Subtitle: An Object Lesson On How Supply Can Choke On Demand.

It’s time to talk a little about SaySwap, if for no other reason than not enough others are. Oh, there are a few pieces out there. I’ve found bits of PR action and the occasional write-up about the potential of an online game trading community. I’ve read enough to know that much was expected of this project that spawned indirectly via some assistance from MySpace. But all the same, it seemed like a decent enough idea. I’ve had lots of success this year from a music CD exchange service called Lala, so I was ready to believe in something similar from SaySwap.

But I’m growing more agnostic with each passing day.

Here’s how Lala works. I sign up at lala.com and create a profile. That profile contains some basic information about me, including a photo and some other social networking cliches. Hidden in the profile is my mailing address and a credit card number. I use that profile to maintain two lists: my Haves List and my Want List. My Haves List contains as many CDs from my own personal collection that I wish to catalogue, complete with album art pulled from some other online source (possibly Amazon).

I can mark each item on my Haves List as a CD that I am willing to trade or a CD that I wish to keep. Similarly, I can create a Want List with CDs that I would like to receive from other users. Now, the trades are not direct from user to user. If I have trade-able CDs in my Haves List, then I’ll get a notice on my profile that somebody somewhere wants it. When I’m ready, I select a “Ship It” button. I’m taken to a screen where I’ll enter a code from one of Lala’s provided postage paid envelopes — they come in a free kit when you join alone with an equal number of plastic CD covers. The code reveals the receiver’s mailing address so I can write it on the envelope. All I’ve got to do then is pop the sealed envelope in the post.

The receiving process works in the same way. If someone has a CD I want, they can go through the same shipping procedure. I will get an email saying that said CD is on the way. When I receive it, I log in and report on the condition, saying whether or not it had the promised liner notes or even if the CD was playable. And billing is handled on a received item basis. For each incoming CD, I’m charged $1.45.

I’ve gotten about ten or eleven CDs this way. Admittedly, the more obscure the CD, the less immediate will be the receipt of that CD. But even still, I had a replacement copy of a lost Miles Davis CD winging its way to me within hours of signing up. Others have come at regular, every other week intervals. And I’m maintaining a steady amount of users that want selections from my own Have List.

Here’s how SaySwap is supposed to work. I sign up at SaySwap.com and create a profile. That profile contains some very basic information about me, including a photo and some other social networking cliches like friend’s lists. I can also create game reviews and a list of favorite games. Hidden in the profile is my mailing address and a credit card number. I use that profile to maintain two lists: my Haves List and my Want List. My Haves List contains as many console games (not PC games) from my own personal collection that I wish to catalogue, complete with box art pulled from some other online source.

I can mark each item on my Haves List as a game that I am willing to trade or a game that I wish to keep. Similarly, I can create a Want List with games that I would like to receive from other users. If I’m not ready to receive a given game, I can put it on hold. Now, the trades do not have to be direct from user to user. If I have trade-able games in my Haves List, then I’ll get a notice on my profile that somebody somewhere wants it. When I’m ready, I select a “Ship It” button. I’m taken to a screen where I commit to sending out the game (with instructions) within the next two days. Agreeing to the commitment gives me a page with the recipient’s mailing address and a printable, three-page envelope. It takes a little origami-fu to make it work, but with patience and cello-tape, the end result is a decent envelope. All I’ve got to do then is pop the sealed envelope in the post.

The receiving process is much more difficult. Before I can receive any games, I need purchase points and trading tokens. When I sign-up, I get 30 purchase points. Trading tokens cost $4.95 a piece and your first one is offered at a 50% discount. Each game is given a points value at 10, 20 and 30 points. New games are 30. Older are 10. If I want New Super Mario Bros for the DS, then I need to have 30 purchase points. I can get more purchase points by sending out games to other users on the system, again on a pre-determined scale based on age or popularity. I sent out Fight Night Round 2 the other day, so I’ve got 20 more points in my profile to spend. But before I can get a game of my own, I’m going to need one trading token as well, one for each game I want to receive. I bought two trading tokens on the day I signed up for a total of about 7 bucks and change.

There is a direct trading feature in SaySwap. Each game listed on a user’s profile shows its availability as locked or unlocked. Underneath the game title is a link to “Request Direct Trade” with the user. It is unclear from the online help whether or not this action means that the requestor must have a game in his own list desired by the requestee, but such a condition doesn’t seem to be required. Apparently, this just causes a trade request to appear on the requestee’s profile, leaving the decision to send up to them entirely. Oddly, when a request is denied, the alert returned to the requestor states that the requestee has declined to receive the desired game from them. A bug, surely.

Right now, I’ve five games on my Wants List. I can see that there is at least one person on the system with free-to-trade listings of each game I want. While I don’t have enough purchase points to cover all five games, I do have enough to cover two of them. For those two, I have two trading tokens to match. By all rights, I should be clear to receive a couple of games.

But I’m not. So why am I not receiving any games?

I’ve sent emails to SaySwap’s support. The responses say little more than what I’ve relayed here. Basically, if a user has the points and has the tokens, then trades should commence.

I’ve an theory about why this system just isn’t working.

It comes down to supply and demand. Let’s say you have 50 people wanting Game X and only 10 people giving Game X. If all of the 50 wanters pony up, buy their trading tokens and have enough purchase points for Game X, then perhaps 10 of those wanters will actually receive Game X. But you’ve still go 40 wanters going without. And unlike CD swapping, where the depth of inventory is immense and tastes are diverse, the hot games for a given console are going to be a limited commodity. Beyond that, released console games that are still popular and available number into the hundreds, whereas CDs are in the hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, CDs are CDs, playable on any CD player. Games are categorized into consoles, making each console a silo of unbalanced trading activity unto itself. Older games might be traded more freely, but for traders interested in offerings for the Xbox360, the Wii, and even the somewhat older Nintendo DS, most of those consoles’ games are in very high demand, and rightfully so.

And if that weren’t enough, on top of all this, most of the SaySwap customer base is likely under the age of 18. Their going to want far more than they share, and even if they do share, they won’t be nearly so diligent in actually putting their games in the post. They’re kids, after all. Other stuff to do. Like homework, optimistically. Or realistically, playing other games.

I hate to say it, but the system is basically flawed. In order to make it work, the founders would have to have available capital to distribute into the system. They’d need the more popular games on hand to convince early adopters that the system works. Like seed money.

I’d like to see SaySwap succeed. The used game market is too overpriced as it is, so there is a obvious need for a trading community just like this one. One that works as smoothly as Lala or even Netflix. Perhaps an alternative found this afternoon, called SwitchDiscs, is a viable solution. But from where I sit, less and less patiently waiting, the future for most new users of SaySwap is just more and more days of cobwebbed mailboxes.