Don't Like GameStop Or eBay? SwitchGames Could Be Your Answer

33 Comments Posted October 14, 2009 - By Patrick Klepek

Don't Like GameStop Or eBay? SwitchGames Could Be Your Answer

GameStop is convenient. Even though selling a game through eBay would virtually guarantee a higher selling price, whenever I've turned something in, it's always been at GameStop. The problem always being, however, that GameStop operates on the capitalistic principle of buying low and selling high. They take your games at dirt cheap prices and put them on the shelf at double, maybe triple what they gave you. SwitchGames proposes a different solution: actual, physical trades between gamers.

SwitchGames isn't as fast or convenient as walking to a local GameStop, but when SwitchGames founder and CCO Jason Crawford stopped by the G4 offices last week to give me a tour of his trading baby, he at least convinced me SwitchGames could really be onto something.

The difference with SwitchGames is the distribution of product. You're not sending in games in exchange for points (as, for example, SwitchGames competitor Goozex does), nor sending games away to a SwitchGames warehouse to be swapped for something else. SwitchGames looks like a web 2.0 version of eBay (have you looked at eBay's design lately?) focused squarely on gamers. Either by selected browsing or through a dating service-esque member matching system called SwitchBot, participants volunteer games up for trade or propose trades and the whole concept is built upon sending a game to someone and receiving another one back. A game for a game.

"This is actual trading," said Crawford. "There's no membership fees, there's no trade-in fees, there's no subscription fees, there's no queues. There's a lot of no's. [laughs] Basically, you list the games you want, you list the games that you own and then SwitchBot will connect you with other users. And we have things, mechanisms in place that can make trading with other gamers safer, faster and easier. That's how we make our money."

Don't Like GameStop Or eBay? SwitchGames Could Be Your Answer

He's not lying, either. You don't have to pay a dime to participate in SwitchGames and start trading with other users. The SwitchGames model hinges upon delivering convenience-oriented trading and shipping options that users will want to regularly take advantage of. One such option is becoming a "Verified Member," which automatically places you further up the search results of SwitchBot. Becoming a Verified Member costs $1.95 (that price isn't locked and will most likely increase in the future, noted Crawford) and results in SwitchGames running a brief background check to "verify" you. Another convenience option involves printing a shipping label with postage from your computer.

Crawford claimed his website's database had everything. Jokingly, I proposed trading the phenomenal E.T. for the Atari 2600 (yes, the game that bombed at retail, causing millions of copies to be buried in a New Mexico landfill) for trading. It took a little finessing of the search engine because E.T.'s name is pretty short, but eventually, we tracked it down and -- voila -- E.T. was in my trading pile. I don't know who would want E.T. for Skate 2, but hey, SwitchGames will let me try.

While most users will probably use SwitchGames to swap newly released titles for another newly released title (like, say, Uncharted 2 for Brutal Legend), as E.T. proves, SwitchGames does include support for trading old releases. The SwitchGames database is huge. To help protect your investment, SwitchGames also comes with a $5.95 "Safe Trade" option. Safe Trade is $5.95 for each participant in the trade but is the only way to 100% guarantee you cannot be screwed out of a transaction. If the buyer or seller never sends the game, sends the wrong game or something else goes wrong, SwitchGames will protect you, either by covering the cost of the missing game or providing a copy of the missing game. It wasn't immediately clear how the value of a game like Chrono Trigger for SNES, which might not be easily replaceable, would be determined.

Don't Like GameStop Or eBay? SwitchGames Could Be Your Answer

When Crawford came by my desk to show off SwitchGames, he'd spent the entire day touring his website around Los Angeles, just after staying up the night before to push a new build of SwitchGames live. The new build includes support for sending notifications about trades to Facebook and Twitter. But Crawford's enthusiasm and determination for uprooting the current trade-in system is palpable. He doesn't even seem to mind if plenty of folks never pay a dime using his service.

"What's here is really an opportunity to do something big," he said. "Gamers could take over and I love that whole idea, just flipping the entire model upside down. GameStop doesn't care about SwitchGames, they couldn't care less about this. 'Game peer-to-peer trading? Okay, whatever.' Until, you know, 350,000 gamers are using it and then they're like 'whoa, oh no, we can't control this' and you can't control that, the gamers control it. That's the way we built the whole model. You can see that we don't force anything on anybody and that's the way it will always be. You spend the money if you want to spend the money."

Under his theory, if GameStop is losing trade-in volume from a site that's offering gamers a better deal, GameStop will have to raise the value of its trade-ins. Even if you don't use SwitchGames -- though, obviously, he'd prefer you did -- that's a win for gamers, in his mind.

The best way to understand SwitchGames is by signing up. Go ahead, it's free.

