Video games of all shapes and sizes are quite popular with the console gaming population amassing millions. However, a new breed of gamers is former over on social networks like Facebook who pride themselves in tending to their farms and building cities. Yes, I’m talking about FarmVille and CityVille.
While I won’t dive into the gameplay of these respective titles what I will say is that they’ve made Zynga (their developer) quite the mammoth of a company. In fact, due to a recent investment of $250 million, Zynga has now been valued between $7 and $10 billion dollars. Pretty incredible considering the concept of their games are quite simple.
If you aren’t aware of how Zynga makes money and don’t want to actually dive into one of these games it’s all about micro-transactions. First, they have you complete certain tasks with a limited amount of energy. More often than not, in order to actually complete the task you need more energy than you are given and the only ways to get more is to buy it (with real cash) or wait until it’s replenished. Thus, Zynga profits.
via nytimes
For years retail chain Gamestop has made a fortune off trade-in games. Now other retailers are beginning to get into the action, but someone eventually decided there must be a better way for gamers to swap an old title for a new one. If you’re lucky enough to have some gaming friends it’s possible to swap titles once you’re finished, but many of us don’t have that option.
In July 2006 a site was launched called Goozex which allowed gamers to send in titles towards ‘purchasing’ other games. It’s set up on a points system based on supply and demand; the more popular your game is the more points you’ll get for it. Users pay $1 per trade and their own shipping costs, but in spite of this Goozex estimates they save their users around $20 per trade, adding up to a total of $3.7 million in savings for their clients since the site’s launch.
The service does actually seem to be offering better values than conventional trade-ins, where games trade-in values quickly decline. Unfortunately none of the GameStop locations I called were able to give me prices over the phone, but Amazon was easier to find. They value Fable II at $16.50, Resident Evil 5 at $19.50 for either console version, Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition at $6.50 and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the Wii at $15. The highest point value on Goozex is 1000, which can essentially be calculated at six cents per point. This means that Fable II and Resident Evil 5 are both valued at $60, Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition and MK:A are both valued at $27.
