Don’t you love the fact that you can trade in a perfectly good game for $20 and watch it be sold for $30 more? You hate it. We know you do.
Gone are the days of GameStop’s rip-off trade-ins. A new age has begun. You don’t want to receive $20 for a used game and you don’t want to pay $55 to buy one. Sure, there’s eBay and Craigslist, but not everyone’s comfortable with their way of functioning. Enter Gamestaq.
What is Gamestaq, you ask? Rather than tell you ourselves, we’ll let CEO and co-founder Joseph Gindi break it down. We sat down with the man for a short interview regarding what his new ‘for gamers, by gamers’ trade-in service is all about.
What motivated you to create Gamestaq? How does it compare to trade-in systems seen in other retailers like GameStop, Amazon, and Best Buy?
I grew up playing video games, and was always frustrated with the brick and mortar pricing structure for used games. Gamestaq is different from other sites or stores in that gamers don’t sell their games to a middle-man company, instead they sell directly to other gamers. We don’t take inventory of games, but instead provide a secure platform and guaranteed transactions for buyers and sellers. We scour the web to find the right fair price for every game without the need for outrageous markups since we have no physical inventory or retail overhead. Buyers transparently see the price for every game, just like in a retail store, and then we handle finding the seller for that game. With no interaction between buyer and seller, Gamestaq controls and guarantees the transaction from beginning to end.
Our model is significantly better than others that provide an inflated buy price and an artificially low sell price. We offer real transparency, where both parties receive satisfaction with the game’s pricing and the security of the transaction process.
How are prices on used games determined? How’s the amount of money you’d earn by selling a game determined?
We utilize our algorithm to review various online points that offer console games for sale. We look at eBay auctions, the Amazon marketplace, and other sites to pull pricing together to come to a fair set price.
The amount of money earned by selling a game is set by our fair market pricing. We eliminate the hesitation that many sellers feel when trying to find the right value for the for-sale or auction posting. With Gamestaq, both buyer and sellers receive a good fair price, which is why we charge small fees equally to each party.
Care to give us a few prime examples (direct game comparisons, I’m talking) on why Gamestaq defeats the trade-in competition?
For the PS3, say you look at a game like LittleBigPlanet 2. If you go to brick and mortar store GameStop, you will see this used game for typically $54.99, but GameStop will buy a used copy from a seller for just a $25 in store credit. On Gamestaq, this game would currently be $39.99 to buy and sell, with a $2 fee per the buyer and the seller. Our pricing structure in some cases allows gamers to effectively “rent” games for a substantial period of time, and then sell the game to another user.
Another example is the game Dead Space 2. You can get it [used] for $55 at GameStop, but if you are selling the game, you get a $23 credit. On Gamestaq, this game is also $39.99 for each party with the $2 fee per peer. We think it is simply unfair as a business to markup a used video game by more than 50%, and feel that Gamestaq is a better way to meet the needs of serious gamers who are looking for more value.
What’s a potential seller to do regarding unlisted games? I did a quick search for Tales of Vesperia (for Xbox 360) and yielded no results. What would I do if I wanted to sell my copy of Vesperia to Gamestaq?
Since it’s relaunch, Gamestaq has focused on games released since September 2009 to the present day. We are always adding more games every month. Any games that are not currently for sale on our site can be requested to be added to our database. In fact just last week we pushed up 400 new titles based on user requests.
Are there any future plans on supporting import used game sales?
Not at this time.
Is there anything unmentioned you’d like our audience to know (free promotion!) before we close off the interview?
Gamestaq was founded and is run by real gamers. We built the site so that gamers can buy and sell their games in a fair and simple way. It only takes about 30 seconds to post a game on the site and two clicks to buy. We designed the site to be extremely user-friendly for all types of users.
Lastly, we are always running promotions and pushing out cool new content, so be sure to check out our Twitter and Facebook pages at www.twitter.com/gamestaq and www.facebook.com/gamestaq.