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Tags: Videogames

Comments

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Metalstorm98

sounds intresting... wonddering how they will support the website by providing it free or nearly free i mean 1.95 or 5.95 charges arent really enough to sustain a business

Posted: October 14, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Report

+3 thumbs up thumbs down

3 Replies
L1V3_2_W1N Show Hide(5 Replies)

this looks pretty good but would be better if they only traded games for ps3 then that would be a real website lol

Posted: October 14, 2009 5:05 PM | Reply | Report

-30 thumbs up thumbs down

5 Replies
Straticus

Man! Wish I knew about this site a week ago! I just traded 16 games and barely got 150 bucks...Im never turning games into Gamestop again!

Posted: October 14, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Report

+5 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
HotDogCharlie

Gametz.com is good too. That is what I use.

Posted: October 14, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Report

+3 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
SmashBro722

checking it out right now thanks you for this website!

Posted: October 14, 2009 5:59 PM | Reply | Report

+2 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
duncanato

There's an alterniative to Game$top? THE DAY OF SALVATION HAS COME!

Posted: October 14, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply | Report

+9 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
DreamingDarklyRobin

I use Goozex, not because its better, I've just used it longer.

Posted: October 14, 2009 6:10 PM | Reply | Report

+1 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
bubers

I have been a user of switchgames for a while now and it is great.. i have not bought a new game in a long time.. if you want to trade my name is bubers on switchgames

Posted: October 14, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Report

+4 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
DondeEstaMiCulo

I'm on SwitchGames too, the site is AMAZING! The user interface is very cool, and the site is very easy to use - you can be trading within minutes! You can print mailing labels right from your own computer and never leave the house. You can also print pre-paid shipping labels as well. I will NEVER go to GameStop again. My gamer page is http://www.switchgames.com/11i s2short - come check it out!

Posted: October 14, 2009 7:11 PM | Reply | Report

+3 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
DondeEstaMiCulo

Oops, sorry, I posted a bad link to my gamer page. Here's the correct URL:
http://www.switchgames.com/g amer/11is2short

Posted: October 14, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Report

+1 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
HundredDollarBaby

Ive noticed game stop buys games at a rate where if they buy two and sell one they still make a profit and that's store credit, so it's even more profit for them.

"Hey kid i'll give you 20 bucks store credit for that game and then i'll give john 20 bucks store credit for the same game, then sell one copy to joe for 44.99. Then I'll pay jim 8 dollars for the hour in which he did those 3 transactions for me 10 times. I just made almost 90 dollars in one hour at one store. With this strategy I can make about 6 mil a day in all my stores just off the used games."

who really wins at gamestop when you think about it?

Posted: October 14, 2009 7:36 PM | Reply | Report

+4 thumbs up thumbs down

1 Reply
classic7

Finaly someone with the balls and the pockets to take those bastards at GameStop down, I can't imagine(mainly because i don't want to) how much money GameStop has pilfered out of me. Sorry Capitalism but i'm gonna have to see it from the other side of the field this time.

Posted: October 14, 2009 8:28 PM | Reply | Report

+5 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
nbabballer

I am member and have traded over 30 games on SW. The website is very easy to use, and with address identification it makes trading feel safe

I would say that i have saved over $1,000 by trading on switchgames, can gamestop or gamecrazy say that?!?!

Checked it out, my username is: nbabballer

Posted: October 14, 2009 9:23 PM | Reply | Report

+4 thumbs up thumbs down

1 Reply
Reedo2000

Chrono Trigger = priceless
haha

Posted: October 14, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Report

+2 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
crusader8463

crusader8463's comment is abusive and has been removed.

Posted: October 15, 2009 12:10 AM | Reply | Report

-3 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
KiLLeR_friend

the idea of the site is awesome, I agree, but I have seen an "article" in the feed monthly about SwitchGames. in fact I signed up almost 6 months ago, why does G4 feel the need to advertise this service?

Posted: October 15, 2009 12:17 AM | Reply | Report

-3 thumbs up thumbs down

2 Replies
TheDrunkardHu

hmmmm, i wonder if i can find any of my old NES, and SNES favorites on there, in exchange for some of these so-called 'next gen' titles... XD

Posted: October 15, 2009 12:33 AM | Reply | Report

+3 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
achillez77

cool

Posted: October 15, 2009 4:24 AM | Reply | Report

+2 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies
chaosmonkey666

I thought this website was a dream come true until I got ripped off twice. I would advise maintaining contact with your trader and writing down his/her personal information before you send a game. Also I would recommend asking this person for their gamertag, friend code, or psn user ID and confirming that it is the correct person before completing any trade.

Posted: October 15, 2009 5:42 AM | Reply | Report

+2 thumbs up thumbs down

1 Reply
UnJaked

Hell yeah power to the gamers !!! screw GameStop those greedy screwing bastards. I'm signing up. sounds great. This is the way it should be.

Posted: October 15, 2009 5:52 AM | Reply | Report

+3 thumbs up thumbs down

0 Replies