G2G is one of the biggest marketplaces when it comes to in-game trading. Although it is the go-to marketplace, users are constantly looking for alternatives for various reasons, it could be better pricing opportunities, smoother user experience, lack of offers, trust issues, past issues with G2G… Plenty of other reasons why the user could switch, all you want is a smooth experience, right? And every bump on the road can cause trouble. G2G is great but every platform has its pros and cons and G2G is no different. Let’s take a look at other platforms where it is popular to trade items, accounts, currency and other in-game goods and answer: are there actually better alternatives?
Eldorado
It’s us! A rival to G2G… Of course we don’t want to throw any shade to G2G or just simply pat our own back but we exist! Eldorado team thrives to make in-game trading easy and seamless by providing a platform for users to do so. The key areas where Eldorado stands out is clean and modern UI/UX design, letting you easily find what you are looking for and make the purchase with a few clicks. Eldorado entered the trading community with a purpose – to make in-game trading to real money safe, not complicated and affordable. Eldorado.gg is an alternative to G2G with robust interface, competitive prices, public seller ratings, seller verifications. Give Eldorado a shot and we know what you think about it on TrustPilot profile.
Key notes:
- Competitive prices
- Seller ratings and reviews are public
- Sellers require to provide ID for verification
- Easy checkout process
- 24/7 Support
- Variety of stock for different games and categories
Forums
Probably one of the first platforms where RMT was born outside of the in-game chats. There is no one forum, it could be a forum of your favorite game, Steam discussions, general game forums.. Any forum that has gaming is qualified to spark a topic about in-game trading to real money. Is it actually a legit alternative to dedicated platforms? Not really, mainly because you’re going into it without any guards, you can easily get scammed without any refunds where your only trust is other people’s comments about the seller. Is it an option? Yes. Is it a cheaper option too? Perhaps yes as well but once again, it is high risk high reward which can nowadays be avoided with choosing a different platform.
Key notes:
- High risk factor
- Questionable source of items
- Lack of seller trustworthiness
- Cheap prices
Facebook Groups
It is like a trading centre for the gaming community, take Runescape’s Grand Exchange’s main spots such as south entrance and herblore guy and convert it to social media and you get gaming groups where users constantly post about buying or selling items. Jokes aside, just as forums, Facebook groups have the same risks, plus it is easier to impersonate somebody because there are less features that help you identify the person, whereas most forums have some sort of badges and statistics which are hard to duplicate. The plus side is that most people use Facebook, so you are working on a familiar platform but once again you are dealing with a lot of unknown where a chance of getting scammed is high, on some groups you can even see posts about someone who got scammed, sharing a profile of a person that you shouldn’t trust. Overall, it is a classic alternative but comes with its own quirks.
Key notes:
- Easy to fake a profile
- Questionable sources of items
- High risk factor
- Lack of seller trustworthiness
- Vague product descriptions
Discord Servers
One of the newest platforms for in-game trading that is rising in trend. On this day you can also find dedicated servers for real money trading for your own game, providing a known environment of Discord and combining it with the classic trading flow where you spot a deal, message such seller or buyer and complete it “on your own”. Saying that, it’s another platform with high risk factor, you don’t know who is who, the members on the Discord server could be fake, yes, they have roles and legit servers try to minimize that risk, but on this day and age there are plenty of fake Discord servers that are made for the purpose to scam people, they look as clean as possible and very moderated which makes it easy to lure people in.
Key notes:
- Unclear if Discord server could be fake or not
- Lack of seller trustworthiness
- Competitive prices
It is basically a forum but since it has such a popularity it is worthy of a paragraph of its own. There are plenty of subreddits that are meant for this exact purpose, you join them and all you see is threads about people buying or selling stuff, you can call it a merge between forums and Facebook groups. Buut again, Reddit is a social media like Facebook but even more anonymous, it is a pretty bootleg experience with the handles off, it is the closest experience of you going to the dark web and buying the first shady thing that you see… Most likely such an approach will not work well for you in terms of receiving what you are purchasing.
Key notes:
- High risk factor
- Hard to verify seller credibility
- Unclear sources of items
eBay
eBay, a platform that fits for everything and real money trading is no exception. Sellers love to list their products on eBay, you can sometimes find eBay results when searching for trading services. On paper this should work, and it works to some extent, it is a friendly enough platform for the seller to create an appealing offer and there is some sort of security from eBay side that helps you get the money back in case you don’t receive what you bought. So compared to the alternatives like forums or Facebook groups, eBay seems better but… like mentioned, eBay is a “one size fits all” website, which means that eBay doesn’t know anything about in-game trading so their support could lack training. eBay also let people sell on their website more freely and you truly don’t know their intent, what if you fall for the meme where you buy a PlayStation 5 but receive only a picture for it?
Key notes:
- No clear protection for buyers
- Expensive prices
- Lack of seller reviews
So… What to Choose?
This depends on what you prioritize the most. Do you only care about the price and your risk tolerance is high? Then places like forums, Discord servers or Reddit could work for you. Do you want a G2G direct alternative with the overall smooth experience with no headache involved? Dedicated websites are the way for you. Eldorado.gg constantly works to provide as seamless experience as possible, from finding that you want to buy to receiving it. Whether it is your favorite’s game currency like OSRS Gold or a stacked Fortnite account, you can get it with a clear price tag and instructions how to receive it, including customer protection where you can raise a dispute in case something goes wrong. That is all to it, there are plenty of alternatives to G2G, choose what fits your ideal approach and start trading right away.
