Entertainment: 9 Tips for Gamers to Save Money in the New Normal

We may be living in the new normal, but some things never change: gaming can be an expensive hobby.

As of the writing of this blog post, Sony's PlayStation 4 is selling at a retail price of $299.99 (17,700Php in the Philippines). The Nintendo Switch also costs $299.99 and so does Microsoft's Xbox One S at $299.00. The price of a gaming PC varies depending on the specs but they usually cost much more than consoles.

Whatever your hardware is, getting into video games now is going to put a $300 dent in your wallet. If you're not careful, buying the video games for your platform is going to exacerbate that dent.

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic forcing people to stay indoors, gaming is quickly turning into a recreational activity that more and more people are getting into. Some time around April, the World Health Organization recommended video games as a pastime to stop the spread of the coronavirus. And it's working! The numbers don't lie; the video game industry has been making a killing during the pandemic. 

I've been playing video games since I was a kid. Now I'm an adult and I'm still gaming as a way to kill time. Naturally I picked up on some budget-friendly tips and tricks and I'd like to share them with you in this blog post.

Whether you're someone new to the gaming scene or you're a veteran gamer looking for ways to save your wallet, here are some tips on saving money related to gaming so you don't break the bank.

1. Wait for price drops

If you're on a strict budget, buying a video game as soon as it's released should never ever be an option, no matter how excited you are to get your hands on it. Whether you're buying physically or digitally, a brand new video game normally costs around $59.99 (2,900Php). Generally speaking, the retail price of video games tend to drop significantly after six months have passed since its release date. Waiting even longer -- let's say a year -- will cause the price to drop even further. Some games go as low as below half of their original retail price.

There isn't a fixed time period on when games slash their prices. A good rule of thumb is the better a game performs at its launch, the longer it will take for its price to go down, so patience is the key. A terribly rated game like Fallout 76 can go from $59.99 to $39.99 (1,934Php) in a couple of months, while a critically acclaimed game like God of War stayed up at around $59.99 for a good long while.

Protip for Nintendo Switch and DS owners: Nintendo has a policy of NOT dropping the price of their exclusives. So you may be wondering why that Mario game you've been waiting for is still around $59.99. Unfortunately waiting won't do you much good in terms of budgeting if you're a Nintendo gamer.

2. Buy secondhand games

Want to know what's even better than waiting for the price of a video game to drop? Waiting for the price of a video game to drop, and then buying it secondhand! Secondhand sellers will never sell a game above its current retail price. I once bought Fallout 3: Game of the Year edition, which cost $59.99 many years ago, for just around $10.00 (483Php).

Your means of finding secondhand sellers will depend on your location and nationality. For me, websites like Carousel and Facebook groups are how I find out about people near me who are trying to sell their video games. You can even opt to trade games with people even if I don't recommend that.

3. Sell your game after you're done playing

If you bought a video game physically, you can sell the disc/cartridge to someone else once you're done with the game. Since you'll be a secondhand seller, you'd want to price your video game below the game's current retail price to attract buyers.

If you weren't able to follow the first tip on this list i.e. you succumbed to the temptation of buying a newly released game because you just had to have it right away, then this course of action can get you some of your hard-earned money back easily once you're done with the game. I say "easily" because newly released games are still popular so it's not hard to find a buyer. Trying to sell a game that has been out for one or two years already is much more difficult.

Let's say you bought a newly released game for $59.99. A couple of weeks pass and you've beat the game. Congratulations! You go back to the video game store and find out the game is still selling at $59.99 a pop. You can take advantage of this opportunity and sell your disc at around $44.99 (2,177Php). Once you've sold your game, you'd have technically only spent $15 (726Php) on it.

4. Finish your game

This is one of the more interesting tips because it tackles the mindset of a gamer.

Some players tend to play through games only until halfway through the story before losing interest and buying the next big thing. This is a bad habit that has to be curbed if you want to save money. A game with 80 hours of content isn't maximized if you only get to around 40 hours of gameplay, meaning you will look for and buy another game sooner than anticipated, burning yet another hole in your pocket before you have a chance of fully recovering from your initial purchase.

Sounds like an unnecessary waste, doesn't it? Completely finishing your game isn't just the practical thing to do, it's also a satisfying thing to do. You feel more accomplished after experiencing a great big adventure. It's almost the same feeling as reading a book up until the last page.

