Video Game Trading Strategies

There's more to trading video games than simply requesting and offering games. You have to employ strategy to make it work. Is that worthwhile? Heck ya. How would you like to buy a game for 900 points only to sell it back for 300 points? You just lost 600 points because you didn't strategize. Here are some helpful strategies for trading video games.

The Short Play
The Short Play strategy works for brand new games that are worth 900-1000 points. For best results, request the game the day it releases. Then sit back and wait for someone else to make it available. Then, as soon as you receive it, make it available for trade. Chances are, you'll get a request for it very quickly. Simply tell the buyer that you'll mail it in three days. This strategy provides an excellent opportunity to play a brand new game for free (minus shipping and the trade credit). If three days does not give you enough time to fully play the game, then you can always put it on hold for a couple weeks. Brand new games tend to hover around 1000 points for a good amount of time.

The Sell Back
The Sell Back strategy works best if you absolutely have to play a game the day it releases. In this scenario, you buy the game, play it till your fingers bleed, and then make it available for trade. Once again, brand new games tend to hover around the 900-1000 point value range for a long time so your chances are good you'll earn 1000 points for it. This strategy allows you to play a brand new game and recoup the majority of your costs.

The Long Play
The first two strategies are geared toward games with limited or no online multiplayer and offer short single player modes. But what if you're playing an epic like Oblivion or Fallout 3 and you want to play the game for months on end? In this case, it's best to wait for a game to drop to it's lowest value and then request it. The Goozex Report will notify you when new games start dropping in value and then level off. After a game levels off and stops dropping in value, this is the time to request games you'll want to play for a long time. Several months later, when you're ready to sell it back, you won't be so concerned if the game dropped a little more in value. And you never know, the game might go up slightly in value as well.