As Of June Gamestop Will No Longer Take PS2 Trades. EB Games Hasn’t Taken Them Since December!

This is a strange story. Strange because no-one really noticed or made a fuss. In the US Gamestop has just confirmed to multiple outlets that it will no longer be accepting PS2 trades after June 1 this year. This has made headlines. People in the US chased this up; they cared for some reason. Kotaku US ran a story that we chose not to publish on this site about it.

But just to check on the local angle, I thought I’d chase up Electronics Boutique, essentially the Australian arm of Gamestop. If EB Games also decided to stop taking PlayStation 2 trades, this story might be worth running on Kotaku Australia.

So I quickly shot off an email to EB Games’ local rep. The next day I received a reply.

And I was surprised to learn that EB Games — without a modicum of fuss, without a care in the world — had casually stopped taking PS2 trade-ins as early as December 2012. EB Games will still sell what PS2 stock they have, but they won’t take new trades. Hilariously, no one really noticed. Crazy. Why was this a story in the US, reported on by multiple different tech and game sites, yet in Australia no-one seemed to care?

Part of it, I suspect, is the fact that it really is a low impact story — let’s be honest here. I think another reason is the timing. When the biggest gaming news of the day is the announcement of The Sims 4, you might find some outlets, including us, grasping for straws — that’s the nature of media. Had Gamestop quietly stopped taking PS2 trade-ins in December, during a busy release month where everyone wants to talk about games of the year and whatnot, maybe no-one would have given a damn.

As a friend pointed out to me — most people who haven’t already traded in their PS2 games most likely intend to keep them as a collector’s item, or for nostalgia reasons. At this stage it’s probably not worth the hassle of lugging a box of games to a store for the inevitable disappointment of being offered $24 for a collection that cost you hundreds of dollars.


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