5. Buy games 150+ hours long

If you want to be a thrifty gamer, you'd want to develop a taste for massive and immersive video games.

Do your research and read some reviews to find out about popular titles in gaming that can keep you occupied for more than a hundred hours. Games that last this long usually belong to the role playing genre, like Witcher 3, the Fallout series, or the Persona games. These games are great choices because they can tide you over for weeks or even months depending on how frequently you play.

6. Replay your games

Once you've beaten your game, you might want to check and see if it's something you'd like to replay. Most games nowadays have a new game+ feature which lets you play the game all over again while keeping your latest progress, such as player level and equipment, intact to keep it interesting. Other games have alternate endings which make giving the story another go worth it just to see them.

By replaying games fully, you manage to double the lifespan of your game. A 30-hour game that you can replay will last you about 60 hours in total. Yes, this also means that a 150-hour game can keep you entertained for a whopping 300 hours if you replay it!

7. Take advantage of online sales and freebies

Keep your eyes peeled and your ears opened for any news about games going on sale or are being given away for free.

Physical shops like GameStop and Datablitz don't normally go on sale, but sales happen all the time in the digital world. All you have to do is go to your console's eshop, or for PC players, Steam, to find out about amazing deals.

Games that go free and yours forever is a rarer occurrence, but it does happen. EA made Sims 4 free for a limited time in May last year. Sony made the Uncharted: Nathan Drake collection and Journey games free back when the coronavirus pandemic just broke out. Ubisoft made Assassin's Creed Unity free for a moment to bring awareness to the Notre Dame fire that happened last year.

8. Take advantage of sales... but DON'T buy games you aren't going to play

While it's a good idea to take advantage of sales, you have to make sure you buy games that you're actually going to play. The infamous Steam sale is notorious for making PC gamers buy dozens of video games that they're never actually going to pick up. Isn't it ironic to end up losing all your hard-earned cash when prices are actually lower? When we play our cards right, a sale can actually save us money.

The trick here is to have a target, a game that you actually planned on getting, and buying only that.

9. Don't be fooled by free-to-play games

Free-to-play games seem like the best choice for a gamer on a tight budget, right? After all, it's free, and they're normally multiplayer games so they can provide hundreds of hours of entertainment. There's nothing wrong with playing free-to-play games like Warframe, Fortnite, or Valorant as long as you steer clear of microtransactions.

Microtransactions are a way for the developers of free-to-play games to make some money. They usually do this by selling exclusive weapons or armor in-game that can only be purchased with real money.

Cosmetic items like a fancy hat or a weapon skin are flashy but they can be easily ignored as you play. What's difficult with some free-to-play games are the ones that are "pay-to-win". In these types of games, skill can only get you so far. You're essentially forced by the video game to pay up some real cash just to get an advantage over your opponents. Clash of Clans is an example of a game like this. Sure, microtransactions don't cost a whole lot on their own, but collectively they can total more than $60.00 if you're not careful.

Entertainment: Why Video Games are a Good Way to Waste your Time

We've all heard it before: Video Games are a waste of time. A few decades ago the narrative against video games was that they instill violent behavior into the players. Recent studies have effectively debunked this. Nowadays in this hyper-paced society, the stigma against the medium has shifted to calling it out as an incredibly distracting way to past the time. Supposedly it's so distracting that it can put any and all productivity in your life to a halt. Gamers are seen as lethargic wastes of time and space with no redeeming qualities.

Clearly from the title of this blog post, you can see that I disagree with this stance. I don't rebuke it wholeheartedly -- I do think that under certain circumstances, playing video games is a waste of somebody's time -- but video games are a good way to waste your time.

Creating sculptures in Minecraft boosts creativity :)

First, a little bit of background about me: right now I don't play video games as much as I used to, and I'm definitely not young enough anymore to see the appeal in the hottest trending video games like Fortnite and Minecraft, but gaming has been a huge part of my life. I've been playing video games since I was in kindergarten. My dad was a gamer himself in his younger years and he encouraged me to play video games a lot since he wasn't interested in sports at all. So in a nutshell playing video games was something I've learned to do almost since birth.

Nowadays I've grown out of video games a bit. I was able to graduate college and get a job. I go to the gym and practice sports more often than I play video games. And I even participate in volunteer activities for the betterment of my local community.

