Is This The Future Shop Canada Trade-In Value Formula?

Back in June we posted about Future Shops impending entry into the used video game market. It looks like the moment has arrived, as a number of Cheap Ass Gamer forum goers have already noticed their local Future Shops have begun selling pre-owned games. While the program was supposed to launch nation-wide, it now appears that select Future Shops launched the program on September 15, with a full roll-out coming later in the year.

In the forum discussion, a poster by the name of gamer602 claims he has uncovered the Future Shop trade-in value formula, which is:

(Used game price ÷ 2) - 10% = Trade-in value

The example given for Mario Galaxy is as follows:

Mario Galaxy USED 39.99
Divided by 2 = $20
Minus 10%
Final Value = $18

Not bad I suppose, certainly higher than I would expect to get at EB Games.

Another distinct advantage Future Shop has over competitor EB Games is that according to some customer comments, you can redeem trade-in store credit for anything in the store (e.g. Ipods, computers, tvs). That feature alone might be enough to convince many gamers to switch store loyalty.

Since this is a brand new trading program, it's not without it's launch hiccups. Many posters on the Cheap Ass Gamer forum are telling stories of long delays processing trade-ins (up to 15 minutes for three games). Another common complaint is that Future Shop issues a separate 'store credit' card each time you bring in games, instead of loading up one central card as does EB Games. One shopper even commented that you can only use one 'store credit' card per sale, meaning if you have three cards with $20 each, you can't trade them in for a $60 item.

Interesting forum comments, and worth a read.

Source: FS: Trade in your games! Nationwide ROLLOUT [Cheap Ass Gamer]