It turns out I am exceptionally gifted at making my money go a long way when it comes to buying games. Combine this with steemit, and a bitpay.com/card or coinbase based visa card you can charge up using bitcoin and you can likely fund owning far more games than you can ever keep up with play wise. You'll also likely save a lot of money.
You may need to change some habits, though I'll give you some tips that will make this not as bad as it seems.
- Don't buy games at that new release price, or even with a 10% off. Have patience, I'll explain how and why.
- Sign up for Humble Monthly it is a no brainer. I'll explain why.
- Have patience. Play some things you own, but haven't got around to. If you don't have anything you haven't played, follow these tips and you should never be in that circumstance again.
New release prices are substantially high in an increasingly competitive market. The market is competitive enough that the days of the $70 price tagged game should be numbered. Not to mention the idiots who put out a $70 game with day 1 DLC that if you buy all the DLC you are up to $160. Don't do it. You are severely wasting your money doing this and you are limiting your potential. It may sound attractive, and you may think "I have to play this game". You can play the game, but learn to say "not now" and if you follow my instructions that should be far easier.
I should qualify now these instructions are for PC Gamers. Console exclusive gamers will increasingly be missing out as the PC Gaming scene is massive and dwarfs anything on consoles. Slap an XBOX 360 controller on it and it can do the same thing too. You may miss out on a few exclusive titles, but the exclusive titles on PC vastly out number those on consoles. (at least for now)
Humble Monthly... just do it
Invest in Humble Monthly from humblebundle.com. It is the gift that keeps on giving. Every month they will give you some high quality steam game keys for a low fixed price. The quality is truly great. That isn't the only reason to do it though. Anyone who subscribes to Humble Monthly immediately gets 10% off purchases at Humblebundle.com's store. They carry virtually EVERY title that is on steam. So EVERYTHING even new releases ends up with a perpetual 10% off. It is better than that though. If you buy something at Humble Bundle that is on sale and is 50% off you still get an extra 10% off so now you get it for 60% off.
Here are some of the past few months offerings I received for $12 not to mention the 10% off which I've used a few times as well.
Searching for deals...
Each morning I wake up and I do my rounds of searching for deals. My deal searching doesn't just cover games, as I also look at deals for game development tools and assets (where most of my money is actually spent these days). I do have a rotation I go through though looking for good bundles. Bundles are what humble bundle offers, but they are not the only thing.
HumbleBundle.com where Humble Monthly is at makes really good bundles. They are high quality, but not as prolific as some other sites. As you can see when I am making this post they also have their huge SPRING SALE going on in their store which means there are massive discounts, which get even more massive with my 10% off due to having a humble monthly subscription.
They actually have different bundles. They have Game Bundles, eBook Bundles, and Mobile Game Bundles now at this site. I have seen some PS4 exclusive bundles as well. So while I focus on PC I have seen some rare occasional console bundles here. A portion of proceeds spent at humble bundle go to charities as well. They were one of the earliest bundle sites.
Here is a current bundle and gives you and example of what it might look like when you go to purchase a bundle.
My next favorite is:
bundlestars.com as they have some good bundles, and often they are amazing bundles. They can also have some big bundles that are not as big name titles but you get a lot of games for a low price. Their bundles often last quite awhile.
They have a bundle event going on right now where they keep adding more bundles. Here is a screenshot of their current list of bundles which you can get by clicking on bundles at the top of the screen.
And yes I currently have some bundles in my shopping cart. I am going to buy that limited duration Batman bundle for some family accounts. I already have those games, but I can't pass up buying the following for $9.99 for the guest machine that many family members and friend use at my house:
The third that I frequently check is:
Indiegala.com : I don't buy as often from here as usually it's bundles are titles I have no interest in. Occasionally though this is not the case.
They seem to pretty reliably release 3+ new bundles per week. One on Monday, One on Friday, and one or more in the middle of the week sometime.
Generally those are the three I check regularly. If I haven't checked for awhile I'll occasionally go to:
IsThereAnyDeal.com and click on the All Specials button that is darker in color until you mouse over it.
This is a running tally of bundles available from many sites. All of the sites I regularly check are included in this list, but it also has others like Groupees (also can be cool), Cubic Bundle, and many others.
If you have patience and check those bundles then you will end up with far more games than you can keep up with. Steemit.com and earning money for your posting, commenting, voting, etc can make this even easier. It is actually how I purchase all of my games now.
