If you don’t have a lot of money, but you wish to game, there are ways to get the most bang for your buck.
These are the methods I personally use…
For PC games, digital is the way to go. Wide availability, instant access, patches and – best of all – frequent and extremely deep sales. The site I recommend above all others for PC gaming is CheapShark, as it streamlines the deal-hunting process. It does this by aggregating all of the best current deals across all of the best digital PC game storefronts, and also allows you to search for a specific game and see all of the prices for it across most every storefront. I have saved immensely in both time and money by using it.
For console gaming, I highly recommend your local Game X Change (or your country’s equivalent if you aren’t in the USA). They offer reduced prices on used games from almost all major consoles, current and present. My local one has every major game you could think of, as well as many more exotic, out of print, or otherwise hard to find titles. The prices are always fair and the games always come with a warranty. If you feel like it, you can trade in stuff you don’t use for store credit. Be careful though, as they’re not always fair on trade rates. Buying from them is great though.
There’s also always eBay, Craigslist and the Facebook marketplace. If you’re careful and do your research, you can find some AMAZING deals through them.
If you want physical games new, surprisingly, Best Buy and Walmart have gotten a lot better than they used to be (at the time of writing this). I often find Switch and PS4 games that were new only a month ago, marked down to $45.00 (or occasionally lower) from their original $59.99 in stores. This isn’t because the game isn’t good either; this happened for ‘Fire Emblem: Three Houses‘ and ‘Days Gone‘, for example.
Waiting for a sale and buying from the console’s online store (if it has one) is a good option too, but is fairly obvious.
And of course, there’s always thrift stores and garage sales, but what you find there is up to chance. If you happen to come across something you were looking for at one though, the discounts are usually IMMENSE. I’ve gotten games still worth $40.00 in stores for less than $5.00 through them before. So, it does occasionally yield awesome results.
Note: I am in no way affiliated with any company or site mentioned.
Thoughts of a Typical Gamer 