Selling Your Old PS2 Games? Here's What Happens After You Ship Them

Every week I get the same question in some form: "Are my old PS2 games even worth selling?" This week I'm going to answer it with photos instead of a sales pitch, because this week was a big one. Nearly 3,500 games came through our door in seven days, and a big chunk of that pile was PlayStation 2.

That is not unusual anymore. The PS2 sold more than 155 million consoles, most of the people who owned one are now in their thirties and forties, and a lot of those games are still sitting in closets, garages, and the bottom drawer of an entertainment center. People are cleaning house, and they are finding out that the stack they almost donated is worth real money.

So here is what a week of PS2 sell orders actually looks like, and what we do with every single disc after it arrives.

What people sent us this week

Ten full bins of PS2 games this week. The photo at the top is two of them. Pull a few out and the spines read like a 2004 Blockbuster wall: Kingdom Hearts II, God of War, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Burnout 3: Takedown, Jak 3, Ratchet & Clank, both LEGO Star Wars games, a whole run of Star Wars: Battlefront I and II, Guitar Hero II and World Tour, Enter the Matrix, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Madden 06, Sonic Mega Collection Plus, Namco Museum 50th Anniversary, and more sports and wrestling games than I could count.

Mixed in with the big names were the ones that make sellers do a double take when the quote comes back. Look at the bottom of that stack: Def Jam: Fight for NY. As I write this, a boxed copy is paying over $130 on our site (check today's price). It was a $20 game in 2004, part wrestling, part street brawler, with a hip-hop roster you could not get anywhere else. It never got re-released, and it is one of the most-requested PS2 titles we buy. Same story, smaller numbers, for Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II, Grandia III, Shining Tears, Summoner 2, The Warriors, and The Simpsons: Hit & Run. None of those were blockbusters, and all of them tend to pay better than the games that were. That is the thing about PS2 collections: the value is almost never where people expect it. The copy of Madden everyone bought is worth about what you'd guess. The RPG you finished once and shelved is the one to look up.

Most of what arrived was boxed, with the original case and artwork. Some had a rental sticker or a $2.99 pre-owned tag still on the spine from twenty years ago. Plenty were loose discs in a binder. We buy all three.

What actually happens to your games after you ship them

This is the part almost nobody talks about, and it is the part I think matters most if you are deciding who to sell to.

1. Intake. Your box gets scanned in against your order the day it arrives. Every game gets matched to what you told us you were sending, title by title.

2. Discs that will not load get resurfaced, if you said yes. PS2 games are DVDs, and DVDs from 2004 have been through a lot. Light and moderate scratches on the underside of a disc do not cost you anything on a PS2 quote, because they are repairable. When you place your sell order we ask one question: if a game does not boot, may we try to refurbish it? Say yes, and any disc that fails to load goes to the resurfacing bench instead of the return pile. If it works afterward, we buy it at your quoted price. If it still does not, we tell you and you choose return or disposal, same as always. Say no, and we skip the repair and just tell you which games did not work.

A little about how that works, because people ask. We run more than ten ELM USA disc resurfacing machines and two separate repair benches just for game discs. The photo above is four of them. They are the same commercial ECO Smart units that libraries and rental chains used, and they run around $5,000 apiece new. Each one takes a single disc and wet-sands it: the disc spins against a set of progressively finer pads under a stream of liquid, so there is no heat and nothing melts, and a microprocessor times each stage and pops the door when it is done. A basic clean takes under a minute; most real repairs take under three. Deeper scratches get a longer, deeper pass.

The reason it works is where the data lives. On a DVD the data layer sits in the middle of the disc, about 0.6 millimeters below the shiny read side, so a scratch you can see is only in the clear plastic above it. Resurfacing takes off a very thin layer of that plastic evenly and polishes it back to optically clear, and the laser can read through again. It only ever touches the underside. What no machine can fix, on any disc, is damage to the printed top side: a scratch through the label, a pit, a dent, disc rot, or a foil layer that is starting to separate. That side is not a cushion of clear plastic, it is the game itself. That is why a sticker or marker on the label costs 50% on our condition page, and a scratched-through label is a "won't buy."

3. Every game gets tested. Every one. Not a sample. Not "it looks fine." Each tester has a station with four PS2 consoles on one screen, so one person can be booting, loading, and playing four games at a time. A game has to reach its title screen, load, and play before it goes on our shelf. If it does not, it is paid at $0 or sent back to you, and you see that on your order page before anything is final.

