What should I do with my copy of '11?

[SEMO15]

Quote: Originally Posted by BruceAlmighty

Personally, besides the fact that economically you're losing money, I have a collector side to me. I've never sold a single game I own. Besides the fact I'll have a badass collection when I'm retiree, but I'm sure my kids kids will be able to sell it for a hefty sum lol.

I agree. I used to sell back games when I was younger, but now I like to keep my games for nostalgia and collecting purposes. Some people don't care and that's fine. To each their own. However, I used to regret trading in some games and now I find it easier to keep them. You never know when you're going to want to play that one game that's been sitting for a while.

[K0ZZ]

People get on game stops *** about it but you have to realize the mark up includes the employees salary, paying for rent, power, etc. and they have to make a profit. Hell be happy they even take old sports games this late, most of the older sports games won't sell again and you essentially gave them a 0 dollar return on their investment.

Rip off? Not at all. There is a reason you get more money from Amazon, there is no store, most of it can be automated and that means less money needed to be spread.

I gladly goto gamestop it supports a business and they usually do throw out some good deals. (Traded in 7 old games I haven't touched and walked away with $110 dollars. I probably spent 180 on the games. Not horrible.)

[woody2goody]

I've kept all my MLB The Show games, but I'm not sure you'd get much for them in the UK, and I don't sell anything online.

You should trade your games in when you're finished with them unless you have lots of money and can afford to keep them in a collection.

I bought a game today off Amazon for £9.99, and it's rubbish so I'm going to trade it in tomorrow if I can. I'll probably get at least £10 for it as the price was dirt cheap online

[w00dy Hayezz]

If you are short on money then by all means trade it in. If not, maybe you should consider giving it to some kid that can't afford the game. You could really make someone happy, it may make you feel good about it too.

[skullsession]

Quote: Originally Posted by chicagopax

People get on game stops *** about it but you have to realize the mark up includes the employees salary, paying for rent, power, etc. and they have to make a profit. Hell be happy they even take old sports games this late, most of the older sports games won't sell again and you essentially gave them a 0 dollar return on their investment. Rip off? Not at all. There is a reason you get more money from Amazon, there is no store, most of it can be automated and that means less money needed to be spread. I gladly goto gamestop it supports a business and they usually do throw out some good deals. (Traded in 7 old games I haven't touched and walked away with $110 dollars. I probably spent 180 on the games. Not horrible.)

I'm not interested in paying a markup to a major conglomerate. If we're talking about a local furniture or hardware store, I don't mind paying a little more to help out the community. I don't feel a lot of loyalty towards the biggest gaming store out there.

I also don't find your $16 per trade / bought for $26 each to be a very typical example, and am curious if those $26 games were bought with other discounts.

[Pogo27]

I forgot that you can't have a discussion about economics with people who don't understand economics...

Just because GameStop gives you $20 for the game then sells it for $40 does not mean you lost the $20 profit that GameStop made off the game.

GameStop has invested the resources it needs in order to be able to then sell the game for $40. Just as a used car lot has invested the resources required to be able to sell a car for more than an individual owner can sell their car for.

The game isn't worth the same when you own it as when GameStop owns it. GameStop is putting guarantees on it.

Now, could you go sell the game on Ebay for like $30 instead of the $20 that GameStop is going to give you? Sure. Does this mean that you're losing money selling it to GameStop? Maybe.

To determine if you're losing money selling to GameStop, you have to decide how much money your time is worth. For me, it takes 5 minutes from the time I put my shoes on in my house from the time I'm walking about of Gamestop with cash in hand (or more likely, a receipt showing what I put the trade-in toward). To sell the game on Ebay? I've got to list the game, then I've got to hope that I get some people interested in buying it, wait for it to be sold, and then I've got to go to the post office or UPS or something and take care of getting it shipped (plus the shipping expenses). And all through this, I'm taking a risk that the Ebay purchaser will cancel the payment, and then I'm definitely losing money.

This is considerably more effort simply going to GameStop and getting cash in hand, no questions asked. And for what? $10 extra dollars, tops? So it comes down to the question of how much is your time worth? If it's a question of $10 vs $40, my time to sell on Ebay is probably worth $30. When it's a question of $20 vs $30, I don't feel like my time invested to sell online is worth the $10.


If you're arguing that you're "losing money" selling back your game because you feel it's a collectors item, then what you're arguing is that you feel the collector value of the item is, long-term, worth more than the $20 you'll get for selling it back. This is a fine opinion, but let's just say this... it's an opinion, and not everyone has an interest in collecting these games. If the collection interests YOU personally, then you're collecting it for personal enjoyment, not for financial gain.

And if you're collecting it for financial gain, I'd be sure to have other retirement options.

There's no evidence to suggest a large collection of a series of sports video games will ever have much of any value at any point in time.

As far as video game values, some rare, hard to find video games, from the past, are worth a significant amount of money (and the mint condition, unopened, unplayed are worth hundreds of times more) (and these are games before the era of easily damageable disks...we're talking about sturdy cartridge games). But as I said, these are rare, hard to find video games.

EA Sports games will never be rare or hard to find. Just walk into any store that sells used video games. There's a large collection of older years' sports games there. I guarantee.

The NCAA Football series is one of the most popular games released every single year. Games like NCAA Football, Madden, Call of Duty, Halo, etc, will never be collector's items with significantly high value (except MAYBE an unopened mint with a particular player on the front if that player did something unique with his career, but even this is a long shot).

[Pogo27]

Quote: Originally Posted by skullsession

I also don't find your $16 per trade / bought for $26 each to be a very typical example, and am curious if those $26 games were bought with other discounts.

If you get the GameStop PowerUp Rewards PRO card (the Silver one), you get something like a 10% bonus on selling or trading in Used games and a 10% discount on purchasing used games. The card costs $15/year and comes with a subscription to Game Informer magazine (which costs $15/year anyway).

If you're interested in getting Game Informer magazine, then the bonus/discount is essentially just an added bonus. But even if you're not interested in GameInformer magazine, for most people, the card pays for itself.

If you only buy a new copy of NCAA Football and a new copy of Madden each year, and then sell them both back used, the card isn't worth it. If you're buying a handful of games a year, regularly trading them back in within 12 months, and then regularly buying used games (and used hardware, btw), then it's definitely worth it.

[BruceAlmighty]

You all didn't even realize what I meant by losing money, and we have people trying to rebuke me and have one guy even make a post that's about as "tl;dr" worthy as I've ever seen.

If I'm paying $60 for something, I'm keeping it. Getting $20 or less for it later doesn't do me any good since that's like an hour of work if that. Big whoop.

Besides, like I said I'm a collector and that has more to do with it than anything. It's not about me being able to sell it later, I mentioned that off hand before half joking, it's about WANTING to keep it. Call it sentimental value.