A Return with Three Choices
It was as if a looming concrete wall stood in my path, flaunting its lack of hand holds or crevices by which to summit its blank-faced stare. Truth be told I had put the thing there myself, gradually adding layer after layer until the original foundation was all but obscured and original purpose a mystery. It is with this strained metaphor that I relate a past decision to block the way in to modern console gaming, a choice steeped in misguided thoughts of self-preservation and efficiency.
I didn't want to start and be unable to stop, self control fading late in to nights that would inevitably lead to sleepless mornings. It's how it was back in school and my productivity... suffered, but surely that is all behind me. As an Adult I have learned a modicum of responsibility and time management so that wall went a crumbling and just last week I emerged on the other side holding a sleek 360 Elite.
And it has been awesome.
But I'd been out of the scene for a while, the last game I recall purchasing being Wind Waker and before that a used copy of Soul Caliber to replace the one I wore out. Barring the sudden appearance of an aged mentor to whisk me through an appropriately themed training montage (as I imagine was the case with Jinny and Chris) I would have to reach out to the prolific gaming community for the low down on how one avoided the dreaded MSRP.
It appeared I had some options.
Peer to Peer by mail exchange in a moderated setting where the price of games is controlled by a 3rd party. Essentially each user creates their own database of items they are willing to sell which ties in to the collective, creating a single repository of games for sale at a regimented price. The notifications of a sale are done on the back end by the site.
Transactions are made within Goozex with "points" as opposed to direct interaction with a credit card or checking account and there is flat rate of $1 per trade which goes to Goozex.
For example, The Orange Box retails at $29.99 but is available from a user for 350 points or approximately $12.50. $1 goes to the site and the shipper pays the postage.
Right off the bat I liked the flow of the site itself. While I am not yet at the point where I have games I want to offload looking for new ones was already cheaper than anything I could obtain locally or via Amazon and it was easy to see how quickly I could become part of this online community.
More of a gamer oriented auction site. Users are setting their own prices,wheeling and dealing within the site's tagging system which facilitates better search results than eBay would. Another area Dawdle deviates from the more traditional auction site is the the ability to place a Standing Offer,like a request, so the real-time pressure of perusing what's available is done passively at the price the user determines.
Dawdle appears to be the way to go one wants to unload either games, systems, or peripherals in direct exchange for cash among a community that clearly knows more than your average eBay crawler and is just as viable when attempting to pick up just about anything used.
The site is also open to larger vendors or stores thereby deepening the pool of potential goods.
Also an auction oriented site in terms of user generated price listings. Transactions are billed the equivalent of $1 utilizing Trade Tokens and then Switch Bucks keeping the central functioning site a repository for all spendings/earnings.
Users can dictate how much they want to buy or sell games by way of posted requests, once again utilizing a more passive system than actively crawling a time sensitive auction site.
As I am a highly visual communicator, here is a trio of initial searches for the same game:
Conclusion:
As a newcomer to the modern era of game acquisition, but one that is considerably tech/internet savvy, there were three main factors I considered before casting my lot with any single site.
- Reputation - I won't allow even the faintest flicker of an opinion to form without first skimming the oily surface of these internets. Those above were the big three and general consensus pointed positively towards Goozex. While outright negative reviews of the other two weren't part of my search results, top tier hits did reveal that with the added factor of setting one's own prices come complications and inevitably rejected offers.
- Site Design - Good looking is one thing but much like in real life it is what's under the hood that counts (read in to that what you will, it will be just as true). Of the three sites each had a slight learning curve which I'd classify as just a notch above what it takes to sell something on eBay from start to finish, but all were predominantly easy to use. Once again Goozex had me convinced from the first, not only with the most involved "How this works" but with the general "balance" my account had right off the bat.
- Community - As with any other social network, monetarily motivated or otherwise, the collective has a personality besides that of the users it is composed of. Call it mob rule or the greater average of sums it is this aspect that dictates the level and tone of participation. At its simplest a community is only as good as the number of members it can claim, which is why so many of us are using Twitter or Facebook and not their less popular alternatives.
You'll notice that nowhere in this write-up is there an actual experience of selling or purchasing. I've just begun, only ankle deep in the swimming pool that is modern gaming. I still geek out at my wireless controller, get a kick out of downloadable console demos, and find myself sporting the headset late at night when my friends list is at a fat goose egg of a zero. Wireless!
But this is a start, and even more important than the three factors I just listed comes the direct feedback of the experienced, those often solicited but not always endorsing reviews that cut through the fluff of even the most poignant blog post.
So what are you using? Is the rental route as good as it sounds? What did you like or what would you change?
What say you?!