E-Play Falls and GameStop Remains King
In the past few years, GameStop‘s resound success in the used game market has played a large part in the corporation’s rise to power. With such a huge boost of revenue from used game sales, this success recently enticed both Walmart and Best Buy to try their hands in the business. In a negative but potentially unsurprising turn of events, both have given up.
E-Play, the main engine for driving used games sales and trade for both Walmart and Best Buy has officially suspended operations. Walmart and Best Buy have relied on E-Play kiosks to manage their used game operations since their inception during 2009. Since neither company has managed to captivate an audience with their used games campaign, it is more than likely that neither will pursue a new front.
With almost no competition in the used game sales market, GameStop looks to continue its domination of the market and further increase profits.
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11 Responses to “E-Play Falls and GameStop Remains King”
is there really a victory here? Gamestop such a pawn shop. l get more money selling my games at amazon than Gamestop
Yeah, wtGp, that’s true. If you’re comparing in-store locations, though, there is no comparison between GameStop and this E-Play. Who really shops at Best Buy or Wal-Mart for games? They never have particularly good prices, and GameStop’s 10% card is usually beneficial.
Like you said, however, Amazon really is the place to go.
I’d rather trade games on Goozex. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
God, so much for that usurping of power.
PS. Boricuastorm you might have just changed my life.
or…. e-bay, anyone?
you can’t even trust some new games at Gamestop neither. especially the ones they have open and claim to be new and unused! lol when you know those assholes have been playing that copy in the backroom
I get all my games from Amazon and the sellers on Amazon – used or new, their prices beat the hell out of Gamestop. Last time I went into Gamestop, they were trying to sell me a used game for $5 more than Amazon wanted for it new. I used to buy used PS2 games from Gamestop when they were 3 for $10, but now they want $10 – $15 each, which is usually more than a new copy from Amazon costs. And “new” at Amazon means unopened and unplayed.
Whatever – kids will keep taking games that their mommy’s paid $60 for and trading them in for $10 at Gamestop. That’s their business model.
http://www.goozex.com FTW. The only downside is sometimes you can wait a long time for a game but your getting max value for your trades, albeit in points rather then cash but they are good values. I used the Best Buy mail in trade in feature three times and it took between 1-2 weeks just for them to approve them and then another week to get me my gift card which sucked.
Ebay or goozex.com for getting rid of old games anyday over Gamestop.
The reason Wal-Mart and Best Buy failed was a lack of advertising. I went into two Best Buy’s and all they had was a measly 10″ x 20″ sign about trade-in’s. Wal-Mart had even less. If I didn’t frequent gaming websites I would have never picked up that they were even buying used games, let alone selling them. Terrible lack of advertising.
bestbuy and Wal-mart had used games ? I didn’t know that and shop at both stores regularly so yeah , they didn’t advertise it at all so that’s probably a big reason it failed ( or maybe it was just in the u.s. ? ) .
I sometimes trade in a game I haven’t played for a while at ebgames ( gamestops Canadian name ) and know I could get more selling it myself but since it’s just collecting dust anything is better than keeping it and it’s convenient to get a credit and use it later on a new or used game . other times I swap games with friends – if we both have a game that we don’t play and want to try the others game it’s a great solution , one for one straight trades .