Other people would be pissed at their younger selves for playing too much video games. Yes, I'm pissed at my younger self for not learning about the outside world sooner, but instead of getting mad at video games for sucking me into an unproductive hellhole for the majority of my childhood, I actually want to thank it for shaping into the person that I am. I don't know who I'd be if you took video games out of my system!

I've thought about this a lot, so below I've listed down some very beneficial things you can get out of playing video games. I wanted to make this list as concrete as possible with original items. As of the writing of this paragraph I haven't taken a look at what others have to say about the benefits of playing video games but I'm 90% sure that "Stress reliever" and "improves hand-eye coordination" are some of those items.

1. You get to appreciate Good Software Design

I want to start off with this benefit because it's something just about everyone takes for granted that I don't see often in these kinds of lists. That's understandable; Good Design is something you don't even notice. When you play video games, the main menu, the controller in your hands, the way the game mechanics are mapped to the said controller, and the layout of the levels are all made by people who graduated with a bachelor's degree in some form of design or another.


Game Maker's Took Kit is a deep dive sort of Youtube channel that delves into the systems that game developers have created for their games. Here's a video of them talking about God of War's fighting system that's nearly 20mins long. It goes to show that there's a lot to be said about the design of the game's combat system. Check out their channel for other videos if you want to learn more nitty gritty technical aspects of your favorite games!

There are constants and variables to the designs of different video games, and the developers in the industry continue to innovate on what's already been built. All of the work is done to provide us gamers with the most seamless and intuitive experience as possible; aren't video games just discs and softwares full of great experiences? I dream of a world where technology's advanced enough that real-life experiences like using our phones and navigating our world is as smooth as playing a video game.

2. Playing a lot of Video Games makes you experience-rich

My first point transitions nicely into my second. Video games aren't materialistic objects. People buy games for the experiences contained in the software design. To the outsider, playing video games look like you're just rotting away on a couch, pushing buttons on a glowing toy. Arguably that really is what's happening but inside the mind of a gamer she's an adventurer, or a fighter, a hunter maybe, or maybe even a hero. It may sound cliche and ironic, but the meme still stands...

"I'm a gamer not because I don't have a life, but because I choose to have many."

Video games let us do what we can't normally do in our lives, risk-free, at an affordable price. Some of us would love to pack their bags and go hiking or exploring, but there are tons of responsibilities and obligations we're tethered to that we simply can't afford to sever for our ultimately short-lived pleasure. Some of us would like to start bar fights without the fear of actually losing any teeth. There are video games that let you skydive, obviously. Video games let us live some of these fantasies of ours.

3. Video Games are immersive, educational toys

I like to call video games "educational toys". These experiences that games gives us, especially the really grand "Triple A" games with millions of dollars in budget, are interwoven together in a way to be as immersive and mind-blowing as possible. Game producers often do this by including an element of learning into the mix.

Everyone knows a little bit of something about Norse Mythology, although I think it's safe to say that only very few of us can discuss it on a deep level. Most people based almost all of their knowledge on that mythos from Marvel's Thor and Loki. That's all well and good but some gamers are able to truly expound their knowledge on this topic if they play God of War for the PS4. The game is gruesome and violent, but at the same time it immerses you into the myths and creatures that Norse mythology has to offer. Personally, I think God of War did such a great job on immersing the player into the mythology that I finished the game with a drive to learn more about the gods and goddesses the characters of the game are based on.

Assassin's Creed II recreates the architecture that perpetuated Renaissance Italy

The entire Assassin's Creed series teaches players a lot about history. The whole game basically has you running around doing parkour and stabbing people in the back, but what makes it educational is the whole setting of where the parkour and stabbing takes place. Unbeknownst  to players who are focused on their primary objective of assassinating the target the game tells them to kill, they learn a little bit more about history, architecture, and culture along the way thanks to the game's backdrop. A specific example of this is Assassin's Creed II which takes place in Italy during the Renaissance. Players are able to appreciate Renaissance architecture around Tuscany, Venice, and the Vatican as they traverse the rooftops. They assassinate real-life political figures like the incestuous Borgia family and the Pope. The player's character, Ezio, is friends with Leonardo Da Vinci, so we even learn a little bit about the personal life of the genius outside of painting, like his desire to learn anatomy, or his sexual preference in a small comment during one of his conversations with Ezio.

