GameStop Begins Accepting Retro Trades, May Actually Have Battletoads
Wait, GameStop is doing what?
“We’re now accepting retro trade-ins at all of our locations.” –@GameStop on Twitter
Oh. Okay. This is unexpected. The world’s largest gaming retailer is now accepting “retro trade-ins” at all of their locations. The link that is provided on the tweet above heads straight to their website’s directory of stores in the Dallas, TX area – but it seems like this announcement is pretty cut and dry. I haven’t headed to my local GameStop to test the limits of this yet, but I’ve gotta say… This information has GOT to suck for GameStop employees.
GS is clearly trying to tap into Amazon’s market share when it comes to retro purchases – since that’s the only place I go to find my SNES games. This might be worth checking out, but I can’t imagine GameStop is forking over much for retro consoles. To be honest, you’re probably better off going through your local hobby shop or mom ‘n’ pop game store to get a few bucks for your old consoles.
What’s most surprising about this, is that GameStop’s stores can’t possibly be equipped to store and display eleven more systems worth of games and consoles. Even if GameStop’s retro trade program is only a temporary thing (maybe it’ll last through the holidays?), you’ve gotta imagine GameStop employees are scrambling to make room. At best, most GameStops are cluttered as fuck. At worst, they’re bursting at the seams with miscellaneous gaming trinkets and standees.
Who knows, maybe GameStop will stop offering the trinkets, shirts, keychains, and pop vinyls in their brick ‘n’ mortar stores (since they’ve got ThinkGeek locations to take care of that side of the business) and they’ll make room for actually selling more, y’know, games.
We’ll see what happens. Are you going to check out GameStop’s retro trade offers? Let us know on Twitter at @WickedGoodGames.
