Economical Gaming - Is It Possible?

These days, with $60 games and the price of gas pushing (or possibly exceeding?) $4.00 per gallon, its a bit difficult to drop the cash point blank when a game comes out. The other day, a friend of mine expressed the same thing to me, lamenting that he hasn't bought a game in quite a while, not necessarily because of the prices themselves, but because he has to start budgeting more because everything - not just the price of a game disc - has gone up.

To that end, I got to thinking about ways to help out the average gamer who might be facing similar issues. The problem, at least the way I see it, is that its a good chunk of cash vacating your bank account at one time if you go out and buy a game on the spur of the moment. How can you alleviate the shock of that purchase? What can you do to budget your gaming funds? Are there good games out there that won't break the bank?

1) Pre-order religiously. Just because the game you're interested in isn't expected to be scarce on store shelves come release day, doesn't mean you shouldn't pre-order from your local gaming establishment. Take this example: It was just announced that Too Human will be released on August 19 of this year. You want that game so bad. You're dreading dropping $60 on it on release day, but you really want the game. If you pre-order, most game stores will require a $5 "down payment". For kicks and giggles, drop another $5 on it the day you pre-order. Now, pay $10-15 on it every month until August 19. By time the game is shipped, you'll owe at most $20. From where I'm sitting, its a lot better to drop $20 in one day on a game than $60, no? Sure, you still payed full price for it, but it didn't seem as bad, because you spread it out over four months. That's the point.

2) Use gift cards to give yourself gifts. Gift cards aren't just available during Christmas season and they can be used for more than giving your favorite gamer friend a little help purchasing that PS3 every now and then. You can indeed use them to help yourself! Here's what you do - every time you have a few extra bucks, go to your favorite game retailer and use it to buy a gift card. Most stores these days will present you with a refillable card and you can avoid shooting the environment in the head buy stocking up on multiple gift cards. This is especially helpful when there's a stretch of time when you don't plan to purchase any games.

Ten bucks here, twenty there, skip Starbucks one morning and throw that $5 toward your gaming addiction. It won't really take long to get yourself some cash to spend on games. The same principle applies here as it does for the first point above - you're still paying full price for a game, controller or system, but it will be spread out over a period of time, so its not as noticeable and it won't seem like you've just dropped that amount on your hobby. When something comes along that you want, you have the credit already on your gift card and you can go out and buy it on release day. (Note that #1 works well with #2, also.)

3) Good games, great prices. Every console has them, those "must have" games. Perhaps some of them are a bit older now, perhaps not. Take the PS2 for example, I would hazard a guess that the majority of awesome games on that system can be found for $30 or less - either new or used. Persona 3, Final Fantasy XII, God of War II along with a plethora of other greatest hits titles can be found for budget prices and will keep your button-mashing fingers employed.

4) I know its a foreign concept to some people, but share your games with a friend. Got a couple PS3 games you want, but don't want to drop $120+ on both of them? See if a gamer friend of yours will go in for half. Once the purchase is made, each of you take a game, play it, then trade off. Share individual games, share collections, share systems. You have a DS, your friend has a PSP...you want to play Crisis Core and she wants to play The World Ends with You. Trade for a week or two and see how it goes. It'll keep you both occupied without spending cash for new games for your respective handhelds.

The bottom line is, there are many ways to budget your hard-earned Benjamins or spend them less often, and still get enjoyment out of this great hobby. Hopefully these four points of interest will spark ideas in all you gamers out there on how to keep up with the games you want to play.