14 DAY TRIAL // Let's do a little recap: GameStop has been reporting very good financial results, in part as a consequence of the used games business that it sustains and being the only big retailer on the market; Toys R Us begins a test run in New York stores, trading in videogames for in game credit; Best Buy is also reported, by an insider source, to be looking into taking a piece of the used games market. This means that a space that only housed one big retailer could now see three competing forces of almost equal power.
Now, it seems that a fourth contestant could enter the ring, with Amazon saying that it has launched a beta program and a special offer for all those interested in trading in a videogame until March 19. A game traded in to Amazon gets a customer Amazon.com credit. You need to have the game with the manual and with the original case intact in order to send it and it seems that the values for those titles sent to Amazon are similar to those offered by the brick and mortar store.
GameStop, which has long been profiting from the used games market, clearly seems threatened. The Chief Executive Officer of GameStop, Don Matteo, declared that “I give the probability of this working at zero.” His argument is that it's easier to move to the local store and trade a game in order to pick another one up immediately but it's a more time intensive process to get the case, label it and send it to Amazon in order to receive the credit when the package arrives.
For the customer, the success or in success of the new Amazon initiative is not the issue. It's good to have options and as the economic downturn deepens, and the used games market continues to grow, the competition amongst GameStop, Best Buy, Toys R Us and Amazon is surely set to bring gamers better deals.