Gaming on a budget

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Hard Earned Dollars.

College students are going to bleed money if they don’t take precautions to save every step of the way.

College students are going to bleed money if they don’t take precautions to save every step of the way.

If you’re serious about video games, you’re going to be spending serious cash. That’s great for big business but not so good for consumers. The bigger a game gets, the more expensive it is. College students are going to bleed money if they don’t take precautions to save every step of the way.

Rental services like Gamefly cost $22 a month for two games at a time. You might not enjoy a game as much as you thought you would, so committing $64 to a single purchase is not a good idea. First-person shooters like Call of Duty move so quickly that they’re over in a few hours, while role-playing games like Fallout: New Vegas can last some 40 or more hours in game play.

If you decide to buy a game, spend your money on a used title. Game companies try to entice buyers by giving them in-game bonuses if they purchase a new title at full price before it comes out. Sometimes games just aren’t as good as their pre-release hype, as seen in the Aliens: Colonial Marines release. New games, at times, are nothing at all what people expect them to be.

Go retro by purchasing older games. Sites like GOG.com specialize in providing “good old games” for a fraction of the price. Some of these classics, like Alpha Centauri or the original Fallout, are beloved because they provide hundreds of hours of enjoyment. Some game networks, like Xbox Live or Playstation Network, provide old-school games for $10 to $20.

“Indie games” are on a par with retro counterparts due to lower graphics thresholds, and are available for a small amount of money. Several have proven to be instant modern classics, such as the horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Lone Survivor or Minecraft.

Explore free-to-play games with titles like Treasures of Montezuma and Team Fortress 2 on sites like SteamPowered.com.