Cheap Games!

OK, they're not free. But with new games running between $40 and $60 - and then adding expansions, sometimes at nearly the same price - finding ways to get games cheaply is more important these days. So, how can you do it?

1. Wait.

Yep. The brand new game that just came out today at $50 will probably be cheaper in a month or three. In addition, the company will probably have the first (or second, or third) patch for it out. There's an old rule - don't buy 1.0 of ANYTHING. It's the first release, it's probably been pushed out the door by marketing, and it will have bugs.

There's another reason for waiting, though. Go through your phone book - look for used software stores, or even smaller software stores. Many will take used games in trade. So you might get that $50 game for $20 or less after the "early adopters" bought, played, and finished it, then returned it for something else. I've gotten several games this way.

Finally, if it's not a game you're sure about, waiting even longer will often put the game in the "bargain bin" in a year (a long time for a software title) or find it bundled with its expansion at the original price or below. (Example I've seen lately: Red Alert 2 - which I bought used - came out new at $45-$50. Its expansion runs $19-$25. Yet, there's a bundle that runs for $30.)

2. Buy it NOW!

I might be contradicting the first point, but I do mean it. The day it comes out, if not pre-ordering. When I lived in Florida, I'd always check CompUSA the first week a new game was out. They'd often have it $10-$15 off the "suggested" price if not more that first week. Get to know your local software stores and find out what they do.

3.Shop around.

Yes, old advice, but still valid. Just wandering through stores in a 5 mile radius, you can find big price differences even without sales. We have a small store here on the Oregon coast (Gamer's Galaxy) that, when everyone else was selling Diablo II new for $60, was selling it for $45 or less. I see games that aren't all that old down into the $30 range. And then I wander in and look through their "trade-in" bin, and can sometimes find them in the $20 range. Don't pass up the trade-in bins.

4.REALLY wait.

If you don't mind waiting even longer (or going for older games,) you can find some really nice 2-4 year old games, very cheap. For instance, five minutes away from me, I can get Diablo (the first one,) Starcraft, it's expansion, Warcraft II wth its expansion, Homeworld, (and the add on, Cataclysm,), Planescape:Torment, and at least fourty other games for $10 a shot. The graphics are usually good, the system requirements very low, and the price is right. And... they're still fun. Heck, Warcraft II and Starcraft still have very active communities out there, playing hard as ever.

Of course, if you don't want to run around... well, that's why we have the Internet. Check out Good Old Games AKA GOG.com for some classics. Yes, the graphics on some are dated, but you'll find names thare - cheap - that are still spoken of with reverence (and some nice ones you may not have heard of.) Fallout, Fallout 2, Syberia, Phantasmagoria, Sanitarium - go and browse.
There's also Steam for PC and Mac. Between sales, demos, indie games and free releases (like Alien Swarm,) you can get some nice deals.