That photo is a normal afternoon: Prince of Persia on one quadrant, Kingdom Hearts II on two, a racing game on the fourth, four controllers lined up, three Greatest Hits cases waiting for their turn. Multiply that by the number of stations and the number of days, and that is how nearly 3,500 games get checked in a week.

4. You get paid. Inspection happens within one to two business days of your box arriving. Once it is done, you are paid within two business days by PayPal, eCheck, or a mailed check. If anything came up during inspection, you see it itemized on your order page before anything is final, and you can accept the adjusted offer or ask for the item back.

Which PS2 games are worth money right now?

I get asked for a list, and I always give the same honest answer: prices move, so look up your exact titles instead of trusting a blog post from six months ago. Our search shows a live cash offer for every PlayStation 2 title in every condition, and it updates as the market does. If you want the long view, our most valuable games guide covers the PS2 titles that have held up for years.

What I can tell you from this week's pile is the pattern. RPGs hold their value: Grandia III, Shining Tears, Summoner 2, and the bigger names like Kingdom Hearts II and Final Fantasy X and XII. Licensed games that never got re-released keep climbing: Def Jam: Fight for NY (that $130-plus boxed copy above), The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the Spider-Man games. Rhythm games with a following, like DDR, still sell. And the yearly sports titles, the movie tie-ins, and the ten-million-seller action games are exactly what you would expect: worth something, not worth a lot, and they add up fast in a stack of fifty.

Condition matters, but less than people fear. Loose means just the disc. Boxed means the original case and cover art; the manual is a plus, not a requirement. New means still sealed. Scratches on the underside of a PS2 disc do not lower the offer. A sticker or marker on the label side does. A disc that will not play is the one thing we cannot pay for. The full breakdown is on our Condition Guidelines page, and it is short.

How to sell your PS2 games to us

Three steps, and you never leave the house.

Get a quote. Search each title on the site, or, if you have a whole shelf, take one photo of the spines and let PriceBot read them. It prices an entire shelf in seconds instead of the hour it takes to type titles in, and it is accurate as long as the photo is sharp and follows the guidelines on the PriceBot page. You pick the condition and see the offer before you decide anything.

Ship free. On orders of $50 or more from the lower 48 states, we send you a prepaid shipping label with $100 of insurance included. Pack the games, tape the label and your box slip on top, and hand it to the carrier. Here is how we recommend packing them.

Get paid. Inspection within one to two business days, payment within two business days after that. PayPal, eCheck, or a mailed check, your choice.

That is the whole process. The How It Works page has every detail, including what happens if we find something during inspection.

Questions I hear every week

Do you buy loose PS2 discs with no case?
Yes. Loose is one of the three conditions we quote. A disc in a binder or a sleeve is fine, as long as it plays.

My discs are scratched. Is it still worth sending them?
Almost always. Light and moderate underside scratches do not lower your offer, and if a disc will not load, tick "yes, refurbish it" when you place your order and we will resurface it before deciding anything. Damage to the printed top side is the one thing we cannot repair, and we would rather you tell us about it up front.

Do you buy the whole collection or just the good ones?
The whole collection. Every title you list gets its own offer, and common titles add up fast in a stack. If you would rather not list a few hundred games by hand, a clear photo of the spines and PriceBot does it in seconds.

How big a collection will you take?
As big as you have. This week's 3,500 games came from a lot of different sellers, and some of those boxes were a hundred-plus games each. Big collections can also go through our bulk collection route, where you send photos and we come back with one offer for the lot.

Do you buy PS2 consoles and controllers too?
Yes, working consoles and accessories. Each one has a short checklist on its card when you add it, so you know the offer before you ship.

How fast do I actually get paid?
Your box is inspected within one to two business days of arriving, and you are paid within two business days after inspection. PayPal usually lands the same day it is sent.

Where can I sell PS2 games for cash without leaving the house?
Right here. Get the quote online, print the free label, and hand the box to the carrier. If you are weighing that against a trade-in counter, we wrote up the differences between trading in at a store and selling online, including what each one actually pays.

If you have a stack of PS2 games and you have been meaning to do something with it, this is your sign. Look up three of them. I think you will be surprised by at least one.