Retail places where you can literally trade your games?

[WarmSignal]

There used to be an independent game/movie store in my area (mostly before my time), I think he got started around 1983. By the time I discovered this shop in the very early 2000s he was transitioning his business model away from game shop and into the pawn and loan business, which is mostly what the place is today. They still dabble in games a bit, the owner gave management of their games department over to a different guy. Their new game strategy since then is actual game trading. It's the only place I've ever heard of to actually trade games.

Basically what it is, is two of your games for one of theirs, or you can buy outright from them with a flat rate of $10 per game, any game. However, they don't allow their stock to get flooded with junk while people clean them of the good stuff. No sports or shovelware can be traded, and they stock no more than 3 copies of any decent game. It's a model that really only benefits gamers. They don't pay cash for games anymore, and since the values are all the same, it's pretty much fool proof from a business perspective. The only downside is with three GameStops in town and other pawn shops that do pay cash for stolen goods, their game business has waned. I wish more people would do business with them, but I don't see things picking up anytime soon. I suppose cutting out the crowd who just want to pawn off their gaming goods can cripple your inventory, must be a significant percentage of those who deal with other game shops.

It would be interesting to see what an actual game store could do with a model like this.

[kool kitty89]

I wonder if any Play n' Trades were ever like that . . . they're a franchise, so individual stores have a fair amount of latitude on how they manage things and what they carry.

It would be really cool if a chain/franchise targeted a model like that as the standard though.