review by: AzShrapnel

A little background ... 

Given my recent (better late than never) purchase of a 360 I had been trying to figure out what to do with all those old Xbox games I never played anyway.  My first thought, as usual, was just to bring them into a local Gamestop/EB and trade in what I have a snag a new 360 game.  However, I would get a MAX of $8 for some of the games and most would be under just a few bucks.  Doesn't really seem worth it ... so a I looked to my good friend Google to find me some online alternatives.  What I found was a variety of types of trading sites and options:

• Sites that pay you cash for your games
• Sites that are. more-or-less, online swap meets
• Sites that allow you to trade games for points and redeem points for trades
• Forums, such as this one, where you post what you have/want
  

The options ...

The first option worried me as I would be sending my games to a completely unknown company and hoping that they remembered to send me my cash.  In fact, most of them would either match what I was getting from a local brick-n-mortar or would seem way too good to be true.  No amount of researching these companies turned up reviews good or bad.  So I passed on those ...

The next option seemed OK to me: You list the games you have and the games you want ... the site matches you with people that have that games you want and want the games you have.   Most of them add in a ratings/feedback system to add to the comfort/trust level of sending games away to someone you don't know and (as before) hope that you get something in return.  Problem I see here is: Seriously, who is going to trade a 360 game for a (or even a couple) Xbox game(s)?

Next up was my favorite option in that you agree to send a game to an unknown person but you get points (based on the MSRP of the game) immediately credited to your account.  The trade is fully backed by the site (games that weren't sent, pirated, or damaged) so you can be sure you'll get your points back in the event of a mis-trade.  As above, feedback systems are in place so you know with whom to avoid trading.  As with the swap-meet you list the games you want and have and the system will provide the matches for you.

Last, and no offense, is my least favorite:  The dreaded 10-mile long forum of disorganization (not here, of course, I am referring to the other guy's site :).  You are pretty much on your own to hope that someone will read your post and manually compare what that have/want to what you want/have and message you about it.  Or you could search on your own and hope to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Given these options, I decided to given some a try and see how it worked how.  There are three services I have tried: Goozex.com, SaySwap.com and GameTZ.com and here are my ramblings about them..

Goozex.com

My favorite out of the three.  Goozex is a points-based system that seems popular enough to have a decent amount of games (Xbox/360/PS1-3/Wii/PC etc.) available as WELL as being requested.  Of course, both sides are important to have a balanced enough trading site to sustain itself.  All Goozex asks in return? A measly $1/received trade.  Of course, you still incur the costs of packaging and shipping which, for a DVD-sized game, about $1 for a padded envelope and about $1.59 for USPS First Class.  You can always purchase points as well if you are too impatient to trade enough games.  I, personally, would get real anxious when all I needed was about 100 more points ($5) to get a game so I rationalized to myself that "$5 ain't so bad for a used 360 game."  The best feature, in my opinion, is the fact that you can instantly see what games are requested and available as well as how they are requested/available: disc-only, disc+manual, full-package.  A nice feature they could add is the number of people requesting/offering so that you know how long you may have to wait.  I have had pretty good success with this site: In all, I have traded 3 XBox games and a PC game for three 360 games.

SaySwap.com

This one seemed promising ... at first.  Just like Goozex, this one is points and token based and they even give you enough points/tokens to get a free game just for signing up (more on this later).  SaySwap asks about $5 per trade but picks up the cost of shipping and provides a printable mailer.  Of course, this means that you will at BEST get only the disc, manual and sleeve but no case.  There are several major flaws that I see with this site: First, The fact that they give away points for just signing up makes this site totally imbalanced: there are FAR MORE people requesting than people sending games.  In other words, you simply will not get someone to send you a game unless you pretty much pre-arrange it in advance.  This makes it nothing more than a overpriced swap-meet.  Second, there is no way to tell what games are actually available vs. just listed in someone's "games I have" list.  One good aspect, however, is the fact that you can see who has the game you are requesting and make a direct trade request to someone for the trade instead of waiting for the system to match.  Unfortunately, I have had no success with this site at all.  If SaySwap fixes the issues above (primarily getting rid of the free-for-nothing credits) then I think it would work just fine.

GameTZ.com

 A favorite amongst hard-core traders since it is totally free (with some added features for a subscription price) and allows total control over your swaps.  While the user interface on this one seems a little clunky at first, it does tend to grow on you and it gets the job done.  Once you have setup your haves/wants lists the system provides for you a list of all the matches and allows you to turn those items into offers.  You can pretty much setup the offer anyway you want: trade several games for one game, throw in some cash or even some spare computer parts while you are at it.  It is then up to you and the other guy to accept the offer and then trust that each other will keep up their end of the bargain.  With a good feedback system in place, along with some good advice, it doesn't feel like you will get ripped off.  While not guaranteed like Goozex or SaySwap, the feedback system lends itself well to identifying who has been trading there for quite sometime.

Conclusion

I like Goozex ... I'll probably stick with it until I have nothing left to trade and then most likely move on to a rental service or recycle some of the 360 games I won't replay.  One last note is that you most likely will NOT be getting any new releases here.  Who would want to trade away that tasty new copy of Lost Planet already?