Which? survey finds games depreciate more quickly than cars
Stores paying as little as 30% of purchase price on trade-ins, just days after release
A survey conducted by consumer group Which? has found that some stores will pay less than 30 per cent of the retail cost of games when trading them second hand for cash or store credit, meaning that they lose value more quickly than cars.
The organisation took a number of titles of different ages in for trade-in at various retail outlets which deal in second hand games, and found that Game was offering only £16.70 for a "mint condition" copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops, bought for £44.99 three days earlier.
The survey also discovered that second hand specialist CEX consistently offered the best prices for trade-ins, both for cash and for credit, whilst Game and Blockbuster gave the lowest quotes. No mention was given of comparable prices on trading sites such as e-bay.
The mark-ups on second-hand products was found to be extremely high in many cases, with Blockbuster offering customers only £6 for copies of Red Dead Redemption which were being sold on for £29.95.
Supermarkets, a new player in the used market, seemed to offer very competitive prices on many titles, although tended to limit exchanges to store credit rather than cash.