

Show HN: Free video game trading, a year after I launched it - mathgeek
http://www.vgfive.com

======
mathgeek
This was the first "successful" site that I launched. Took me about a month to
develop originally, and launched it last year on Black Friday. Subsequently
sold the business to a competitor and still operate it for them as a side job.
Have put quite a bit of time into it over the past year and just had a
relaunch with a new backend system.

Basically direct user-to-user trading via the postal service. You sell your
games for virtual currency that you use to buy games from other folks. We used
to charge for it, but now it's free with a limited ability to get cash for
your currency if you can't find anything to buy.

Running on Heroku, RoR, Bootstrap (as if it isn't obvious), with plenty of
other open source tech behind it.

Any questions, feel free to ask.

~~~
hkarthik
This is awesome and I plan to use it in the future.

I'm curious how you deal with possible fraud or how you insulate yourself?

From an infrastructure perspective, how long did it take you to break even on
your costs with Heroku? What kind of configuration did you start with to keep
the site's availability under control? Feel free to provide as much or as
little detail as you would like. Thanks!

~~~
mathgeek
Fraud really hasn't been an issue, at least as far as we've been alerted to
it. We hold the credits until the buyer confirms receipt and that the game
works, so anyone sending out fake games would need to make them pretty
convincing. There's only been one person that I'm aware of doing that, and
that was discovered pretty quickly thanks to the buyers alerting me of the
situation.

Heroku's been one of the main reasons I was able to launch the site and
iterate new features so quickly. 99% of the time the site runs on a single web
dyno using unicorn to serve more than one request at a time, plus one worker
for sending emails, popping up site notifications (using Gritter for that),
etc. It's been that way since launch.

~~~
CodeMage
_Fraud really hasn 't been an issue, at least as far as we've been alerted to
it. We hold the credits until the buyer confirms receipt and that the game
works, so anyone sending out fake games would need to make them pretty
convincing._

So what happens if Alice sends Bob a legit game, but Bob claims it's a fake?
Didn't Bob just get a game for free?

~~~
mathgeek
In that case Bob is required to send the game to us for verification. Nothing
change hands until that is resolved. Bob gets credits to cover the shipping
costs to send the game to us, if it's a legitimate claim.

~~~
jamais
What if Bob sends a different game to you?

~~~
mathgeek
Same result. In the end we guarantee you if you provide images of the game
pre-shipment, and a tracking number in case it never arrives. If your account
becomes a repeat offender (whether as buyer or seller), then you risk getting
banned from the site.

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shijie
I love the concept. However, I don't necessarily love the layout or the flow
of the whole interface. The overarching goal of the whole app is trading
games. However, I'm multiple clicks into the app before I can get to a search
bar. The "list of available games" on the front page looks impressive, but it
does little good for a user looking for a specific game, which, I would wager,
is > 80% of your use case.

I'd love to see a search bar on the home page, maybe even a "google instant"
style mechanism that shows me whether or not you have what I'm looking for at
the moment, and allows me to rapidly re-query for other titles. I'd wager it
might even moderately boost your conversion.

Anyway, love the concept and how it all works. Keep up the good work.

~~~
mathgeek
Thanks for the comments. The search bar is definitely something I'm looking in
to. Something along the lines of a recommendations dropdown as you search,
with a "X copies available" note, sounds like an awesome idea. Much
appreciated!

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kerpal
This is exactly like 99 Gamers, which is also free. It was started about a
year ago too, according to the original launch post on reddit. I recently
started using it to get rid of Xbox games collecting dust. The experience has
been painless and is an excellent way to try out other games.

Interesting to see there are other video game trading websites out there.

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makerops
I am not a video game player, but this seems like such an obvious site (and
awesome), are there a lot of competitors? I see ads for video game stores, and
how they screw you on trade-ins, which this seems to fix.

~~~
mathgeek
There are two or three major competitors that I'm aware of (other than the
GameStops and Amazons of the world), and a handful of smaller ones. We're
currently, by my estimates, the third largest. The folks who I now run the
site for own the largest (as far as I'm aware), but we're mostly independent
since I still operate it day-to-day.

One of the major points of the site is that you get 100% of the value you sell
the game for. If it's going for $40 used, and you sell it for 4000 credits
(the site's currency, valued at $1/100), you get 4000 credits to spend on
something else.

~~~
jonlucc
First, let me say I love the idea and the site. My question: Why bother with
the credits? Is it a legal workaround for currency? Why not make credits
equivalent to dollars?

~~~
mathgeek
There were already a lot of sites doing the "keep your cash in our system"
model. I was also sure there were some legal issues with a cash system, but in
the end it was mostly about differentiating.

~~~
jonlucc
I only ask because it seems like the only barrier to entry. I know the math is
easy, but it still is math for the user. Are you comfortable sharing numbers
about how many users are repeats? It seems like a very sticky system.

~~~
mathgeek
True. It does take some getting used to. I think it's better now that it's a
simpler $1/100 translation.

Among users who complete at least one trade, the raw average is 15 trades/user
(that just a trades/users calculation). Right now, 91% of users who complete
at least one trade come back to trade again.

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jimhart3000
Been a VGFive user since launch, and while there was a big spate of
Application Error downtime in the early days, the fact that it's still up
right now speaks volumes for your infrastructure improvements!

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hfsktr
I know it's nitpicking but the footer keeps getting pushed away.

I didn't even see the top nav but found the search from there. I know what I'm
doing after work now.

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sharemywin
Do you get a lot of users refering others?

