Getting great deals on video games (new and used)

[kn]

I just thought I'd post this again for anyone that hasn't been there or didn't see my previous post as it wasn't a "Topic".

Gaming is expensive and there are lots of ways to get it cheap. The best resource I've found for getting smoking deals is on a site called www.cheapassgamer.com. They don't discuss anything but "deals" and when one is dead, they move it out. As an example of the kind of nuggets, Toys R Us did an "accidental" Buy1 Get1 free on PS3, PS2 and PSP games. It lasted from about 6AM to 11AM central time U.S. I bought two 59.99 recent release games and two older 19.99 games. My total was about $33.50/each shipped on the new releases and about $13/each on the budget titles. The best part is TRU has a 30 day return policy in store so I'll sit on them and if I see something I want more, I'll just swap it.

If you can stand used games (I know some people hate on them), you can get an "Edge" card game from informer for $2.00 through the mail. (See cheapassgamer thread). That coupon gets you an extra 10% trade in and 10% discount on used. It always combines or "stacks" with their special offers, coupons, etc. For instance: MGS4 has a $25 trade in. Weak. But, they are adding +30% if you reserve GeoW2 and it stacks for plus 10% more. So that $25 bucks becomes $25 +40% or $35. They had a 25% off used PS3 games 2 weeks ago and again, it stacks for 35% off. MGS4 used is $54.99. Minus 35%, and you would have paid $35.74 for the game. In other words, you could have bought it, finished it in a week, and traded it back in with a total cost of $0.75 cents. When using store credit, they don't tax that portion, either.

I'm all for supporting publishers and frankly I'd like to see license agreements specifically prohibit commercial re-sale of intellectual property media. But, as long as they do, I'm going to be a cheap ass.

The key here is to be patient and watch for deals...