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Gaming on the Oh So Cheap- HD Edition

So hands up who has spent large parts of their life unable to buy all the latest games? I know I spent most of the 90′s being either underemployed or just plain out of work. Whether you’re a kid, student, unemployed, have kids are are just gosh darn poor; gaming can be an expensive business. It’s very easy to game for cheap- buy a PS2 and partake in the thousands of games available in bargain bins, thrift stores, Ebay and the like. But here’s a guide to how you can get the costs of playing a Wii, PS3, PC and Or Xbox 360 down whilst keeping up with the Joneses- most of the time. Using this post as a guide won’t get you every game at launch but may at least help.

Pick what you buy/ Buy it when you have time to play it: Of course, the most important thing is to only get games you are likely to enjoy. I know this sounds obvious but it is important. Every time I hear about someone’s gaming backlog you feel like throttling them. A backlog and being cheap does not compute since any games you don’t start straight away may fall in price by the time you get to play them. It’s silly to buy a game for $50, let it sit on a shelf at home for six months while you play other games, and then play your $50 game when it’s on sale at EB for $10. If you are playing a game that you enjoy, finish it before you get the next game. If there’s a demo of a game you’re interested in- play that to see whether it’s going to be your cup of tea. Often you will avoid some bad games. Sometimes a demo will turn you off but the full game is much better. This is where anecdotal evidence comes into play. I only bought Red Faction after hearing so many stories about how much fun it was.

How long are you honestly going to play it for? Why the fuck did I buy Buzz or Singstar, I barely played either. Why did I buy House of the Dead Overkill- I barely played that. Why did I buy Banjo Kazooie: nuts and Bolts despite hating the demo? I’d love to play Beatles Rock Band but the fact I’m going to play it for an hour puts me off. A few years ago, I came up with a metric- 1 hour of play for every $10 it cost to buy. I still sort of live by this- or at least feel more comfortable with a game once I’ve hit the threshold. One year I had GH World Tour bundle, Fallout 3, BK Nuts and Bolts and Prince of Persia and the time I put into Fallout 3 more or less paid for the others (the same year, I had Gears 2, Fable II, LBP, CoD WaW and Mirror’s Edge but they all easily paid for themselves).

The Waiting Game: Simple fact is most games will drop in price within a year of release. Greatest Hits or Platinum games are a given. inFamous came out midway through 2009, made a decent splash on the NPD’s yet was a greatest hit at less than half the price within only a few months on market. Games that don’t perform to expectations, such as Bayonetta (released January, sold OK but not as well as Sega would have liked, seen for around 30% cheaper) or sent to die by the publisher like The Saboteur (similar pricing after 6 months on the market. Games don’t even have to be a flop for publishers to dump. Red Faction Guerrilla was a decent hit last year but they are practically giving it away with Corn Flakes these days. The longer you wait, the more the price will drop though there’s no rule of thumb as to how long you might wait. Of course, some games never drop. The original Halo was full price for several years before it finally dropped, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has only dropped because the sequel is out. Absolute bombs will drop faster than an original Xbox in a pond. Dark Void came out a few months ago and today I read it’s 1/4 of it’s new price at one local discount store. But that’s an ordinary game and you need to avoid those.

If you like sports games, it’s funny how EA pumps one out every year. Madden 2011 will be out soon, meaning Madden 2010 will be cheaper. So online play may be compromised by EA, but if you just want a solo game of NHL 08, I’m sure it wouldn’t be that hard to find. Tiger Woods games may, for some reason, be cheaper at the moment. If for some reason, you wanted to play the Vancouver 2010 game, or the World Cup Soccer game, see how cheap they are a few weeks after the event has finished. Seasonal games have inbuilt obsolescence after a very short window of relevancy. The same with that tie-in game for a Harry Potter Movie or any other big summer blockbuster. I bet you can find GI:Joe quite cheaply.

Who knew Guitar Hero and Rock Band instrument kits would become so cheap this year? Aren’t we all kicking ourselves for buying last year?

Shopping Around/ Choose Your Retailer: I can go buy a game from a variety of retailers. Some will feature a game at full recommended retail no matter what other places are selling for. Well don’t go there to buy games. I can go to others who will advertise lower prices. I go there. In Australia I would often buy from Discount Department Stores (Kmart, Target or Big W) or JB Hi-Fi (hard to describe- sells HiFi, TV, games, movies, music and has a low-rent at most but there are hundreds of stores) and never from premium department stores or rarely from specialist games retailers like Game, Game Traders or EB Games. Mom and pop outfits don’t exist here but since there’s at least one EB or Game in any shopping mall (no matter how small it seems), you’d think they’d use their buying power to offer a lower price? Think again.

Price-Matching. So the place that says they will not be undersold doesn’t actually offer a decent price on a game. But if you can show them proof of a competitor selling it cheaper, you might be in luck. I’ve only successfully done this once (at EB for Fable II) and not-so-successfully for GTA IV so It can be an exercise in futility.

Timing: This is important. Every country has this at different times but there are two times each year when I know when there will be big sale on games, often quite recent ones. Just after Christmas or in June around the end of the Financial Year in Australia. Now that’s different in most countries but they are a great sales magnet since companies want to divest themselves of as much stock as possible. After Christmas is good because it’s often a way to get good games that didn’t do so well at retail quite cheaply. I have a rule- Try not to Buy a Ubisoft game at launch unless it’s a hit. I can’t tell you how many January Sales at EB have depressed me because that Rainbow Six game I bought before Christmas is now half price. Not every game but any- I mean Assassin’s Creed II price has held up, but the 2008 Prince of Persia game price went south faster than a coed on Spring Break (whatever the fuck that means). Stocktake sales, usually near these big Finance milestones can also offer booty, and of course there’s Black Friday in the US.

Steam: So steam is great for a PC gamer since they are practically giving away older games. Psychonauts for $2? Maybe that’s not such a great example but I’m still pleased with getting Batman AA and Just Cause for just over $20 recently. I mean they’ve already done big discounts on Left 4 Dead 2 and had weekends where you could play some of their games for free. Now, Steam, outside of the US, can be a bit hit or miss. A famous story is how when when CoD4 came out on steam, people in Australia could by the Steam version for US$50- with the exchange rate at the time, it was a hell of a lot cheaper than buying instore. Someone realised this and the Steam version shot up to US$88 if your account was an Australian one. Same thing happened with Borderlands and more recently, BC2.

SELL, SELL, SELL: Don’t be a collector hoarder if you can’t afford it. Finished with Bioshock 2? Are you ever ever ever going to replay it? Sell it while it’s still worth something. The secret to selling something is to not say “it cost me $50 so I’m selling it for $50.” Find out how much the cheapest that game is new and then sell it for less than that. Borderlands is now $40? Offer it for $30. Trading in to EB/ Gamestop is sorta worth it if you do it in the first few days of the games release but do it yourself and it will pay for itself.

Import (note: not always applicable to the US): Being from Australia, I’m used the Australian Dollar being fairly low compared to most other currencies. At the moment it’s worth more than ever against other currencies so I’m importing a bit. But even when when we referred to the Kanga-Dollar as the Aussie Peso, importing was a way to save money. Even now, Splinter Cell: Conviction is around AU$88-$98 in stores (cheapest at launch was at Target for $78)but only $55 shipped from Play Asia. And Play Asia’s weekly special can often bring some welcome treats such as Bioshock 2 for US$33. And they give you a $5 coupon with each purchase (the trick is to not use everyone of them). There are others such as Zavvi, 365 games, CDWow (mostly UK versions). I found Play-Asia to often offer Asian Versions, which are still in full English but you might get some Chinese/ Korean characters on the box. My copy of Crackdown has a Manga-style cover- the disc contents are the same as the US version. What I have found funny in the past is getting the Australian versions of games from Play-Asia for much cheaper than buying from shops. The other thing is, not all games sell as well in different territories. Singstar in the US isn’t as ubiquitous as the UK, same with Eye Toy. 360 games won’t sell as well in Europe as the UK so there may be some specials to be had by trying other regions.

