The Best Place to Buy Used Games

Do you buy used video games but you're never sure if you're getting the best deal? The Goozex Report cross checked five top rated Xbox 360 games that are a couple years old to find out who consistently offers the best deal. Find out if Amazon, eBay, GameStop, Goozex, or Overstock offer the best deals (no, it wasn't Goozex). Also discussed is a tip on how to make money selling used games.

eBay was the overall winner. Of the five games checked, they offered three games at the lowest price. Amazon came in second by offering two games at the lowest price.

The worst place to buy used games is GameStop and Overstock.

While Goozex operates on a point system and not cash, TGR calculated the approximate dollar value each game is currently worth.

If you're smart and thought this through, theoretically, you could buy Gears of War on eBay for $18 and then sell it on Goozex for $25. Of course, you'd get that $25 in points, but then you can use those points to trade for other games.

Welcome Nintendo DS (and the Poll Results are In)

Here at The Goozex Report, we are mostly Xbox 360 Fanboys, as you can probably tell by the content. However, we understand there are other consoles and game machines in existence. Right now, our attention is turned to the Nintendo DS.

Friday's "Do You Buy, Rent, or Trade" post was picked up by Go Nintendo, which is the site where the majority of comments were posted. And besides one Goozex fan, and one sort-a Gamefly fan, it appears that Nintendo DS fanboys and girls all buy their games, sometimes trade with a friend, but really don't like the idea of giving up a game they own. We thinks we found a group of collectors...

A quick scan at Amazon shows that Nintendo DS games range in cost from $35 to $15. The thing to remember is that trading costs far, far less than any other option... Just something to think about.

While 18 of you voted, a couple hundred of you (hey, it was a slow weekend at TGR) decided to looky-loo and not participate. As they always say: there's a first time and a last time for everything; and sometimes the first time and the last time occur at the same time. You might say this was the first and last poll that TGR will host...

Without any further ado, let's get to the results of the poll. We were a bit surprised that Buying Games edged out Trading Games as the winner (66% said they do a little of each). You might have thought that Trading Games would have been the clear cut winner. The truth is, the majority of readers of TGR come from N4G, so we have a very diverse audience that is not truly dedicated to trading games.

Do You Buy, Rent, or Trade?

These days, what with the Intertubes and all, gamers have at least three choices when it comes to obtaining new video games: they can rent, buy, or trade. The Goozex Report breaks down the options in an objective manner.

Buying
At $60 a pop, and the Holiday season approaching, fanatical gamers could easily spend hundreds—if not thousands—of dollars on brand new games. You can also buy cheap used games from stores like Gamestop, Overstock, and Amazon. However, you might have to wait up to a year to get the best deals, and buying every game you want brand new could send you to the poor house.

Renting
Gamefly will cost you $15.95 a month. That’s $192 a year. That roughly translates to three brand new games. However, you can only play one game at a time. If you want two games out at a time, it will cost you $22.95 a month ($275 a year). That roughly translates to 4.5 brand new games. Chances are, if you’re an avid gamer, you’ll play more than 5 games a year, but you’ll also want to play more than 2 games at a given time.

Trading
Goozex is free to join, and the money out of pocket is shipping and trade credits, and any initial points you want to purchase. Chances are pretty good that you already own some games that you can trade to earn more points. The problem with Goozex is that it can be painfully slow. It can be slow to trade your games and slow to receive games. And you’re at the mercy of your fellow gamers if they come through with shipping a game in good condition. The only real advantage is that you’re paying very little money. Goozex is for gamers with a lot of patience and they don’t mind playing games that are a couple years old.

Responses from Gamers
TGR conducted a short poll and received back two excellent responses from fellow gamers. The first gamer, THWIP71 shares his thoughts on why he mostly prefers to buy new or used games; but he’ll still occasionally rent a game.

By contrast, bgrundman prefers trading and renting games and only very rarely pays for them.

THWIP71 (Live Gamertag) Likes to Purchase New and Used Games
Basically, it boils down to three factors: initial length of single player campaign, replay value, and online play. Some games have enough of one, to compensate for a lack of the other two...but those are my primary criteria. Whether or not I pay retail for a game, is solely based on how long I've been waiting for it. Oblivion was a day-1 purchase, for the Special Edition box version; my wife and I played about 300 hours of Morrowind, and had been waiting 4 years for the sequel. We got AT LEAST that much gameplay out of Oblivion...including all of the expansions...so $70 was $$ well spent.

The Darkness is one I picked up for $8.00, used, after it'd been out for over a year. The online play was tacked on...and NOBODY plays it on LIVE...and there's not much replay value to the SP (according to reviews). I loved the game, but I'm glad I didn't rush out and drop $60 on it at release.

By comparison, SW:TFU will be a rental, for me, because it fails on ALL of my criteria, and isn't getting great reviews to boot. Plus, I'm not a HUGE Star Wars fan, beyond the first three original films (nostalgia of having been in grade school when they originally released, I guess).

Blake Grundman (Goozex: bgrundman) Prefers to Trade, Occasionally Rent, and Rarely Buys
A big factor to consider when choosing to buy, rent, or trade is how quickly you can play through a game. I, for one, tend to play through games at a blistering pace the first time through. Normally, the first run through is for two reasons: reviewing for my site and reviewing for myself. If I find that I like the game, and it has a good replay value, I will keep it. However, if there is no replay value or the single player campaign is lackluster, I will relist it for trading. If the game is highly demanded, I can normally receive a game, play all the way through it, and have it back out by the end of the week. Under most circumstances, this normally nets me the same amount that I initially received for the trade, so all I had to pay for was shipping. I think that is more than a fair cost.

There are only two occasions that I ever rent a game. The first is when I feel the primal urges of my inner gamerscore whore. I can cop to the fact that I have rented games like TMNT, Avatar the Last Airbender, NBA 2K6, and College Hoops 2K6 just to increase my gamerscore. Games like this are normally a one-day rental—and under some circumstances—like Avatar and the 2K basketball games, I had them returned in a matter of hours.

The other reason I rent a game is if it received mixed reviews from the media. Some of these games include Boom Blox, Assassins Creed, and NFL Tour. This one-night rental is used to decide if it is worth my effort to trade for the game or not.

Rarely, there are very few games that I will purchase. Exceptions to this rule are games that I have really been looking forward to like Halo 3 (which I waited in line in the snowy winters of Iowa for the midnight launch), Rock Band 2, Mass Effect, and the upcoming Gears of War 2.

Trading for games is a great way to get your hands on rare and Special Editions of games on the cheap. I would consider myself a collector of sorts and through Goozex I have been able to acquire the special editions of Unreal Tournament for PC, Assassins Creed, Mass Effect, Gears of War, Call of Duty, and the granddaddy of all: Halo 3 Legendary (cat helmet) Edition. The beautiful thing about it is, when I relisted the non-Special Editions of these games that I already owned, I would almost always recoup the value of the Special Editions.

Moral of the story is that trading is the key to success. After receiving 125 trades and sending out over 130 games, I am forever thankful that services like Goozex exist.