There have been education professionals who've dabbled in software design to find interactive ways to teach others. These kind of works always get hit by criticism that the lessons and knowledge the game wants to share are too forced. These professionals can only wish to do it as well as real video games (with million dollars in budget) can.

4. Video Games can make you more outspoken, decisive, and socially competent

Eloquence in a topic is directly proportional to the amount of knowledge the speaker has in that field. Since video games are enthralling experiences filled with precious nuggets of trivia and facts that stick to the players long after they've finished playing the game, they grow as a person who can handle conversations that might include topics that they've seen before. God of War and Assassin's Creed II can definitely help college students with their recitations in their mythology and history classes.

Recently released video games nowadays tend to include an element of decision-making in social settings. These simulated social situations pit players against all sorts of different archetypes of people as either friend or foe. For introverted people who are too afraid to go outside and talk to people, these make-believe interactions at the very least trains the minds of the players on what they could possibly say to steer real conversation in the way that they want it to go.

A really great example of this is the video game Persona 5. The player's power is directly proportional to the strength of the bonds he has with the people he meets in the game, (he is literally running on the power of friendship if you think about it). The only way to get the true ending of the game is to be consistent with your values, and to uphold the friendship your character has made along the way. You get the bad ending if you decide to backstab your friends. This kind of gameplay design reinforces the player's moral integrity so that they decide to uphold their own values in real life instead of betraying their real friends.

Some people have lots of fun in this kind of environment. Not most gamers.

Although gamers will hardly ever be the life of the party, video games have Multiplayer, which allows players to interact with real humans. Overwatch is my prime example for this, because it's a game that focuses entirely on multiplayer to engage players (I also want to add that Overwatch is the perfect example of a game with intuitive design that gives players the smoothest experience possible). Playing Overwatch teaches the player teamwork and communication. Overwatch lets you select from a huge cast of "Heroes" with different strengths and weaknesses. It's up to the player's team to talk it over regarding what role they should play to ensure victory against the other team. It's not very different from playing a team sport like basketball.

5. Playing video games has more takeaways and less costs than going to nightclubs, or browsing social media.

This is my final point that I want to bring home since the whole topic of this blog post is about whether or not video games are a waste of time. It's important to compare video games with other ways to spend your time to see the relative advantages and disadvantages games have over them.

This meme sums up the kind of discussion I want to spur from this blog post

Going to nightclubs occasionally with friends is super fun, I admit, but making it a weekly thing isn't productive at all when you think about it. Nas Daily sums up the problems with partying in one of his videos. First of all, nightclubs are crazy overpriced, so it sucks to be you if  you're always being peer pressured to join these things. Second, the booze is not only expensive, but it's obviously detrimental to your health. You're going to end up with a beer belly from clubbing unless you dance really really hard on the dance floor. Third, you go home in the morning and wake up in the afternoon with a crappy hangover, so you spend the whole day after clubbing doing absolutely nothing. It's even worse when drugs become involved.

So clubbing is expensive and not good for your financial or physical well-being. On the opposite end of the spectrum is browsing social media, which is something almost everybody does in their spare time nowadays. It's become ubiquitous because everyone's already wired into the internet and the algorithms know each individual inside-and-out to constantly give everyone something that they want to see. On the bright side, this is a very low-cost way to spend your time, but on the downside, browsing social media doesn't improve you as well as video games could. From my perspective, Video games can be seen as an investment while browsing social media can be seen as not making an investment at all. Although you can interact on social media, it's not as interactive as video games.

Unlike clubbing or browsing social media, there's a whole lot of self improvement that can be found in video games. The other items on this list are literally the benefits that I mean so I don't have to repeat any of that here.

Conclusion:
This might be the longest blog post I've written ever, so hopefully we've learned something from all of this.

I do agree that video games are a waste of time. This is definitely true if you're playing video games when you have other things you should be doing. It's also most especially true if you play a game for 4 hours or more when it isn't even your day job. But still, video games are a good way to waste your time because they help you grow as a person, whether you know about it or not. video games imprint something on you and in the long-run, games will become a big part of your character that shaped you up as a person thanks to the experiences you get from them.

Only Twitch Streamers, E-sports gamers, and Let's Players have the right to play video games the whole day without it being a "waste of time" because that's their livelihood. It's literally productive for them to keep playing video games.

What are some video games that you think are really beneficial for a gamer to play? Name me your top 5 list in the comments below. Bonus points if each game has a short explanation :)