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Opposable Thumbs / Gaming & Entertainment

Amazon gives gamers another option for used game trade-ins is the latest company to enter the business of buying used games …

In this slumping economy, used games are big business. GameStop makes a good percentage of its revenues from buying and selling games, and recently Toys"R"Us has stepped into the market. The latest entry into the game trade-in business is, offering Amazon gift cards in exchange for your games.

The system is simple: you look up how much your games are worth on the site, put together a list of what you want to sell, put that list and a shipping label on a package, send the games within seven days, and the credit will be placed into your account. You can use your credit to buy anything you'd like off Amazon, including other games. 

When Amazon sent word of this program, it also included details on a bonus: for the first two weeks of the beta, Amazon is offering 10 percent off a future purchase of any game or accessory in Amazon’s video game store. The process may be simple, but it makes us wonder if Amazon is competing with itself. is creating a middleman where none used to exist; the company already offers a service through which you can sell your games directly to other customers, and the listings are already tied into Amazon's storefront. If I want to buy a copy of Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360, I can get a new copy from Amazon or a vendor, and on the listing there will also be a section where I can browse used copies of the game sold by individuals. Since buyers compete with each other to offer the lowest price, has created a very efficient way of getting an accurate idea of what each game is worth on the open market.

In almost every case, the value is worth more than what Amazon's trade-in value would be. Grand Theft Auto IV trades in for $10, but used copies are being sold for $22; customers would be much better off simply listing their copy and keeping the extra profit for themselves. Of course, there's no way of knowing when a game will sell, or how much demand there is for games, so the trade-in system does have convenience on its side.

This experiment can only be a success for Amazon, because the site's existing infrastructure keeps costs minimal. The prices are all listed right there on the page, allowing gamers to research the value of their games from home before deciding to trade in their games. Competition for used games, causing companies to compete with higher value for the goods, is never a bad thing for consumers.

Are Amazon and Toys"R"Us a threat to GameStop? Yes, and that's good for gamers—even if developers complain loudly about the practice. The games you already own are worth quite a bit of money to GameStop, Toys"R"Us, and Amazon; it's just a matter of figuring out how to get the most bang for your used game buck.

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