International Buying of Used Console Games

[poopypoo]

So... I live in Hong Kong; buying used console games is soooooo eeeeeeeeasy and pretty cheap. However, I have a problem and that's that almost nobody here plays American sports games other than basketball. I'm kinda fiending to play a little baseball and hockey and maybe even 'merkin football, though I still loathe Madden "hail mary every play" football. Right, so it's been a real PITA to find copies of MLB The Show 12, NHL 2k12 (maybe 13 tho I am cheap), and Madden 12 locally. Occasionally I find older copies of MLB games since I guess the Taiwanese kids are into it but they're usually overpriced.

Back in the day I'd buy any non-rare game more than two months old off ebay and have it in my hands in a week for $5. But I just checked and shit is outrageous over there these days. Year old sports games going for $5-10 +$5-7 shipping and then shipping to HK is more like $17. It's insane. Some of the Amazon z-shops ship to HK but to find out the shipping price you have to add the item to your cart, click on the frickin edit cart, then click on calculate shipping, just to find out they want $20 or "does not ship to your address". 9_9 So I figure there are lots of non-NA ppl here shopping for used console games. Any recommendations? I know it's kinda like splitting hairs but IMO year-old games really shouldn't be more than $3-5+$10 shipping internationally. They fit in a damn priority envelope after all.

 

[Tchock]

Yer doin it wrong!

Use a parcel-forwarding service like Borderlinx and get your games shipped to your virtual address in the US for much cheaper. As games are pretty small items, consolidated items of 5-6 videogames will ship back in a $25 box. Averages about $5-6/item surcharge this way.

 

[poopypoo]

Thanks for the response! Yeah I hear ya, we actually use shipitto right now, my wife says it's cheaper, and I let her handle it lol. But... I dunno, kinda puts a crimp in things for just buying one little game. Seems like there should be a cheaper way to buy games even without getting into the shipping cost issues. What happened to the glory days of ebay? Where did all the cheap games go? ^^

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Supply and demand. You can't just expect year old games to be $3-5 on account of being old. If they are valued games, second-hand price can remain high. I think fundamentally you need to adjust your expectations regards game pricing. I'll even go a little bit further and state that in relative terms, gaming is extremely cheap compared to many hobbies, even buying full-priced games (unless you buy thousands!).

 

[poopypoo]

You may be right. I am surprised because before I left America (early 2000s) I remember used games being dirt cheap. I regularly bought games a few weeks after release for .99+shipping. I kinda wonder if the collapse of the rental chains has helped dry up some of the glut of used copies after launch month. There seem to be a lot fewer game sellers on ebay right now; I would find dozens of options, many independent, in the past but now only see about a dozen or so guys selling huge libraries of games. Or maybe my memory is getting rusty... >_<

 

[Sigfried1977]

I think that has less to do with the used game market than ebay itself. Ebay simply isn't the inviting auction house it used to be anymore. It's like 10 professional merchants per private seller these days. If I wanted to sell a used game these days, I'd probably use Amazon Marketplace instead.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You may be right. I am surprised because before I left America (early 2000s) I remember used games being dirt cheap. I regularly bought games a few weeks after release for .99+shipping. I kinda wonder if the collapse of the rental chains has helped dry up some of the glut of used copies after launch month. There seem to be a lot fewer game sellers on ebay right now; I would find dozens of options, many independent, in the past but now only see about a dozen or so guys selling huge libraries of games. Or maybe my memory is getting rusty... >_<

If it remained that way now, the games industry would collapse! Hence the attempts to tackle used-sales revenue drains and the like. It is what it is and you just have to shop around if you're buying second hand (and ignore the fact you're wrenching the bread from the developers starving famiies ).

 

[poopypoo]

I don't think Shifty's last comment has even the remotest honest significance, but having thought about it, I do agree with the previous premise that $.99, even plus $6 ripoff "shipping". I shouldn't be so surprised; it was just a moment in time. Thanks for the input yall!