Cheap and Dirty Gamer: Video Game Summer Sale Survival PSA
Kiss your world goodbye
As much as I love searching the internet for gaming deals that are both sexy-cheap and sexy-dirty, I felt it was important to prepare you all for the bank account apocalypse that is the summer sale. While some of you may be veterans and already bare the battle scars from previous summer sales, I personally know quite a few rookies whose excitement over the inexpensive expansion of their libraries may leave them broke or even worse, dead (in the latter scenario, happiness builds up in their heads and their faces explode or melt ala Raiders of the Lost Ark).
The biggest issue with gaming on a budget is that after years of honing our senses to detect super awesome deals, we sometimes get tunnel vision and forget that a bunch of really tiny deals can equal one large non-deal before we know it. I always thought I was frugal until I realized that my twice daily Monster Energy Drink and protein bar habit was starting to add up and eventually ate into the funds I set aside for proper pants. Don’t go without proper pants my friends, it’s simply not worth it.
For every summer sale gem you find, there will be at least 6.5 stinkers. Even if a game is 75% off, don’t fall into the horrible cycle of buying things just because they are cheaper than they were previously. This behavior can add up and clutter your backlog, making it more difficult for the games that really matter to stand out. If you don’t get yourself in check you’ll begin clipping coupons and hoarding toilet paper and mouthwash, which will lead to non-deal related hoarding which will then lead to you becoming a television star. You’ll be pumped for a bit, seeing as you finally made it and all but eventually you’ll realize that it wasn’t your looks, charisma or sense of humor that got you there but instead the bad habits that started from the irresponsible consumption of summer video game sales.
All of this can be prevented by finding yourself a summer sale buddy, similar to a swim buddy though showering together afterwards is completely optional. Make sure that it is a person that you trust with sensitive information and turn your credit card and or digital distribution account over to them for the duration of the sale. Once you’ve found your cheap and dirty partner, set a realistic budget and sign it in a really intense way, like with blood or burnt hair.
Whenever you see a deal you want to take advantage of, you’ll need to get together with your sale buddy and discuss it as your buddy can advise you on whether or not it is the right choice to make. You might get flustered trying to validate why purchasing Silent Hill: Homecoming for $1.99 is a worthwhile expenditure, but if they’re smart they’ll talk you out of it regardless of how much you threaten them. Which reminds me, make sure your summer sale buddy can take a punch or restrict interaction to remote communication via the internet or conference call.
I know some of this information may seem like common sense, but for every person that rolls their eyes at the idea of losing thousands of dollars to summer sales there are at least 10 that are living under a bridge because of the poor life choices they made and out of those, 1 spent too much money on Steam’s Summer Camp 2011. You’ve been warned.
Cheap and Dirty Gamer – Being cheap used to be an insult, but with the economy in the dumps it’s now a survival skill. Being dirty also used to be an insult, but that changed after Christina Aguilera’s song came out. Not all gamers have the funds to play full priced games, but that doesn’t mean that gaming quality has to suffer. There are good free and cheap games everywhere, games specifically made for the sexy survivors among us.
