The Boy is a gamer. And he had conquered all of his games and wouldn’t quit whining, “I’m booooored.”

“Mom, can I have an early birthday present? I want a new game.”

“No. You have to wait until, you know, your birthday.”

“Pleeeease?”

“No.”

He left the room and came back a few minutes later.

“Can you take me to GameStop?”

“I already told you I’m not buying you a new game.”

“No, I want to trade them in.”

He had gathered up all of the games he no longer enjoyed playing. So we had the Craigslist vs. GameStop discussion. I figured that he would earn more from Craigslist, but it would take longer to find a buyer.  I wanted to manage his expectations, too, and told him I didn’t think they’d offer him more than $2-3 for each game. The last time we’d investigated trading in a game or two, I wasn’t that impressed and had pretty much written off that option.

The Boy decided he wanted to see how much GameStop would offer him for his games before making a final decision. He was hoping to be able to get enough to buy the new Pokemon X or Pokemon Y game. (For the record, I know nothing about these games other than knowing they are rated E for Everyone.)

I figured this would be good learning opportunity, so I took him.

We got to our local GameStop with 13 Nintendo games in a baggie as well as a Wii game he no longer wanted. First, he looked to see if they had Pokemon X or Pokemon Y. They did.

And even better, there was a sign informing us that if he traded in games for either Pokemon X or Y, they’d give him 30% more in-store credit. This was looking promising.

The very helpful clerk started looking up the credit amounts for the cartridges he brought in. Because we had a GameStop Power Up Rewards card, he also got an additional 10% in-store credit. He also apparently had some in-demand games, which garnered a higher credit amount.

I was shocked when the clerk told the Boy he’d have enough credit to get BOTH games. And, on top of that, we have enough points to get $20 off our next purchase, which will come in handy at Christmas time.

We walked in with 14 unused games and walked out with 2 brand new games and a happy kid. And when he gets done playing these two, he can take them in and get credit for another game.

Not a bad deal.