Amazon’s trade-in program now pays out instantly for games, tech, and books

By Danny Cowan Published November 15, 2016

Need some extra cash for your holiday shopping? Amazon is now issuing instant gift cards for customers who trade in used video games, laptops, and books via the company’s online storefront.

Previously, Amazon required trade-in customers to wait 10 days before receiving payment, in order to account for shipping time and item condition on arrival. Starting this week, the company is waiving its standard waiting period across multiple trade-in categories, starting with video games and select accessories.

Recommended Videos

Amazon’s trade-in program allows its customers to cast off their unwanted purchases in return for in-store credit. After picking a product to trade in via Amazon’s website, customers must then package the item and affix it with a prepaid shipping label before dropping it off at a UPS location for shipment.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

While Amazon’s policy still requires customers to ship out their items within seven days of submitting a trade-in request, the company is no longer delaying gift card payouts during shipment. Customers now have instant access to their trade-in credit after filling out the necessary forms at Amazon’s website, making it easier to turn their unwanted possessions into gifts and household necessities.

As part of its exchange program, Amazon scans previous customer purchases for suggestions regarding trade-ins. The site’s trade-in suggestions largely target video games purchased directly from Amazon, though items like headphones, tablets, laptops, and books also appear to be eligible for instant trade-in credit.

Amazon’s trade-in credit favors current releases, and many recent games can be traded back to Amazon for a large percentage of their original retail price. Xbox One owners can trade in a boxed copy of Gears of War 4 for up to $26, for instance, while Paper Mario: Color Splash for the Wii U currently fetches a trade-in value of up to $30.

Customers who bought some of last year’s biggest releases via Amazon may be disappointed by current trade-in prices, however. The once-prized Pip Boy Edition of Fallout 4 can be traded in for just over $25, while the retail PlayStation 4 version of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain tops out at $6.

Amazon customers can begin trading in their unwanted items for gift cards via this online form.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…

Gaming

This delightful new adventure game feels like a long-lost PS1 classic

A slime stands in the forest in Slime Heroes.

I always appreciate a video game that feels like a long-lost classic from another time. I’m not talking about games that deliberately chase a retro aesthetic for nostalgia. Rather, I appreciate ones that feel naturally shaped by history, where childhood influences show. That’s the kind of game Slime Heroes is, a good-natured adventure starring colorful cartoon mascots. If you told me it was a remake of a forgotten PS1 game, I might believe you were it not for some of its modern giveaways.

A debut project for indie studio Pancake Games, Slime Heroes is an open-world adventure game about an adorable slime ball on a quest to save its home from corrupted monsters. Its cheery visuals, whimsical music, and clumsy UI make it feel exactly like a game from the era of mascot-driven platformers. Don’t let that bright surface fool you, though: Slime Heroes is a surprisingly tough game powered by some deceptively deep combat hooks.

Gaming

The best hero shooters on Xbox

Roadhog and D.Va in Overwatch 2.

Even though the best Xbox series X games come in all genres, it still has a strong reputation as being the shooter box. There's no denying that it has an especially strong lineup of amazing FPS games, with hero shooters being a standout subgenre that only seems to be getting more popular over time. These titles differentiate themselves by giving each player more ways to express themselves in battle beyond which weapon they choose. Not only does this create much more interesting encounters and emergent moments in every match, but it also makes the genre more accessible to players who might not be as accurate or quick as others. That, combined with near universal cross-platform support, makes hero shooters an easy genre to get together with friends in to play casually or competitively. These are the top hero shooters you should be playing right now.

We will continue to update this list with all the upcoming Xbox Series X games that manage to impress us.

Gaming

NYT Crossword: answers for Monday, March 10

The New York Times has plenty of word games on its roster today — with Wordle, Connections, Strands, and the Mini Crossword, there's something for everyone — but the newspaper's standard crossword puzzle still reigns supreme. The daily crossword is full of interesting trivia, helps improve mental flexibility and, of course, gives you some bragging rights if you manage to finish it every day.

While the NYT puzzle might feel like an impossible task some days, solving a crossword is a skill and it takes practice — don't get discouraged if you can't get every single word in a puzzle.

nproxy.org