Buying Video Games Redux

I have previously written about a methodology on purchasing video games with The Library and Video Games, but I have added another part to the purchasing methodology.

The Ottawa public library offers Video Games for pretty much every gaming platform, so it is very useful for my family, as my son wants every game he sees, however, he doesn’t really, he simply does what all other six year old want, whatever is the latest thing they saw. Typically I will put a game on hold and once the game appears we get to test drive the game for a week to see if my son really likes the game. We have borrowed many games this way, and have only bought a handful of games at the end of the process, so we have saved a great deal of money not buying these games.

Other folks I know who have kids who are gamers use a methodology of buying games, but then trading them in if they are not used as much, which is better than letting the games sit in your basement, but is a little more expensive (in my estimation), but thanks to them I was able to hone my methodology.

My son took a liking to a specific game from the library, and this time, we decided we would buy it, but this time we went to a store that has “trade ins” and also sells games on consignment, and bought the game used, which was about 1/2 price, which is great too. The price was so nice I even bought the warranty on the used game (an extra $2 and if the game is scratched, it gets replaced for free), yes, maybe a mistake, but I felt so good about saving the money, I wasn’t thinking.

I guess the only other ways to make this a better methodology would be to:

• Figure out a way to make a back up copy of the game from the Library, which is of course illegal and copyright infringement as well, so not a practical method.
• Find a group of gamers and trade games between them? My guess is that kids do this already, but I don’t know enough gaming families to join into this.
• Don’t buy any games (doing nothing is always a method).