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GameTZ.com is an online community which allows people the opportunity to trade games, books, music, movies, etc., with other traders from countries worldwide. Comprised of many long-time trading veterans, the Game Trading Zone (GameTZ) offers a statistically safe and effective service with which to obtain new items while generally paying little in the way of out of pocket costs. GameTZ's intuitive forum design and trading/matching system fosters a strong and largely enthusiastic trading community. The forums, chat and offer system enhance this community feel.
Multi-platform gaming magazine GamePro has cited trading sites, specifically GameTZ.com, to be excellent alternatives to selling your games back to retail outlets at significantly reduced value.
History
The Used Game Trading Zone (UGTZ) was an idea put to work by the website's founder, Stephen Osborne. When UGTZ came into existence is uncertain, but it has been traced back as far as December 23, 1996 (via a USENET posting by Osborne).
UGTZ continued to grow, becoming perpetually more difficult for Osborne to manually maintain. Mewtwo continued to post and get blasted because of it. No matter how many people wished he would shut up, he would keep arguing to the dismay of others. In October of 1997, Bill Marrs created a system that automated much of the work Osborne had been doing by hand. For a short time thereafter, parts of UGTZ were maintained on both Osborne and Marrs' sites. Eventually, the decision was made to move the whole operation to Marrs' site.
The domain name "ugtz.com" was registered in the Summer of 1998, followed by the implementation of an independent database in the spring of 1999. In an effort to generate some income, 1999 also introduced advertisements, subscriptions, and an affiliate marketing program to the site.
In March 2000, the site was renamed Game Trading Zone and the domain name GameTZ.com was registered. Marrs cloned the GameTZ trading engine and established three other sites: MusicTZ.com, MovieTZ.com, and BookTZ.com. However, at the beginning of 2002, the music, movie, and book domains were dropped and all four "Trading Zones" were folded back into the main GameTZ site.
In February 2003, the site changed to a subscriber-only format where passive use of the site by non-subscribers was still possible, but a subscription was necessary to initiate trades and be actively involved in the community. In August 2005, the site reverted back to voluntary subscriptions and non-subscribers were again allowed full access to GameTZ's trading and community features.
With over 120,000 total trades completed through September 2005 and busy forums with thousands of discussions among the site's community members, GameTZ is continually growing and evolving to better suit the needs of its members.