyers set prices and then you easily pay with a credit card. The beauty of Half.com is that Half.com handles all of the money. You don’t have to worry about money orders or messing with that horrible, horrible, horrible PayPal service. You might get better prices on eBay, but Half.com is faster and easier and that is worth a couple of extra bucks as far as I’m concerned. If you want to make cash money, Half.com is a better place to sell your games than taking them to EB or GameStop because, as has been mentioned before, EB and GS only give you a fraction of what your games are actually worth. On Half.com you set the prices and can actually get a decent value for your games. You can then, of course, take that money and buy another game and the cycle just repeats itself forever and you can play a lot of games for relatively little money because in reality you are spending the same money over and over and over again.
Trade games over the internet
Many sites, including CheapAssGamer (among others) allow forum users to trade games. This is a great way to get maximum value out of your games because you trade for things that you actually want and get what you think is a fair deal. You have to be careful about avoiding scammers and problem buyers/sellers that will give you headaches, though. There are also dedicated game trading sites such as Goozex that offer their users a lot of protection from scammers and less honest people and are a great way to trade games safely. You always have to be careful trading online, but these are great places to do it in a safer environment than just meeting some sleazeball off of Craigslist.
Bottom Line
There are a lot of ways to get maximum value out of your used games, and hopefully our tips can help you. Building up a big collection is fine for some people, but for others it is hard to look at a stack of games just collecting dust that you know you aren’t going to play again. Trading or selling games is a great way to keep a continuous flow of fresh titles so that you always have something new and fun to play. One thing I have noticed in this new generation of game systems is that games seem to hold their value longer than before. Sure, sports games and some less than stellar titles drop like a rock, but many games hold strong value on the resale market for six months or more, something that rarely happened in the PS2/Xbox/GC generation. This means that even if you wait a couple months and buy a game used, it is still going to have decent resale value when you are done with it, which just makes it easier and cheaper for you when you want to pick up something else.
