Revisiting Game Trading Sites

It has been a while since I've written about game trading sites. I’ve decided it is time to revisit other options to trade games. There are other options out there besides Gamestop/Best Buy/Target/Amazon. While those can be great options, a smart gamer knows that is best to have a number of options.

Let’s start with the two I occasionally talk about on the podcast. One is Leaptrade and the other is 99Gamers. They have both been around since 2012 and continue today. The questions are: should gamers still be using these sites? Have things improved? Can gamers get newer games?

99Gamers has grown a lot in the last year or so. The site still stands behind the idea of a free market. Sellers list their products for whatever price they want and haggling is a large part of this. Over the last year or so they've run monthly contests, sold coins, and gathered a large social media following. Some forms of trading are to regions outside the U.S. and Canada. They have added the ability to trade everything from comics and baseball cards to computers and DVDs.

Those are mostly the good changes. Here are the few bad ones, up until a few months ago there was an active set of forums. There was a strong community, people could voice their opinions, discuss trades, access shipping guides for all sorts of games, as well as hear from the owners about upcoming changes. The forums are now gone, I suspect a lot of complaining and general negativity associated with the forums were the reasons for this change. The 99Gamers coin value has also changed from $1 equaling 1 coin to 1 coin being worth $0.75. This means $50 games are now going for 75-80 coins or more. Prices for some items are all over the place. Does this mean the site is going away? Probably not, there are plenty of games available and some good deals to be had for the smart shopper. I would still recommend it to most gamers but I would just be careful about getting too invested in the site.

How about Leaptrade? I didn’t really do much with the site when it first opened. I had a few trades and sort of forgot about it. I didn't think there was much available. Leaptrade is a queue based trading site like Goozex. There is also friend to friend trading which gets around this. Flash forward to a few months ago when I decided to list some more games. Business has been very good and I sold those games quickly. A number of AAA titles for the Wii U and PS4 have become available for reasonable prices. Leaptrade has also had contests and is pushing for more of a social media presence. They haven’t made any really big changes but have worked to improve the trading experience overall for traders both new and old.

Both trading sites seem to be growing. While 2 years ago I would have recommended 99Gamers over Leaptrade, this time around it's the opposite but gamers should check out both sites

There are a few other options beside Gamestop and Best Buy. Gamers could use Glyde, I have started selling more games on there recently. The money gamers get for the games they sell can be good, it just depends on the demand. People can also sell phones, laptops, consoles, and a number of other goods. The shipping materials are provided to the seller, and this is a nice touch. Unlike all the other options Glyde uses cash and allows gamers cash out quickly via Paypal.

The last option is a very new site, Gameflip. The site lists products for sale such as games, consoles, accessories, etc and is targeted toward mobile users. There is an app for Google Play and the Apple Store. This lets gamer's list their products and communicate easily. There are some nice perks. They have a decent referral system which will net sellers and buyers credits. They have a guarantee in place that protects sellers and buyers. Gameflip’s most intriguing feature is that they will give you more money than Gamestop if your item doesn’t sell within 30 days. The bad news is people have to sign up with a facebook or Google+. They are running monthly contests and have options for users to cash out.

As far as I can tell, gamers should still be using trading sites. There are a few other options as well, such as CAG and GameTZ. My opinion is that savvy traders should be using as many options as possible.