Wal-Mart Launching Video Game Trade-In Kiosks

Necro · 05-19-2009, 04:07 AM

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Quote:

Wal-Mart has teamed up with kiosk company e-Play to test automated video game trade-in kiosks in several store locations throughout the Northeastern United States.

The machines, currently being tested in 77 Wal-Mart locations in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, should be relatively simple to use. You scan the bar code on the game box in order to receive a quote. Once you accept the quote, you insert the game discs, which I am assuming are checked for damage before being accepted. Then things get a bit cloudy.

While the Video Game Buy Back kiosk shown in this photo has a Wal-Mart sign that says "Trade in Games for Credit", it doesn't seem to mean Wal-Mart store credit. According to an e-Play representative, the machines only support charging the trade-in value back to a credit card, which takes 2-3 days, according to the instructions on the company's website.

We also asked e-Play who sets the trade-in prices for the games, and are awaiting a call back with that information, as the representative we spoke with did not know.

NeoCrisis had a chance to try out one of the machines this weekend, only to find that most of their games wouldn't scan and the one that did (Mirror's Edge) wasn't in the kiosk's database.

Not exactly a GameStop killer of a trade-in program, really. With no immediate payout, I can't see these kiosks taking any substantial amount of trade-in business from the video game retailer any time soon.

UPDATE: e-Play has confirmed that they themselves set the trade-in prices based on a proprietary algorithm that can change as regularly as daily based on a number of different factors. They also verified that trade-in credit can only be applied to a credit card or debit card at this time, so no Wal-Mart store credit is changing hands.

Also, a representative from Wal-Mart contacted us to let us know that if the pilot program is successful, the company would consider working with e-Play to provide actual Wal-Mart credit instead of a charge back.

Source: Kotaku

Ehh cool concept, but seems like its gona be a mess.

Daddy · 05-19-2009, 12:32 PM

You can tell it will be a miss just by the 2 to 3 day wait period. You have GameStop that you don't have to wait for. In my opinion they are screwed, unless you get some stupid parents that would rather go to Wal Mart than a gaming store.

Necro · 05-19-2009, 01:43 PM

Well it does really depend on the prices they give for the games. I'd be willing to wait 3 days if it was better than Gamestop. And honestly how can't it be? Game stop offering 2, 3 bucks for they sell for 20. One time even offered me 68 cents for a game they turn around and sell for 17.99. Fuck that.

twhiting9275 · 05-19-2009, 07:46 PM

Gamestop / Walmart / etc don't want to pay reasonable prices for their purchased games. Hell, they want to rip their customers off as much as possible!

getting $3 for a game that they'll turn around and sell for 5x that amount is just nothing but a complete rip off.

Daddy · 05-19-2009, 09:19 PM

I agree to the fullest, but it's like anything that they have a service you want and how long do they really sit before they even sell them? You are always going to be on the losing end because of depreciation. I often see that most games sit for a long ass time which is why they offer so little and try to sell for so much. I just called about my 360 and they said they would only give me $40 for it because it didn't have a controller which I had given to my brother. I said fuck it and won't take it in. I'm gonna give it to my nephew instead. He will enjoy it better than if I sold it for next to nothing. Hell this one is only 6 months old.

twhiting9275 · 05-21-2009, 03:38 PM

Yeah, I get the whole depreciation thing, and I don't want $35 if they're selling for $40, that's just greedy.

However, paying someone less than 1/10th of what you're going to sell the thing for is just horrible. Your x-box is a perfect example of that. Even WITHOUT controllers, they can sell that thing for $100, yet they're ripping you off for $60 just for 'storage'? ehhh, not so much

Daddy · 05-21-2009, 11:25 PM

Yeah that's why I pretty much said fuck that. I'm not into getting raped like that. Like I said I will give it to my nephew who will have way more fun with it and that will be payment enough for me.

Wal-Mart Launching Video Game Trade-In Kiosks

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