I've been quiet about my experiences (trials?) with video game trading services lately, mainly out of disappointment.  When I wrote about them back in September, I gave the nod to Gamershare over Goozex -- due in part to the Crazy Name Penalty assessed against Goozex.  Bad move; apparently crazy names are the new black.  Since then, I've amassed a sizable number of Gamershare points (30 at last count) and managed to use them for... absolutely nothing.  That's zero trades in six months.  Why?  Because there's zero Xbox 360 inventory on the site.  While there are maybe 10-15 360 games that display as "available," they're effectively dead entries.  The jerks who listed them never respond to trade requests, so the games cycle on and off the available list every few weeks.  I even tried browsing for games from other platforms, hoping to at least recover my investment and broker the games elsewhere.  No luck -- apparently all platforms are equally SOL.
I contacted Gamershare in February to ask if they planned on doing anything about the situation, and I did receive a reply ("we'll be rolling out new features in March, we may consider injecting games into the system").  The date was far enough away that I interpreted it as "never" and gave up.  I resigned myself to losing the points I had on Gamershare and going with someone else.
Someone else... ah yes, Goozex -- the guys with the crazy name.  Apparently I misunderestimated their emphasis on community-building, because they seem to have a pretty good thing going on now.  I've kept an eye on their inventory, and it seems to be significantly higher than I've ever seen on Gamershare.  Why?  No one knows for sure, but I'm starting to wonder if Gamershare's free game offer backfired on them by attracting less committed customers who were just in it for the free game (thus draining games from the more committed customers without replacement).  The real proof that the tide had shifted came when I actually requested a trade through Goozex -- I received the game in less than a week.
Gamershare may be  down, but they're by no means out.  This morning I received an email from the site advertising "Important Changes on Gamershare."  Apparently they were acquired by GottaPlay, so they'll be offering both open-ended rentals (think Netflix) and trades.  Trade prices have been jacked up from $1 to $3, but the price now includes a prepaid postage label with tracking.  As cheap as I am, that still sounds like the way to go if it cuts down on "lost" trades.

For now, it looks like I'm back where I started.  I plan on using my current Gamershare points as quickly as possible, then making a decision on whether to stay or jump ship.  So far Goozex looks like a much stronger community (and therefore a stronger company), but Gamershare could still pull off an upset.  Stay tuned.

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