EBGames Canada Offers Tempting Trade in Deal for Haze

We've all been there. You shelled out $60 for a brand new game, got it home, popped it in and immediately hated it. Or maybe you loved it but you finished it in a matter of days. You take it down to Gamestop and all they'll give you is $20 in store credit. That kind of burns when you just shelled out three times that. For many, they'd rather just hold onto it than let Gamestop make a $35 profit on the resale.

A new kind of trade-in offer (apparently only valid at EB in Canada) seems targeted at exactly this kind of person and could possibly be a test run for future policy. If you pre-order the PS3 exclusive Haze you will be able to trade the game in within one week and receive store credit for the total purchase price of the game. That's right, you can trade it back in and get the full $60 (or whatever games cost in Canada nowadays) back to put towards another game or a future purchase.

This works out twofold for Gamestop: One, it encourages people to pre-order, which we all know Gamestop loves, and two, it immediately gives them an inventory of used copies of the game which they are going to sell at near retail price anyway. Since people who buy used games tend to also be the ones who are going to trade them back in anyway, the store is still going to make a profit reselling that copy over and over despite losing $5 on the initial trade-in.

If this process works out like I expect Gamestop is hoping it is, it could be a major coup for them, at least with select titles. They get the business of early purchasers who might normally say, "Screw Gamestop" and buy their game from Best Buy or Target and then they also get the used game trade-in they would normally never see.

It should be interesting to see if this turns out to be a one time deal or if it will be expanded following the release of Haze.

[via Joystiq]