Gaming on a budget

[Luseth 1,757]

So with this new year I am thinking about my expenditure on video games, I am in a position in life where I feel I should have some actual savings, couple that with wanting to convert our garage and I am looking at where I can cut back some of my expenditure.

 

One of those is gaming, I spend money on retro games, I like to buy games & consoles brand new and I also have the PS subscription. So my goals this year -

- To not buy a single brand new game at full price

- To limit my retro purchases each month

- To not buy a single piece of hardware (with the exception of controllers / headsets should they fail on me)

 

My question to you guy's is how much do you spend on this hobby, do y ou limit what you spend? Are you conscious of the amount you spend on a particular game and the time you spend with that game?

[tronic44 3,628]

I'd tend to wait for games to go on sale, unless they were new releases that everyone's playing. I haven't gamed much this year, so have only brought a handful of games and they were all on sale. 

 

The one thing i did do though was look at the PS games catalogue and upgraded my subscription to be able to play them, there were 5 games on there that i want to play and buying them all together would have cost over £100 where as getting the upgraded subscription was no where near that price. I definitely recommend looking through the catalogue and checking out the games if you haven't already.

 

In previous years I've probably spent a fair bit on games each year but all it takes is pre-ordering COD and buying another game and you've already spent close to £100. 

 

The thing that'll probably set me back this year is upgrading my PC but that'll be for a mixture of work and games. 

[phil bottle 9,588]

I have so many unplayed games I can't justify buying new ones. I really really want to play Baldurs Gate 3 but I'm waiting until next Christmas I think. I still haven't played Divinity 2 properly, so no.

I'm dying to play Stalker 2 but anything else this year will need to wait for a sale. 

Early access games are paying off for me. Ready Or Not cost me £15  and now it's full price, plus Zero Seivert, Tarkov, DayZ and many others, good games that get better and better have all been on form lately.

 

Plus I just discovered Half Life 2 on Steamdeck is amazing. Still plenty more old games I want to try out on that device.

[J4MES OX4D 9,798]

I didn't buy Dead Space, Hogwarts Legacy, EAFC, MW3, Alan Wake 2 or Diablo 4 as expected so I instantly saved over £350 and instead mostly played (older) titles I have in my Steam library either revisiting, or previously not played and also picked up some bargains. I don't think I will ever buy a AAA game on release ever again unless it's of the masterpiece standard and I have enough time to play it at launch. I don't own PS+ or Xbox Live or any other subscription services so I save a lot there and things like this can really add up especially if you throw in other services like Spotify or Prime. 

 

Although these AAA-type games sell really well, many gamers seem to be holding back these days and that's down to the increased pricing and degrading of quality. The new Diablo 4 DLC could very well cost $100 which is absolutely disgusting so for the future I am avoiding these rip-off live services without much consideration. Recently I've played MGS3, MGS2 and Warcraft 3 and I've got more value and entertainment out of those than any major release will provide. 

[GazzaGarratt 10,887]

A couple of things initially @Luseth - I think its fantastic you are trying to find ways to keep having a positive life and find some savings from somewhere, life is definitely too short to sit here thinking shoulda, woulda, coulda. In the same breath its a real shame that your hobby that you seem to love so much has to take the hit. If it was me, I'd change the goals to be more like 'principles'. This way you make decisions based on all of the above but it makes you feel like if for some reason a top game you really want comes out, you don't have to feel like you are restricting yourself. Thats just my 2p on that.

 

With me, I always try to not pay full price too with the latest games we play. I'll still get some games through the year on release but thats usually kept for games we've all been talking about and I'm excited to play day 1 with lots of other FGers. I procrastinate naturally, which is truly annoying for me but probably means I don't spend all my money straight away. I can look and talk about a game for months and still not pick it up until I finally get it in the basket....and then sometimes wait for days/weeks again 🤣

 

Outside of those moments though, I've restricted myself over many years with games, lucky to pick up so many of my retro games at such a cheap price out of bargain bucket Gamestation all those years ago. My hobbies are gaming, FG, then football for my daughters team and Rovers. And with other things, like food, drink, etc, I've just never been into it all so much so games is really where I spend my money...and on FG stuff of course for my stupid sins 🙈😅

[techno 3,476]

I got drunk and spent over 2k on a pc etc one Friday night so I'm not the best comment on gaming expenditure. However I don't buy many games at all tbh and never really have.