If you are a serious gamer and you like to play many different games, soon you find out games DO cost a lot. Here are few tips that will DRASTICALLY cut down amount of money you spend on your games.

DON'T PRE-ORDER

If you look at stories of Cyberpunk 2077 and Fallout 76 the pattern is clear - people who pre-ordered these games would save a lot of money (and nerves) if they bought them once they were released.
The reason is because both these titles were so buggy they instantly went on offers everywhere. This leads to another tip:

DON'T BUY GAMES ON DAY ONE

Another obvious thing but people just keep throwing away their money on latest stuff. I had a friend who used to do it and his reasoning was: "But I want to know and play latest games so I can discuss them with friends".

Fair enough, but the problem is none of his friends played games that he played :) Ask yourself the question: will it lower your social standings if you buy that game 3 months later? I bet in most cases you won't even remember it :)

USE GAME SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

This is a big one - for relatively small amount of money you can get so many games you won't be able to play them all. For many people (including me and mentioned friend of mine) it is a revolution in terms of savings.

PC & XBOX

Game Pass offers multiple plans for unlimited access to games on their platform:

£10.99/month for Ultimate: PC, XBOX and android streaming
£7.99/month for PC
£7.99/month for XBOX

You get access to Microsoft games on day one. Pretty cool. Ultimate and PC have access to EA Play where you can play most of EA Games for free (Battlefield, Titanfall, FIFA etc).

From my own experience selection is quite good and there is always something to play. Actually it encourages you to try games you would NEVER buy - and quite often you have great time playing these titles.

PlayStation

PlayStation Plus - you can get PS4 and PS5 games for as little as £49.99 annually (which is £4.17 per month). I don't use the service but my friends do and seem to be quite happy about it - you get some interesting titles monthly and have access to older games. I guess it is quite similar to what Game Pass offers.

Nintendo

Right now I don't think Nintendo offers subscription services. That said you can do something else if you are Nintendo owner:

USE GAME RENTAL SERVICES

In UK you can use Boomerang Rentals - you pay them some money monthly and they send you X amount of games that you chose. Once you get bored of them, you send them back in a prepaid envelope and you get another game. They support several platforms: Nintendo, PlayStation, XBOX.

I used that service and it works. It is a cheap way to play relatively new games on Switch - prices start at £3.99 per one game per month, which is nothing compared to cost of £40-£50 per Nintendo game.

PLAY ON PC

Games on PC are much cheaper that console ones, so if you can - this should be your platform of choice. Of course there are other aspects to consider - it is nice to sit on a couch and play a game on your TV when playing on console. But premium is high on console games.

BUY GAMES ON OFFERS

Everyone knows Steam sales, but there are many more options available.

The biggest site I use (and I am amazed most people don't know it) is:
Is There Any Deal. It is basically "games on offers" aggregator which allows you to create a waitlist on titles you would like to buy. The site will notify once there is a sale which fulfills your requirements.

I use it all the time - just make sure games are not region locked.

Another option is to look for games on sites that sell cheap keys (steam and others):

Last resort are keys from ebay - many people sell cheap games there but be careful not to buy shared steam account as it will be hard to use. You want your own steam key.

I hope you found something interesting here - if you did: enjoy your new, cheap games! 😍

Saving Money #2 - GAMES