In the current economy, with a family to feed and bills to pay, should gamers stop gaming? Absolutely not – they just need to be thriftier about it.
Sean Sands is in a tight spot, and he’s not the only one: With the recession the way it is, gamers worldwide have less spending money in their pockets than ever before. And as a parent who has to teach his children about thriftiness as well as budget for the future, it isn’t quite as easy to justify dropping $60 every other week for the latest and greatest in gaming. Of course, as he relates in issue 218 of The Escapist, that doesn’t mean he has to give up gaming altogether – he just needs to be a bit more frugal about it:
Overall, there’s a downward trend in gaming costs over the past dozen months; nowadays you can practically buy a year’s worth of games for the price of a nice HD television. Price drops are the new black in and outside of the hardware world. Games like Shadow Complex and Castle Crashers have managed to absorb as much of my time as any $60 AAA title at a fraction of the cost. A Rock Band 2 DLC pack might as well be a whole new game for the time I end up investing in it. And Steam’s weekend deals have provided me countless hours of joy for pennies on the dollar. As 2009 sweeps into what will have to pass for high gear, the industry seems to have picked this trip around the sun to provide new vectors for quality gaming at rock-bottom, discount warehouse prices.
I’m starting to expect a set of steak knives to be shipped with my next gaming purchase at no additional charge.
Of course we have to tighten our belts; everyone does. But that doesn’t mean we have to give up what we love to do. To read the full story about gaming on the cheap in the recession, read “I Won’t Budget an Inch” by Sean Sands in Issue 218 of The Escapist.
