GAMESWITCH, an innovative New Zealand website that allows gamers to trade their unused games for other titles, is about to expand into Australia. Encouraged by the service's success in the local community, GameSwitch director Aaron McDonald believes it can only do better in a larger community such as Australia's. The inspiration behind the service came quite by chance. A gamer himself, McDonald realised that there was a market for a service that facilitated game trading on behalf of strangers after posting games on Trade Me once he grew tired of them. “Every time I chucked them on Trade Me, people asked in the comments section if I would trade it for something else.” Of course, games can often be traded at retail outlets for a small sum, with the traded copies resold at highly infl ated prices. McDonald feels the service that GameSwitch provides is much fairer to the consumer. Essentially, after registering at www. gameswitch.co.nz, users list games in their possession that they're willing to trade and also list games they wish to acquire. They'll receive credits for a game requested by someone else, which can then be used towards any games that they desire. Different games net a different amount of credits based on a number of factors, including the game's profi le, age and current recommended retail price (RRP). Since launching in September, GameSwitch has over 600 registered users in New Zealand. “The people that are using it are using it a lot,” says McDonald. “Now I think we have a product that's pretty sharp, actually.” The Australian GameSwitch site is set to go live on August 9th. Those interested in checking out the New Zealand service should head along to www.gameswitch.co.nz