GameStop would really like you to know that it recently honored a trade-in worth $30,000 after accepting a customer’s PSA 10 Holo Gengar Pokémon trading card. It’s the most valuable GameStop trade-in ever, a statement from the retailer says. The video game store company marked the occasion with a press release that ended with a note fighting the narrative that GameStop doesn’t pay much for trade-ins.
“Furthermore, any trolls who publicly claim that GameStop trade-in values are bad are hereby factually and demonstrably incorrect,” the release says. “Any prior and ongoing objections to our trade values are now deemed without merit and factually invalid.”
The tone is a light one, but there is a hint of truth to the defensiveness here. About a fifth of the word count in the press release supposedly about celebrating a “historic” moment in GameStop history is dedicated to disputing the idea that GameStop does not pay well when customers bring merch in.
The same release also notes that the fair market value of the card is $33,883. An 11% difference is pretty good, all things told. Pokémon cards might command eye-watering prices, but there likely aren’t that many people are in the market for a $33,000 exchange for one. The trade is also not particularly reflective of how much GameStop might offer customers for its main product: video games.
Battlefield 6, a video game that’s less than two months old, would only get you $27.50 in credit. Borderlands 4, another fairly recent game, lands somewhere between $18–22, depending on the platform. Meanwhile, GameStop sells pre-owned copies of Battlefield 6 for $52.24 and Borderlands 4 for around $48. The differences are vastly larger than 11%. These are GameStop’s more desirable trade-ins — other games would fetch even lower trade-in values.
You get even less if you opt to get cash for your trade-ins. GameStop did not immediately respond to a request for comment, so we don’t know how much the company would have paid had the trading card customer asked for real money over credit. Less, certainly.
GameStop also doesn’t address many of the things people would actually want to know about this transaction, like, for example: Why would someone want so much money in credit for GameStop? Where did the card come from, and why did the customer choose GameStop specifically? And most importantly, how many Funko Pops can you get for $30,000?
But all things told, this marketing ploy is not really the greatest argument for why GameStop isn’t stingy. And it doesn’t change the fact that GameStop’s upcoming ‘trade-in anything day’ will likely be a huge mess for its employees. If anything, the PR move will set anyone hoping for a trade-in value as good as the expensive Gengar up for disappointment.
