It's Fun Getting Stuff Cheap

This is it! The last day of January, and I've made it, with a post every day. It's a great feeling to know that I could set a goal and achieve it, because successes like that are hard to come by these days, given family and work commitments. If you're reading this, thank you for doing so, I certainly appreciate it.

There's nothing more fun than getting something for less than its perceived value. Now that I'm on a fairly strict budget, one that I'm struggling to stick with, my ability to go out and buy the latest electronics and video games has decreased dramatically. I'll be honest, if there weren't a tangible benefit to the household, in the reduction of the overall monthly cell phone bill, I would not have the iPhone right now. As was discussed when I originally took the plunge, there was a long wait in between when I originally wanted the iPhone and when I was finally able to justify the acquisition.

The same goes with video games. When it was only my wife and I here in the house, I didn't put much thought into going out and picking up the new releases as they came out, as well as investing in the newest consoles. Now, since my first priority is and should be my children, I've done my best to restrict my gaming purchases to those that will provide me with good value for my money. I bought Fallout 3 the day it was released, spent $50 for it, and proceeded to milk that game for all it was worth. Over 85 hours of play for that $50 is a far more efficient use of my hard-earned money than any movie I could see.

1 movie (at the theaters): 2 hours, ~$12 = $6/hour of entertainment

1 video game: 85 hours, $50 = ~$0.60/hour of entertainment

With results like that, it's hard to argue that I got my money's worth.

Which brings me to my latest 'compulsive' buys. During this weekend, Steam had the Freedom Force: Freedom Pack on sale for $2. Since I have heard great things about these games, I figured that $2 is an extremely small price to pay, so I bought them. Also on Steam, the X-Com: Complete Pack (five X-Com games) were also on sale for $2. Five games for $2? That was also a no-brainer and went into the virtual shopping cart as well. So, for a grand total of $4 I bought seven games. Granted, these are games that are some years old, but most are still well reviewed and discussed, and these are also games and concepts that don't rely on cutting edge graphics to communicate their quality. I feel pretty comfortable with this expenditure.

Just before coming to this site to write this post, I happened to visit Cheap Ass Gamer, the first time in quite a while, actually. It was an innocent visit, just to see what 'all the cool kids' were spending their money on. There on the front page was an announcement that Direct2Drive had a sale on Red Faction: Guerrilla for only $5. This is a game that I downloaded and tried the demo on the 360, and really enjoyed. It's on my list to get through Goozex, but it currently trades at (in virtual currency) around $30, so to see the game (granted, it's the PC version) this cheap is pretty exciting. As I'm writing this, the game is downloading to my hard drive.

Why am I telling you all of this? Mostly because I'm so excited to find so much gaming goodness for such little monetary outlay, but also to broach the subject of digital distribution. This is a topic for its own post, as there are so many facets to discuss, but one thing is certain: it can be of great benefit to both the distributor, the developer and the consumer when utilized properly. I can point to an earlier post where I bought games that I wouldn't have considered otherwise, simply because they were on sale. For the foreseeable future, these sales will be the primary source of the games that I play, because they provide the best value for the money that I probably shouldn't be spending on my entertainment.