Prepare for Big Sales Events
Steam, Bundlestars, GoG.Com, Indie Gala, and Humble Bundle ALL have big sales several times a year. They generally do not overlap each other. So if you time it right there is usually a big sale fairly often. During these sales large amounts of the store catalog will go on sale. I personally rarely buy anything if it is not at least 50% off. That is just me. Some days I don't look at anything unless it is 75% off. If I am looking at a Humble Bundle sale that ends up actually being 85% off due to the extra 10% off for being a humble monthly subscriber.
I've purchased many of the top games, and I play them. I can't keep up with them. Did I purchase them on day one, or even within the first month they came out? Usually no. Yet that is not a big deal once you have followed these steps as you'll likely be like me and have many TOP TIER games that you simply haven't had time to get to yet. Instead of reacting to the new game as though I must have it for that new release price, I go look at my games and find some other TOP TIER game that I've wanted to play, I own, and just never have gotten around to. I play that, and the many others like it too, UNTIL that title I was chomping at the bit for happens to come within a SALE price range that I can no longer resist.
Did I miss out on titles like Skyrim when they first came out? Yes. Though by the time I did get it I got it and ALL the expansions for around $20. That savings of $80+ went on to buy A LOT of other games including top tier ones that happened to be on sale.
So I do get to play the top tier games, I just practice patience and have played mental games with myself such that I remind myself of the other games I JUST HAD TO HAVE that I own but, have never played.
I have over 1430 Steam games at the time I am writing this on MY ACCOUNT. I have slowed down a lot on buying games for myself. Most of my bundle purchases these days end up going to other family members. I have SO MANY games I want to play that I haven't gotten around to that I've been trying to focus on that.
Some big sales do come around...
Steam itself has one every SUMMER that is one of the two biggest, and it usually begins sometime in June and lasts a week. It is a feeding frenzy that drains many a wallet. You can also make purchases on Steam and many of these places direct with bitcoin if you haven't acquired a VISA that can be charged up with bitcoin like I use. They also have a big sale around THANKSGIVING (U.S. version... so sometime in later part of November). Then they will have a BIG WINTER SALE leading up to Christmas and sometimes even partially eating into that holiday.
The other sites will often fall right before those sales as they try to capitalize on sales before people blow all their money on the official Steam ones.
GOG.COM
Good Ol' Games now known as GOG.COM got its start making old games playable on modern operating systems. So unlike console owners as you upgrade your PC you still can play the games from decades before. Many of these games are great. GOG is also owned by CD Projekt the company responsible for "The Witcher" series which is absolutely fabulous. Valve is to Steam as CD Projekt is to GOG.COM.
GOG gives you downloadable games. You can install them offline and they have no DRM. This can be convenient in some cases. I find myself purchasing most single player titles here if I can catch them on sale, rather than Steam these days. There selection is much smaller, but I like having the installers to make it easy to use various older laptops and such around my house.
Sometimes though Steam and/or a bundle site will have a deal too good to pass up. So that's the route I take. Actually this happens fairly regularly.
I do recommend putting GOG.COM into your game purchasing rotation. They are very deserving of your purchases. Also they have a section of their website called GOG Connect that if you put into your rotation will occasionally give you games for FREE that you already own on Steam. In other words, GOG worked with game publishers and steam, to give you games you own on steam for free on GOG. It doesn't work in the other direction from GOG to Steam yet.
https://www.gog.com/connect
Conclusion
Thank you for your time. If you are a gamer I hope you found this post useful. If you already knew all of this then you likely are a fellow game hoarder like me.
This is a very nice article :)
But sadly this is just not possible for me as reviewer. If I don't manage to get the game from the devs and I want to review it, I need to do it early on because after a while, people won't care.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
love gaming when I have time add me to follow
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I heard about humble bundle a couple of times, but never really cared to look into it. I think i will subscribe to them soon. That additional 10% discount sounds unreal when you have a sale already. What about 90% sale offers (they are rare, bu they occur)? Do I get them for free? :D
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Have any of you heard of slickdeals? its like a forum style deal of the day upvote style message board. Humble Bundle, Bundle Stars, Indie Gala, and GOG all show up as well as any deal on a video game system or video game elsewhere at a chain store. Slick deals has every kind of deal so you will have to search video games specifically.. But basically if there is an awesome deal out there, it will show up on slickdeals, or people will love you for posting it. I never post on there but I look often. But those are all indeed good places to build a game collection without damaging the pocket book too much and quite often they have treasures on there! Thanks for posting. I am following you now
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Isthereanydeal.com which I listed in the post also does things similar to that. I use it specifically for bundles, but you can search on individual titles too.
I haven't heard of or tried slickdeals though, thanks for the tip.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
very good write here. thanks for the tips!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
excleente publicacion :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Sometimes https://gg.deals/ can be more useful than itad since they offer more stores to browse through.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit