The Economy Sucks- But Games are Amazing

At the risk of sounding like I'm ripping off Sessler's Soapbox, I decided to post this anyway. It's a topic that I had been thinking about myself recently and after watching his soapbox, I was inspired a bit. (Plus I feel he left some good tips out.) Anyway...It shouldn't be a shocker to anyone that the economy is crappy right now. Company after company is talking about lay offs or closing down. The price of everyday products seems to keep rising and the dollar still isn't getting us much. So here's a couple tips that I think will help gamers out during a time in their lives where maybe there's other more important things to put money towards other than games.

Be Picky

There's plenty of games to look forward to this year. (Killzone 2, Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5, No More Heroes 2, Mad World, Halo Wars, F.E.A.R 2, Guitar Hero: Metallica, the possibility of Heavy Rain, etc...) Some of these games do come out fairly close together, possibly without a pay check between them. As badly as you might want them all, if you cannot afford them, don't get them! Instead, be picky about your choices.

Begin with making a list of all the games you want this year and their estimated times for release. Then, take sometime to think about how many games you can afford during a certain amount of time. (Maybe one a week? Two weeks? A month? Two months? Whatever.) Once you know what your limit is, decide what games from the list you absolutely must have. If you're having trouble deciding, answer the following questions to help you make your decision:

* How much will I be playing this game?
* What about it, other than what it is, makes me feel the need to have it?
* What's its replay value like?
* If it has online multiplayer, how much will I use it? Will friends have this game?

Eventually you should be able to narrow down your choices so you end up spending money on the games you need to have compared to spending money on a mixture of need to have and "just wanted" games. If you have two or more need to have games coming out close together, think about whether you can afford to get them both without setting you back on money for something you truly need to have. (For example, if you have two games you really want coming out in a span of two weeks but have no games coming out for months after that, you'll probably be ok buying both.)

For the games you'd just like to have, either rent them to satisfy yourself, wait until you can afford them, or just wait for the price to drop. After all, if you wanted this long for it to come out, surely you can wait another month or two to keep a few extra bucks in your wallet.

Collector's Editions...Really?

For some of us, we're fascinated by bonus things. May it be a special DVD with "behind the scenes" footage, an art book, maybe a figure, or who knows what else...But we always manage to drop another $10, $20, and sometimes even $30 more to have the "Collector's Edition" just for the goodies or for the sake of saying, "Yeah, look at what I have and you don't." But maybe not it isn't the wisest choice to spend the extra money on every Collector's Edition for every game we buy.

If a Collector's edition is offered, take a serious look at its price and what extra bonuses it has to offer. Chances are you're probably going to want to pass on a Collector's Edition if its $20 more but only offers one thing (like part of the soundtrack or a DVD) compared to one that might offer a few things or one really cool thing (like an art book or nice figure). If the edition doesn't really offer anything spectacular, then you might want to pass it all together.

Investments

If you haven't already, now might be a good time to look into a rental service such as GameFly or maybe something a bit local. You might need to pay a month fee but the fees are low compared to the price of games these days. (A $10 or $15 fee to rent however many games you want in a month is a much better deal than spending $60 on one game a month, especially if you might not even like the game.) Also, some of these services do tend to let you buy games from them at lower prices than a new game costs.

Something like GameTap or Steam might be another thing to look into if you have a fairly good computer. While they might not always have the most recent released games, but they might help to keep your gaming needs satisfied at reasonable costs.

Another option would be to look into a MMO to help eat up sometime. You don't necessarily need to play WoW but looking into an already existing, possibly free MMO, might not be a very bad idea. Some free MMOs do offer premium packages for subscribers which allow more options, items, or areas to people willing to pay a couple bucks. While others have special armor, weapons, or other in-game items via small microtransactions to help spice up the game after awhile.

Then, of course, pick games that you'll know you'll get plenty of game time from. Perhaps it comes in the form of solid multiplayer or a nice, long single player.