DRM News

Ever tried selling a game at Gamestop or EB Games? Ever been disgusted to see them take the game they just gave you $15 for and put it up on the shelf for triple that? Well, there is an alternative now (in the US market, anyway).

SwitchGames is a site built around buying, selling and trading used titles for the Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, DS and PSP. All that you need to do is create a free account, and peruse what’s available. Or, put something up for sale or trade. You set the price and you say what you’re interested in getting in return.

Now, we’ve all seen and heard the criticisms that the big game publishers level at places like Gamestop over used sales. SwitchGames is being proactive about that as well. The seller can choose to donate anywhere from 1% to 90% of the money received from the buyer to the game publisher (though doing so is purely optional). SwitchGames doesn’t yet have any sort of agreement in place with publishers, but they’re planning to send quarterly checks out to companies when they have something for them.

There are a few caveats to using the service.

-You must print out SwitchGames mailing labels and use the US Postal Service to ship items.

-That label will cost the seller $2.95 at the time of the sale (with that money going to SwitchGames for serving as the transaction middleman).

-The money from the buyer is held until SwitchGames determines that the shipment has arrived (via the tracking number on the label), then is entered in to the seller’s account.

All in all it’s a promising service, albeit one currently geographically limited.