There are caveats to importing. First, we’ll assume you’re such a tightwad that you don’t have an imported console. So you need to be sure the game you buy is Region Free, or at least compatible with your machine. So PS3 games are almost all Region Free (the only exception I can think of is Stranglehold Special Edition), all Wii games are region-locked and all DS/PSP games on disc/cart are region free (not necessarily download versions, though).

Most- BUT NOT ALL- Xbox 360 games are region Free. Places like Play-Asia will mention which regions the games will play on. A quick google serach of the name of the game along with the phrase region free will yield the answer- though most of the results pre-release are, er , dodgy. Sites like vgplus.blogspot.com are useful in determining region status- NOTE: THIS APPLIES TO BLU-RAY MOVIES AS WELL (http://bluray.liesinc.net and http://movietyme.blogspot.com/ are good resources though I guess if you’re cheap, you’ll be sticking with DVD and the like).

Lastly- PS3 patches are region free along with the games. BUT THE DLC IS NOT REGION FREE. If you have a US version of game, you need to make a US PSN account to buy the DLC, etc. If you have say, the Asian version of Burnout Paradise, you can’t use a Euro PSN account to buy DLC. Well, you can still buy it, it just won’t show up in the game. YOU FUCKERS SONY!

Research: So sites like (US) http://www.cheapassgamer.com/ and (AU) ecogamer.com can help get you deals as can the flyers, circulars and other assorted Junk Mail you get in your physical mail box. I used to pour over these each week but these days I have a “No FUCKING Junk Mail” sign on the front of the house- which keeps 99% of junk mail away. Of course, most bricks and mortar stores all replicate their catalogues online now anyway and still more sites collate these and rehost them ie cataloguecentral.com.au

Rent: Why buy when you can rent from Netflix or Blockbuster?

Borrow: Here’s where being a social outcast bites you in the bum but if you have a friend who buys all the latest, try borrowing games when they’re done.

DLC: Here’s the biggest way to save money. Don’t buy DLC. It’s rare that DLC is so compelling you must have it. Fallout 3 offered five extra DLC missions and by all accounts, none was worth it. Even better was the fact if you waited a year, you could get the GOTY edition with all of the DLC missions.

ReIssues: Why are you buying Super Street Fighter IV?

Collector’s Editions: Unless you manage to get these for the same price as the standard edition- avoid. Do you really need a cat helmet or night vision goggles?

Multiplayer: A good multiplayer game can last for months. I played CoD4 with workmates for nearly two years. They lasted  two weeks on MW2 before giving up and playing CoD4 again. I think they’re back to CoD 2 for now. It’s hit and miss as to what takes off but it’s rarely from an unknown source these days. you can expect a Valve MP game to last a long time ( I know i was able to play Day of Defeat Source online for several months last year). I’m guessing Epic and id didn’t expect Quaker Wars and Unreal III to die so quickly.

iPhone/iPod Touch: So if you already have one of these, there are thousands of games for far less than you would pay for the same/similar thing on DS or PSP.

This may be of less use but…

Friends in High Places: If you know someone who works at a publisher or publisher-owned developer, they can often get games from their employers catalogue at a  substantial discount.

Tax: If by some chance you can actually work making games, you could be able to claim a tax deduction (Important to note: THIS IS DEPENDING ON YOUR COUNTRY’s TAX LAWS- SEEK PROFESSIONAL ADVICE BECAUSE I AM MANY THINGS BUT I AM NOT AN ACCOUNTANT)

Start a videogame website: You might get the chance to get freebies. LOL

So there you have a cheat sheet for being a cheap-ass. You could go even cheaper and do what Cam does and never play anything new unless he gets it as a present or freebie from a publisher for his day job.