The Quest for Dragon Quest
I rarely trade-in or sell games. I do not know what it is. I just hold on to games even if I am not playing them. I still have my original Game Boy and and all of the games and accessories that I bought for it over the years (yes it still works), my Game Boy Color and Game Boy Camera, and my Game Boy Advance SP (which I got after trading in a Game Boy Advance). While I have sold a few games on ebay and Amazon in the past, I am more likely to just pass games on to my nieces and nephews if I get rid of them at all.
I have some motivation to get rid of some stuff now, though. Dragon Quest IX is out for Nintendo DS, and it looks like something that I would enjoy. However, I am too cheap, and strapped for cash, to justify buying it outright, so I decided to trade in some games.
I do not like going to Gamestop for trade-ins, because they are a rip off. I know there are games in my arsenal for which they would not give me a dime. They also turn around and sell everything for four and five times what they gave you for it. I did not feel like going through the whole ebay thing again either. I decided to try out Amazon‘s trade-in program.
The system works pretty painlessly. You search for the games that you want to trade-in for a gift card credit and add them to your trade-in account. Once you have all of the games in your account, you can then submit them. At that point, you choose your free shipping option, print your label and packing slip, and box up and ship the games.
Over a couple of days I put in games one after the other to see how much was offered for them. The values for the games actually changed during those two days. When I first entered the games, the funds that I would receive added up to around twenty-eight or twenty-nine dollars. On the second day, the price for one game had gone up a little and another had gone down a little, bringing the trade-in value to a little over thirty-one dollars. This was great because it got me closer to the Dragon Quest IX price, which is $34.99, not including tax and shipping.
In the end, of the thirty-five DS games that I had in my possession, I submitted nine of them for trade-in. Here is the list and their values on the day of submission:
- Professor Layton and the Curious Village $13.00
- MySims Kingdom $3.00
- Boogie $0.25
- Brain Challenge $3.50
- Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! $2.00
- Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day! $3.25
- Bust-A-Move $1.50
- Diner Dash $3.50
- Sprung: A Game Where Everyone Scores $1.25
I think that part of the reason that I rarely trade in games is some kind of attachment to them. While boxing up the games, I started to remember the good times that I had playing them, and I was tempted to back out of the deal. I had already submitted, though. I do not know if there is a way to back out of it other than just not shipping the games within the time limit.
The funny thing is that I thought to use Amazon because my sister said she was going to try it. After I boxed up my games, I urged her to get on it while she could get decent trade-in values for her games. I actually experienced more of an attachment with her games than with my own games, oddly enough. I spent half the day playing her Cake Mania, which I do not even like much but is highly addictive, and Playground (I am far too amused by catching butterflies) because she was getting rid of them. LOL She ended up getting enough to buy Dragon Quest IX if she chooses to buy it. I still have to come up with another 3+ dollars from somewhere. All donations welcome!
I boxed up the games and my sister dropped them off along with her games. Now we just wait to see if they are all accepted and to get a credit. We both had all of our cases and instruction booklets, so I do not foresee there being any issue. Once credited, you can buy just about anything on the Amazon site, not just games. I already told my sister that I will be tempted to buy music, but I am going to try to remember the quest for Dragon Quest IX and refrain from that. 
Update (9/20/10): I was finally credited for the games that I sold to Amazon today. I did get credit for all of the games that I sent, although my sister did not get credit for one of her games. We both sent back a copy of MySims Kingdom. She was told that hers was damaged for some reason, and that it would be sent back to her at no charge. In the end, we both ended up being credited amounts within twenty-five cents of each other, with neither of us having quite enough for Dragon Quest IX with the gift cards alone.
From shipping out on Monday to them being credited the following Monday, it took a whole week. From tracking, I know that the games were received around 3am on the 16th, so it took them about two and a half business days to check in the games and process the credit. Then, when we do finally order something, we have to wait for that get shipped, but we knew that beforehand. All in all, not a bad experience, for me anyway.
Update (9/23/10): My sister got her MySims Kingdom back and decided to play it to see what the issue with it was. She found no issue with the game itself, so she sent an email to Amazon asking what the issue was. They returned the game because of “damaged artwork.” Apparently, she had bought the game during a Circuit City final closeout, and they had marked a line through the bar code on the game package. This was the reason that the game was returned, despite it still being scannable. Luckily, another of my sisters had the game and just switched cases with her so that she could send it back.
In the meantime, I did exactly what I stated above. I bought some music that was on sale at Amazon, forgetting that they would automatically take it from my gift card instead of using my debit card. It was a $5 album, so I am now down about $9.
Update (10/7/10): My sister got her credit for MySims Kingdom finally and ordered her copy of Dragon Quest IX. In the meantime, I found a lost copy of Sally’s Salon. I played through it to the end after finding out that it had a trade-in value of $9! It has no replay value, so I had no problem parting with it. Selling the game would help me recover the $5 spent on an album, and add the $4 that I was missing from the beginning. Yay.
Update (10/13/10): I received my credit for Sally’s Salon, and now I need to order my game before I accidentally use my gift card to buy more music. LOL I had mailed the game out on Thursday, so the turn around time seemed a little quicker this time. My sister received her copy of Dragon Quest IX today!
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