Went to my local Gamestop in San Jose today. The guy told me that he recieved an email today from the corporate level and they said the deal is dead. He gave me some bull like they did not get enough of the games that they were trading for the deal, and so they would lose too much money with all of the pre-orders and etc., etc., blah, blah. So because when I went in on Saturday to pick up Sims, and pre-order Getaway, he said, "just wait until you pick up Getaway to do the trade deal" So I did not get Getaway, even though I pre-ordered it on Saturday.

Customers did exactly what was in the terms of the promotions. How are the customers bad for using the promotion under legitimate terms?

Customers did everything fine, I never had anyone come in and buy crappy games and then try to trade them in right away. But corporate decided to stop it, because frankly, we were not making any freaking money with this deal. BTW I took advantage of it as well when it was still running, trading in Jak and Daxter, Amped, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Tony Hawk 3 for 40 each on The Getaway and DMC2. So if you got in it then congrats, if you didn't then tough beans, and watch for more deals like this in the future.

As always the intent of this deal was to make some more of that green stuff that makes the world go round, and we were giving away more in trade in values then we were selling the games for that got traded in. Its not good business to just give away free money.

So why is it some stores let you trade in for pre-orders and others wouldn't? This is the stuff that drives me nuts about game stores..

Most likely different district and store managers interpreted the deal differently. I must admit we were all a little stumped when we got the email and saw what a good deal it was.

When I picked up my DOAX today I was also told about some corporate e-mail. I wasn't told that the deal was over but the guy said it was way more poular than they thought it would be and they lost a ton of cash.

Gee....I never would of thought.

I don't feel bad after all. I did three completely legit trade-ins for DMC 2, Ghost Recon, and The Getaway. I only bought used games for Resident Evil 2 and 3, because I refuse to pay $80+tax on those old ports.
Also, don't even think it's people like me(and others in this thread) that brought this whole thing down - if you will notice, plenty of people traded in copies of cheap games such as Frequency, State of Emergency, Oni, etc. Everyone caused this, not just the "evil" used game swappers. Not like I'm going to take in two $20+ games for this deal, as I'd be losing out. Already lose enough on trade-in values as it is......
BTW - a few days before I did the used game swap, there were LOTS of $7.99-$9.99 used games at Babbage's, GameStop, and EB. When I went and did it, I bought the last three cheap games at GameStop. Babbage's and EB had none left. It was amazing seeing every single copy of State of Emergency and Oni out of the stores.....

The guy at the store by my house confirmed the deal is over. I did end up picking up both the Sims, and the Getaway for trading in Red Faction, Silent Hill 2, BG: Dark Alliance, and DMC.

So I was happy with that.

He also said that there will be more deals like this in the future.

Did you charge yourself the tax on the full amount of the game or the $9.99? No one seems to know what should be done. Looks like I'm just outta luck.

A store rep told me that they fired the guy at corporate that put together this deal. I tried not to roll my eyes too much.

I am sure their corporate office worked out some sort of special pricing deal with the game manufacturers. Otherwise they would have offered this deal for a lot of other games. If they did anything wrong it was not excluding a few big selling bombs like State of Emergency.

They told me at the store tonight that people were buying $4.99 used games and returning them and that is why they stopped it.

They also told me that the person on Sunday who told me I could not pre-order DOA VB with the trade in deal using the games I had in my hand at the time, was actually the store manager. But I couldn't do the deal today because they were not allowing it anymore.

Sorry, but this stuff is crazy - shouldn't it be easy enough to allow common sense on these deals? Let the manager/employee say NO when someone tries to buy and return a used game in the same day - so that people that are not trying to use the system do not get screwed? I think I'm going to go back to ordering online and shopping at Toys R' Us, it's easier than dealing with this stuff. (I should probably buy less games also, huh? <G>).

You only get taxed on the 9.99, since the 40 is gamebucks aka trade in credit.

Not in California apparently. Must be nice to be charged the right amount wherever you are! The manager called like 3 local stores and they're all charging tax on the full price. So I overpaid like $6-7. :(

Still a great deal though.

dunno, maybe something is different in california or something, im in WA. Like DVD Lamer said, its still a great deal.

Honestly, the reason the deal ended was MASSIVE EMPLOYEE FRAUD! The bastards! I had to trade in real games to get my DOAX. :( I can't say that I blame them though, I was going to trade in 2 copies of X Squad. The guy at EB said "You know you're buying two copied of X Squad, right?" Had to return it 10 minutes later. I am on vacation and didn't know the deal was over til I went to my store.

I got screwed from getting the deal X(. When I went to do the trade in, the manager told me I had to do it when the game was released, they day DOA was there, deal was over. Pissed me off because all other stores were accepting the trade ins before the release dates.

I dont understand gamestop though, they run a deal like that and then expect people to trade in valuable games, like anybody is going to look at their games and say "hmm, I have Halo, Oni, Splinter Cell and State of Emergency, I think I will trade in Halo and Splinter Cell."

These stores are so damn inconsistent it's pathetic.

I went to Gamestop Tuesday night with 2 games to trade for the Sims, and the employee said they weren't doing the deal. He said there was a trade 3 non exclusion games and get an extra $10 deal, and that was it (besides the 2 games and $10 deal going on for The Getaway and a couple other games on the signs).

So I go back yesterday with three games, and the guy says, you can just trade these two and get The Sims for $9.99. He was even talking on the phone to another employee at the time, because he was asking how to ring it up. I don't know what the hell the deal was with this. Get told no deal 2 days ago, and then get it no problem after the deal is supposed to be over (according to this thread).

To spite them for giving me the runaround, I took the third game down to EB and traded it in to pre-order Zelda. :D

They just told me that the games have to have a value of atleast $10 in order for me to trade them in on the deal.

It's ridiculous how every store gives each person a different story. And the website says they are not affiliated with the stores and you would need to contact the district/regional manager to give feedback on anything store related.

That's another inconsistency

One of the crap games I traded in (Devil May Cry) only came up for $7.