Around 80% of trade-ins that take place in a GameStop store are re-sold in the same location. Those that arenât, though, are moved on to this enormous factory and processing facility in Texas.
If a game is traded in and the disc is looking a little worse for wear, itâs sent here for cleaning (with the top layers of a disc sometimes literally scraped away) and then testing in âbanks of test consoles stacked upon racksâ. If you trade in a console, itâs sent here to have its hard drive scrubbed not once, not twice, but thrice.
The images you see here are from an IGN report on the facility, which also contains an interesting piece of information: once tested and cleaned, games arenât sent out randomly, or even simply to stores with bigger sales. Theyâre sent out according to âalgorithms based on buying patternsâ, which sees âMore shooting games are sent to stores near military basesâ and âMore hockey games are sent north.â
What Happens to Your Used Games? [IGN]
