Game Trading Boy Do We Get Conned (Uk)

Yesterday I bought Crackdown on 360 to finish off the achievements and help my friend online with some Street Races. I decided that since I'd done it all and was slightly getting bored with it to take it back and swap it back in.

Now unfortunatly the shop I bought it from was closed but decided to go to another 1 I asked how much I would get on trade and his said £7. I was absolutly shocked as I paid £22 for the dam thing I decided to keep it and I will go back tommorrow to the original shop and just say the birthday present excuse.

"I bought it as a friend's birthday present and it turns out his parents already bought him it can I swap it for another game at the same price and what he also wanted".

Usually works most of the time but I can't believe how much they charge for games nowadays then how much they get away with when people want to trade. It's like FIFA Road To The World Cup 2006 I know 2007 is out but on trade I got told £2 and it's an 360 game and it's on there shelves for £10.

Speaking of cons my brother sold his Atari Jaguar and about 20 games 5 pads and the 2 multi add-ons and he got £75 for it went passed the shop next day they where selling it for £150.

Its the same in the USA. The only time you can get any decent trade in cash is if it is a HOT game at that point in time, and even then its not much.

Yea I ran into the same thing when I sold my Wii. The person that bought it from did not want all of my games. So I took them to a shop to trade them in thinking that there not even 3 months old I should get at least half of what I spent back. Guess again, I only got back $50 out of the $150 that was spent. So I have decided that from now on I'm not going to try to trade games in I'll ether hold on to them or sell them to people I know. I would rather lose money selling something to a friend then be ripped of by a store.

WOW even in America it happens hey anyone from Canada reading this whats it like from your part on trading?

About 2 years ago it was all depending like stated if it was a hot game or if it didn't have a sequal coming soon or it was slightly far off. Now it's if they have too many copies in the store and if thats the case you won't get much but I can't believe there selling it for £25 used but you can only get £7 trade.

Ijust took back FFX2 and Kingdom Hearts for PS2 since I don;t have one anymore and am getting ready to move....they gave me $10 store credit....said if I wanted cash it would be 20% less......so I picked up Killer 7 for gamecube for exactly $10....but yeah...your best off trying to ebay probably if you have time...game shops won't give you much....they have to then turn around and sell the game at a cheep used price and still make a profit enough worth doing it.

I went into EB Games on Friday to get CastleVaniaawn of Sorrow. Asked how much it was used, $30 then asked if he was sure because I saw it at Circuit City a few days ago for $20, he checked and said new price was $35. Now WTF??? $5 difference between new and used and 90% of the time it doesn't have the box and/or instructions if used. I rolled my eyes and walked out then went over to Circuit City although it was out of the way and bought it for $20.

I sell everything on ebay, you dont make much more but its normally much better then what you would get at any store.

It very rarely is worth trading your stuff in. Especially if your looking for cash and not store credit, you lose 20% and all trade-in promotions as well.
Something to keep in mind, the more copies of a game the store has, and even the entire district the store is in, the less your going to get for it.
Crackdown for example, many people bought just for the Halo3 beta, and traded it in after that.
How could they give you a decent price for it, if they know theres no way they're gonna sell 80 used copies of a semi-popular game?

They don't pay much because it's all about Profits, all game stores have been doing this since as long as I can remember. Hot games though always sell for almost what you paid for most of the time just not at Gamestop type stores.

twEEkerAreUs said:

They don't pay much because it's all about Profits, all game stores have been doing this since as long as I can remember. Hot games though always sell for almost what you paid for most of the time just not at Gamestop type stores.

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It's true. You'll get 20-25 bucks for newer ps3/360 games. These same games are then sold for 5 dollars less then the new price (ie $55)

It's not surprising. Do you expect them to take your used games for the full price? If it's not worth it then just keep the game or try to sell it yourself. But personally, it's worth the convenience to just sell it back to them.

Scott9027 said:

It's not surprising. Do you expect them to take your used games for the full price? If it's not worth it then just keep the game or try to sell it yourself. But personally, it's worth the convenience to just sell it back to them.

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Of course we don't expect full price, but If I buy a DS game for $30, and they resell it used for $25 then I should get more than $12 for it because they just made $55 to my $12 or a near 400% profit.

I didn't expect for them to give me what they where selling others copies of Crackdown for which was £25. Since I payed £22 I would of at least expected £14 trade in I decided to put it up on amazon.co.uk and sold it for £18 so from now on I will sell through them or ebay.

FudgeNuggets said:

Of course we don't expect full price, but If I buy a DS game for $30, and they resell it used for $25 then I should get more than $12 for it because they just made $55 to my $12 or a near 400% profit.

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made 55? 400% PROFIT? wtf? they didn't make a profit by selling you the 30 dollar game. they made a 13 dollar profit, upon selling the DS game you sold them. ( 25 - 12 = 13 )

If i remember correctly, Gamestop/EB games type of stores make very very very very little money off of new games. if anything, they break even with new games. the trade-ins is what pulls in the profit. ( from what i remember, i don't think they make a profit from selling new games at all )

Ever wonder why the clerks always ask if you want the used copy for 20 bucks less? its not because they want to save you money, its because thats how they make their profit. new games don't bring any profits ( or if they do, very very little profit ).

so if anyone here wants to stick it to EB/Gamestop then don't sell your used games to them, and never buy used games. Buy brand new every time, and sell your used games to your friends...or add them to your collection.

It'd be interesting to know what their profit margin is on these. I'm sure its much more than the standard 1% industry standard in electronics that Best Buy and Frye's are always quoting.

FudgeNuggets said:

It'd be interesting to know what their profit margin is on these. I'm sure its much more than the standard 1% industry standard in electronics that Best Buy and Frye's are always quoting.

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I've heard from managers that work at Gamestop that the profit margin is quite slim on new games. Last I recall the store cost was somewhere between $53 to $57 for a game that would sell for $60 not counting in-store labor costs. I NEVER buy new games at full price, especially from EB Games or Gamestop, unless it's a game I really want and have to have it on launch day (IE Super paper Mario and the last one before that was GTA: SA.) if you trade in at the right time, like when they offer an extra %20 on 3 games or something like that, you may do alright. I stick to buying and selling on Ebay. Most new games can be had on Ebay after shipping for $40-$45 (For the Wii/360/PS3) with no tax. Which means you should be able to own the game for a month or two and sell it for ~$5 less than you paid for it. After Ebay/Paypal fees, you can usually hold a game for about 2 months and have spent ~$15. Much better than buying from a store then trading in 2 months later. That would be buying for $60 (+tax) and trading in for $20 (typically) equalling a $40 loss (not including tax).

Yea, profit from new games is minimal. More expensive used games ($40+, popular titles) are usualy >100% profit, but keep in mind that we lose quite a bit on trade ins of old titles that will never sell. (my eb is in a crappy neighborhood, id say for every decent game we get traded in, we get 15 that will not sell cause they're either complete garbage of a game, or a sports title from like 4 years ago which we have 20+ copies of for each system). Thats why the popular used games are so expensive and you get so little for them. We have to make up for the other crap people trade in

but I've seen them offer $1 -$5 for a Madden game that is a year or so old, so they should be adjusting for those non-selling games accordingly. That is why even with the old consoles, you never got anything over $5 for the pack in game like Mario Bros or Duck Hunt etc....