When is it Time to Sell My Games & Where to Sell them Online

I am way too reluctant to even think when it's time to sell my games when I'm done with them. “Maybe I'll loan them to my friends,” I think. This may be true for the first six months or even a year or two after the game's release, but after that.

I mean, I'm well into my forties, and I'm still carrying around many of my beloved video games I had as a kid or a young adult. Heck, I still have my original Nintendo NES I had as a kid, collecting dust in a box.

So is it time to sell my classic games for some extra cash?

There are people out there who want to play these retro games, but I don't know them, so they're only going to find my games if I put them on the market. Nor am I going to fire up Mario Golf or Donkey Kong any time soon. They were good enough games at the time, but they don't have for me the kind of nostalgia or replay value to overcome their aging mechanics and graphics two dozen years later.

My Unused Video Games are Taking up too much Space

So why are these retro video games taking up precious shelf space in my still-overcrowded apartment? Because I treat my video game library like I treat my fridge. When I open my fridge, there are always several things in there that I know I am never going to eat, but because they are still technically edible, I don't throw them away.

Instead, I wait until they go bad and only then do I throw them out. Meanwhile, they take up room in my fridge and develop terrible fuzzy qualities. My game library works the same way. I keep games around that I could, conceivably, go back and finish or replay, while knowing deep down the fantastic unlikelihood of that ever happening. Meanwhile, their official trade-in values are decreasing (some games get more valuable, but these are not the games I'm dithering over in this way).

For instance, while writing this post

I decided to go through my game library and pick out the games I know I will never play. Here's what I came up with: Mario Kart, Mario vs Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Country, Mario & Sonic, Super Mario RPG, Street Fighter II and the list goes on. Not bad, right?   I'm sure I can sell my games for cash, and clear a little space, and make a few dollars.

I knew I needed to dig deeper, so I did a second run through my library, and added of few of my favorite game cartridges like: the Super Mario Bros from the Nintendo 64, a couple Pokémon games from the Nintendo DS & and at least one of my wife's old Harvest Moon Nintendo 3ds games that she's decided she won't replay. (I did ask her before putting one in the pile. I wish to stay married.) This clears more space and adds a few more bucks to my pocket.

But I still wasn't being completely honest with myself

So I did a third run of games, adding some that I'm quite fond of or that aren't old enough to have “gone bad” according to my fridge rule (or that I think someone might want to borrow, someday), but that I know I'm not going to replay several of my old video game consoles, and now with the Nintendo Switch I can move on from even more vintage video games in my collection. So let me go through all my accessories from the Original Controller for the SNES, a Nintendo NES Controller, GameCube Controller and the list goes on.  With the library of games on the Nintendo Switch, I don't need nearly as many retro video games sitting on my shelves.

It was in this third run that I realized I had some selling options.  And at the very least, the money I could make selling these games jumped from a handful of cash to over a hundred bucks, definitely enough to buy at least one good used game to replace the twenty games! I had cluttering up my shelf that I was never going to play, and whose value was depreciating as I procrastinated.

Who buys used Video Games

So I decided to talk with my friends about their experiences either with using the Facebook Marketplace or taking my chances using another online marketplace.  To my surprise, several of my friends have gotten huge instant trade-in value through an independent online game store.

Really, I was shocked and kinda skeptical about using an online video game company I've never heard of for selling games.  So I went to google and typed "where to sell used video games", of course a bunch of results popped up.  I must say, a few of these companies who make lists for the best place to sell video games and so on.  Must get paid or something to list some of these companies tops on their respective list(s). 

No, all Sites Will Pay Equally - Watch Out!

I did a search on declutter (who was the top recommendation on several lists) for Mario Golf, and BloodRayne and the trade-in credit I was offered was $0.32 each "Yes you read that right three dimes and two pennies" ouch.  Then I tried a couple other sites, but was annoyed I had to enter the entire barcode just to find some pathetic selling price.  So how was I supposed to sell my n64 games with no barcode? 

So I stumbled down the search result till I found The Old School Game Vault, and hence the reason for this article.  The Old School Game Vault was pretty easy to navigate through and offered very fair prices & even had prices to sell my gaming consoles.

So I sent the owner an email

Asking about shipping costs and if there was any sort of selling fee.  They got back to me rather quickly and told me if my order was over $100 I'd get a free prepaid shipping label. 

They went over several instant payment options as well

Which I eventually went with a direct deposit via zelle into my bank account.  So I sent in my games, and in about a week or so I was paid.  Brandon communicated every step of the way with me, and I'm sure my games and my gaming accessories found a good home.