Student Gaming

I'm in university, which means I'm not exactly doing swan dives into Scourge McDuck mountain of gold coins. Between my paltry paycheques and my many loans from the Bank of My Dad, my budget for gaming has dipped into Atlantis-territory: it does not exist.

All is not hopeless for the struggling student-gamer, for I have learned to poke my head through the dreary black clouds of debt to keep myself sane and gaming. Here's how I do it.

I rent .

Coming from a family where dropping $60+ on every new game that came out was not financially possible,  something had to be done to keep me playing. When Blockbuster opened across the street from my then home in northeast Calgary, it was a dream come true. Most weekends I'd journey inside with my Dad and would soon be leaving with three or four SNES titles. This tradition of renting games has remained with me to this day, some 15 years later. If a new game comes out, one that reeks of hype machine, I always think: I should rent it first. Even when I was employed and enjoying the freedom of purchasing power, I still wanted to be cautious and rent. You never know how bad something is going to suck and I'm not in the habit of wasting my coin on suck.

As a child when I received new games for my SNES, they were hardly brand new store bought copies. This leads me to my tip for poor student-gamers: buy used or wait for a sale.

I routinely make it a point to stop at EB Games and spend several minutes staring at their previously-owned 360 games. As much as I want to play NHL 2K6 or Guitar Hero: Aerosmith on the cheap, occasionally you can find a gem or two hidden amongst the shit. For instance, last fall I discovered Mass Effect for $9.99. Most of my SNES games came in the old plastic VHS-like video store clunkers.