You might be in for a shock if you haven’t looked at the cost of indulging in computer or video games lately. A complete gaming system can run into the thousands of dollars, for a good personal computer system, and into the hundreds for a decent gaming console. Games can cost up to sixty dollars or more, each game, for a new release! A parent trying to indulge a game-obsessed teen can get “sticker shock” pretty fast! Fortunately, once you know what to do and where to look, you can bring down the costs significantly. There are ways to save on both quality computer or video games, and the systems that they run on.

Go Old

Instead of funding a gaming pursuit with a second mortgage, you could “go old.” By “going old” I mean not buying the latest games to be released, but choosing last month’s or even year’s games and game systems. In the gaming industry, as in a lot of other fields, your purchasing power is greater if you can be satisfied without the “latest and greatest”.

Because games and game systems are being developed so fast, it’s almost impossible to buy all the new equipment and a regular fresh assortment of games unless you’re a millionaire. To go cheap, just have a little patience as the new crop of products comes out, and what was new gets marked down. Often the mark-down will be fifty percent or more, and the time you will have to wait will be short – say, one to four months.

If you want to save the green, patience is a virtue! Waiting just a few weeks for the cost to go down on newly released games can save you a lot of money!

The Computer Gaming System That’s Right For You

When it comes to computer gaming, start with what you have. Computer games have various system requirements, and finding fun games that are supported by your current system will be cheaper than buying a whole new computer!

You can also save money by upgrading games instead of your entire computer. It can take a year or more for a gaming company to release a new version of a game. Usually the game upgrade doesn’t require new hardware. you just need to buy the new version, and that’s a lot less than a new computer!

If your computer is really old, you may need to upgrade your hardware or get a new system. However, if you have a decent computer and fairly modern graphics card, you can concentrate on keeping your games current rather than your system. If your processor (cpu) and memory are adequate for most games you want to play, you may be able to keep gaming on your system for quite awhile. Just make sure you can install and run the DirectX version, or other helper application, that may be needed by the games you want to play. You can watch for sales and grab a new soundcard, joystick, or graphics card, as needed.

Pooling Your Resources

Here’s a different idea that you could try for saving money on gaming. Talk to your neighbors and get a group of families to pitch in and share the costs together. Five or six families working together can bring the cost per family down to a very manageable investment.

Since gaming consoles are getting smaller and smaller, your neighbors could trade gaming space within their homes every week or two. This way the kids in the neighborhood can enjoy one or two of the new systems on the market that they could never otherwise afford. It also allows kids to get together and play, and rotate between homes allowing the families to share other costs such as snacks.

A group effort of this sort can make a lot of kids happy, bring together neighbors for cooperation and fun, and satisfy game cravings at a significantly reduced cost.

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