Controversial Club – Respawning Discusses Game Trade-ins…

by | Feb 24, 2018 | Club Posts, Featured, Games, Mobile, Nintendo, PC, Playstation, Xbox | 0 comments

Welcome one and all to our new Saturday club feature ‘Controversial Club’. As so much of our content is positive, charming and a lovely read we thought we’d start a weekly article where we can get a bit of rage out, or just generally be dicks! I introduce our controversial club, a place where we can all write about things that get on our nerves, rub us the wrong way and generally go against the norm.

This week we’d thought we’d discuss our thoughts on trading in games, is it good, is it bad, are we crazy?

Tom

I think that trade-ins are a mixed bag. Sometimes you can get some really good deals, but other times you just get mugged off, and I’m not just talking about the staff! One time, I bought five Pokémon Gameboy Advance game from CEX online and the whole lot were fake! They should really train their staff to spot fakes but who are the assholes selling fake games!?

Don’t even think about trading in DVD’s anymore. You’re lucky if you get anything more than 1p for a movie there days, even if you don’t want them anymore, just take them to a charity shop. At least then someone might benefit from your unwanted films instead of some corporate fat cat.

When shops like CEX first came to be, trade-ins were great. Before the prices spiked exponentially, you could get good deals for your games and buy games for dirt cheap too! But now they’re barely cheaper than shops like Game and Amazon. In fact, remember how much Nintendo Switch consoles were selling for last March in CEX? £320 second-hand and £280 new? Get lost, CEX!

Javier

My opinion on trading in games is a positive one as its something I’ve always done… I’ve never really felt the need to keep the games after I’ve finished with them (Wether that be 100%’ing them or just finishing the story) and never wanted to collect them.

For me there are so many games that I want to play, continuously, and this will never change, so it’s very rare that I’ll play a game again as I suppose I’m looking for a new experience constantly. To that end trading in games is the way to go for me.
I think that the amount of money places like CEX gives you as store credit massively out weighs the price you could sell, and eliminates a lot of faff. It makes it easy to have a constant cycle of games and often means I don’t have to fork out for a full price game that often.

Joe

To Javier: You are wrong.

Now, that being said, I have to admit that I’m almost entirely against game trade-ins – As a self-proclaimed game collector, I feverishly horde any game that comes my way; collector’s editions, steelbooks, figures… You name it, I collect it. I even spent $180 on the Limited Edition Persona 5 Vinyl, just to add to my gaming shelf…

My hatred of trade-ins was borne from, admittedly, a number of bad choices on my end – Having traded in my Gamecube, Pokemon Coliseum, Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness and Donkey Kong Bongos at GAME back in 2006 for a hefty £10. Nowadays, that small package alone would be worth (According to average eBay prices) £170… Well done 9 year old me! Another time I traded in a black bag full of PS2 and Xbox 360 games to get enough money to buy Skyrim on launch… And walked away with another £15 in my pocket.

My point is, why throw away games that may turn into profitable gems later on? Why get rid of the experiences you enjoy? In my eyes, each game I play has sentimentality to me, and are, in essence, a part of me; another point as to why I love physical versions of games… But that’s another discussion for another time.

Salman

See, in Pakistan trading in games only really became a thing in Pakistan when the PS3 came out because everything back then was so easily pirated that games cost like a dollar a pop. But boy did trading in keep me from going broke forever because I played loads. And games were and still are crazy expensive here since prices depend on popularity and demand. I don’t really trade in games anymore with my PS4 since I choose games that I know I’d want to keep in my collection as well as the fact that games come out so frequently that even newer games lose their value fast so it’s never worth trading in. I do wish that wasn’t the case for Switch games too because jeez that shits expensive.
Anyhoo I just kinda wish I could go back to the days where I could go to a store and buy 10 games all in 10 bucks. That was the life.

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