Xbox One & PS4 Game Trade-Ins: What You Need to Know

More and more games are being released for the Xbox One and PS4, which means more and more games that are getting traded in. There are numerous options that gamers can take advantage of when trading in their games, but here are some important factors that you should keep in mind the next time you’re looking for a change in your game collection.

It’s been almost a year since the Xbox One and PS4 consoles launched to the public, and since that time, we’ve seen waves of new games release for both consoles. This means that as the launch titles become older and new releases become the best new thing for gamers, you might be on the lookout to trade in those older games.

Most retail stores (especially video game specialty stores like GameStop) offer video game trade-ins, allowing you to essentially sell your games back to the retailer and get store credit in return, for which you can then buy newer games.

However, taking your games to retail stores really isn’t the best option when it comes to trading in your video games. Because of this, we thought we’d share some better options to take advantage of, as well as explain why retail store trade-in programs are a rip-off.

Why Trade-In Programs Are a Rip-Off

First, the idea behind trade-in programs is that they offer you cash for your old games and then turn around and sell them to someone else. They need to make a profit from doing this, so they usually give you way less than what your old games are truly worth, that way they can make money when they sell them to someone else for a decent price.

As sketchy as this sounds just from reading that, it’s not illegal or anything, and the benefit of using trade-in programs is that it allows you to just quickly get rid of your old games without any hassle, and getting some cold hard cash in return — not a lot of cash, but some.

However, you usually get way less than what you could sell your old games for on the used market. For example, if I wanted to trade in my Xbox One copy of Madden 25, Amazon would only give up to $4.71 for it. However, doing some searching on eBay proves that I could easily sell it for around $20. This means that Amazon would give me a fraction of what the game actually costs.

GameStop is one of the most popular retail stores to trade in your games, but it’s notorious for offering low trade-in amounts. However, the company does offer different trade-in promotions throughout the year, usually when a new anticipated game is about to launch. Recently, GameStop has been offering gamers $15 extra towards trade-in credit when you trade in any two Xbox One or PS4 games.

This is a bit more enticing, and it actually might be beneficial in the end, but it all depends what games you trade in, so make sure you know how much your games will sell on the used market before taking them to a retail store to trade in.

Sell on eBay or Craigslist

eBay can be a great place to quickly get rid of your old stuff since there are millions of users who use eBay daily, so you’re bound to get bids on your old games if you list it.

Craigslist is also a good option and you won’t have to deal with annoying selling fees. Both eBay and Craigslist are the best avenues to sell your old games if you want to get top dollar for them. You can easily sell your launch title games for $20-$30, depending on the game. Amazon and GameStop would only give you a few bucks for them.

Of course, you have to deal with selling fees on eBay and it’s fairly easy to get ripped off when selling on Craigslist, but if you know what you’re doing, things should go pretty smoothly.

Swap or Sell Games on Reddit

If you’re not much of a Reddit user, now may be a good time to start using the popular internet website.

While Reddit is mostly thought of as a the internet’s curator of all things news and funny images, there’s also a corner of Reddit where you can trade, sell and buy games along with thousands of other gamers.

/r/GameSwap and /r/GameSale are the two most popular “subreddits” where you can trade, sell and buy video games. GameSwap allows you to trade your games with other Reddit users, while GameSale allows you to sell your old games and buy other games to replace them. It’s pretty much like Craigslist, except it’s all online and you don’t need to worry about meeting up in a public place with a random stranger.

Furthermore, the community of both subreddits is extremely delightful and the moderators do a great job of cracking down on scammers and fakes.