Game made a very loyal customer of me when they started allowing us to trade in old games. Although I’ve always thought they pay pretty poorly (I once traded a game for £12 in a week after I bought it for £45) it’s certainly better than having the disc laying around unused. Others have tried to get it on the act, both HMV and ASDA offer trade ins, but now Amazon have waded in. How does their scheme stack up against Game? Let’s take a look.
I decided to have a clear out of the old software I had in the house. So my trade in titles were – Tron Evolution, Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare 2, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Madden 11. I popped over to Amazon to see what they’d offer me for this bounty, you just fill in a simple form where you enter the platform and game title and they give you the value they will offer you (Subject to T&C’s of course). Based on the titles I offered they offered me the princely sum of £48.96.
Next step in my little investigation was to head down to my local Game store (Liverpool One) to see what they would give me. A quick scan at the checkout and the helpful chap offered me £40 in store credit. Now a difference of £8.96 might not seem all that much but it’s important to bear in mind the difference in the price of the game I wanted to buy. Although Game.co.uk is pretty competitive with Amazon, the High Street Game stores still charge a fair bit more. The game I wanted to buy (Dead Space 2) was £49.99 in Liverpool One (£39.99 on Game.co.uk) and £38.79 on Amazon. The difference in price, plus the difference in the trade in value came to a total of £20.16 – now it starts to become interesting.
So I decided to complete my trade in with Amazon, all I needed to do was click a few more buttons and then print out my packaging slip and address label for the parcel. A quick pop down the Post Office (make sure you grab a Proof Of Postage just in case the parcel goes walkies) then you just have to sit back and wait for them to receive your parcel and credit your account. Simple enough, but the waiting is the problem here.
I printed my delivery label off on Wednesday evening, popped it in the post on Thursday morning and, according to the Amazon website, they still haven’t received my games and 1000 on Monday morning. Okay you might not think that’s too long to wait, but once they’ve received my games they then have to accept them under their quality rules (returning anything they don’t want to me) and then they have to credit my Amazon account (Which itself takes “within 7 days of submission and items are received and verified to be of acceptable condition by the third-party merchant”).
So realistically I’m looking at the end of this week before my account gets credited. Then I’ve got to order my copy of Dead Space 2 and wait for it to be delivered. The trouble for me here is the lack of immediacy, I love popping into Game handing over my old titles and walking out with a shiny new one, the fact of the matter is I would probably have completed Dead Space 2 by now. Instead I’ve traded in all my software and now I’m sat around twiddling my thumbs waiting for my account credited.
I’ll be updating this as the process progresses before I make a final conclusion. So watch this space.
UPDATE 1530 7th February
Okay that didn’t take as long as I thought. I logged back into my Amazon account just on the off chance and “Hey presto” there was a message on my Trade In page saying that gift cards had been credited to my account. So a little furious button pushing and my copy of Dead Space 2 (Limited Edition) is now on order and I’ve got a few pennies waiting for my next order.
I’m going to wait until I actually get the game in my paws before I draw up my conclusion, like I said previously the immediacy of the Game trade in is still a great benefit and I watch this space and I’ll close this off when the parcel hits the doormat.
