Gaming Signal: Cheap Gaming

Cheap Gaming

Over at TwitchGuru, Rob Wright has started a series of articles about the cost of gaming these days and has the first entry titled "How to Lower the Cost of Playing Games" up. This seems to be a good thing to discuss given the plethora of games and gaming consoles available today, and that on average many new games cost in the $50 range for both PC and console. Mr. Wright states that he will not buy used games due to the small discount that is offered for those titles, but chose to try out GameFly as a mechanism to help reduce the outlay of gaming cash for console games. His article then continues on about how he managed to reduce his GameFly dues by watching ads online (which is an interesting way to reduce the cost of his subscription but I just don't see it working for me.) Now I will say that he uses GameFly as a mechanism to play games that are hard to find for some reason or another and it also allows him to earmark good games for eventual purchase, but his cost saving scheme via this route seems flawed at best.

From my point of view, cheap (or inexpensive) gaming is accomplished by a couple of really good rules and the judicious use of some web resources. I will discuss some of my rules which would work if I followed them, and then include the web links at the end.

The first rule is to avoid buying any title when it is first released. This is due to the simple fact that the game tends to be most expensive at this point. It is also the point at which the publisher realizes they will recoup the costs for the game. Now, this rule is probably the most flexible since I know many games see big sales during that initial launch, and in that case I suggest only purchasing new release titles when they are on sale.

Second, buy used games. Yes, I know that there are risks associated with that, but you want games for less money then go buy used. EB/Gamestop and GameFly both offer the ability to buy used titles and offer some assurances that your purchase will work as good as a brand new one. Furthermore, buying used from GameFly will guarantee you a case and a manual which takes a bit more work when buying from EB/Gamestop. This route is also served by the famous buy 2 get 1 free sales that are seen throughout the year. If you don't like either of those routes, look to Ebay since many use that as a mechanism to recycle their games. Any route you take will save you some amount of money off the original retail price.

Third, wait!!! Now this rule works very well with rules one and two by simply waiting some time until the publisher announces a price drop or maybe until there is an expansion. Many times the original and the expansion will be packaged together at a lower overall price which enables more gaming for less money. This combined with those big sale seasons (Black Friday and others) and you can save a pretty large amount of cash on games. This also allows you to play some older titles that were missed when they first came out (Beyond Good and Evil, Psychonauts for example), and can often be a blessing to those of us more at the back end of the technology curve and our gaming equipment.

Finally, borrow Alright this is probably a pretty weak rule since this rules out options for multiplay and MMOs, but for some titles the single player experience is the thing you are after. Furthermore, you may not be the only gamer around and chances are your friends my have titles you don't - in that case share what you have and convince your friends to do the same. This way you can reduce the number of titles you purchase, but still get access to the games through your little game sharing network. Now I am sure there are all sorts of legal/ethical issues but you should not think of it as piracy but as loaning a book to a friend.

So with those a set of guidelines, folks can enjoy a healthy amount of gaming, and many of these are assisted through the use of a couple really great websites. Cheap Ass Gamer is probably the best site out there for tracking game deals. You must register to gain access to the forums and the only rules are to support the rest of the CAG community. This site has grown significantly even in the last year and is always a great repository for information about deals and all things related to game prices. Another good site is Cheap Xbox-360 Deals which focuses more on the MS console, but is still a good site to catch some great deals out there.

OK I'm an 'instant gratification' kind of consumer, so I have a hard time with waiting for sales or for games to end up in the bargain bin. I'm also an enthusiast, which means I know about games well in advance. Coupled together, that means I end up buying games right when they release and paying full price. It doesn't bother me that much, except when I end up buying one that I end up disliking (such as Call of Duty).

But I signed up for Gamefly for one main reason - I don't really want to own games when I'm done playing them. After I finish a game, I rarely want to play them again, so it works out great for me to send them back. I'm also using it for mostly PS2 titles (a console I just purchased) and this allows me to try out the best of the console without risk. For example, I recently rented the critically acclaimed Resident Evil 4 and found out that it just wasn't my style of game. That's too bad because I wanted to learn what everybody thought was so great about it - unfortunately I couldn't get out of the 2nd level. L2P n00b! But at least I'm not out $60 for it either.

Posted by Scott on Saturday January 13, 2007 at 7:39 AM