Wal-Mart is testing a used games trade-in machine at certain locations, a development that’s welcome, if only to raise the price of trade-ins (or lower the price of used games) at Gamestop. Unfortunately, according to Neocrisis, the blog-slash-anime-suffix, the vending machines don’t always know what game discs you’re inserting to be scanned—and when they do, they don’t provide instant credit, but instead a charge to your credit card in two or three days. [via Cheap Ass Gamer]
Update: Apparently Wal-Mart is dabbling with big box store-style electronics displays, too. [CrunchGear]
It’s going to be awesome when shoplifters start taking games from the bargain rack directly to the vending machine. They’re effectively installing an automatic fence right in the store. Wait, maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe it’s bait to catch thieves.
Honestly though, a typical used-game store operates like a machine anyway, with seemingly zero capacity for actual customer service.
it took me so long to parse the title of this article correctly
It will be most interesting to see how this will pan out….weather it will be fraud-resistant enough to still turn a profit…or weather someone will be smart enough to figure out a way to make a quick ill-gotten gain off of it before they shut it down.
Wal-Mart started a seemingly ill-advised system where you could trade in your used CO2 tanks (mostly used for paintball) for full ones at an excessive cost. It is widely acknowledged in the paintball community that this system has been roundly abused (for example, trading in out-of-date and damaged tanks that are only useful for scrap for new and full tanks…a significant savings for those who would have had to buy new tanks at full price), yet this odd trade-in system seems to be surviving quite well (which of course probably means it manages to turn a profit). It would seem to depend on price points and how many legitimate users use the service vs. how many people are out to abuse the system for profit…and of course what systems are in place to minimize the abuse.