Saving Canadian Gaming Dollars

This year’s gaming season, like every year, is ridiculous. Multiplatform owners and multifaceted gamers like myself have it the worst. So what do you do to satiate this desire to play everything? Do you wait it out? No, that’s crazy talk.

I seek deals and I’d just like to share some tips and some other deals for the remaining holiday titles worth checking out. So let’s take a look at some of the money saving requirements you need in order to maximize your dollars.

1. Be willing to shop online.
2. Be willing to check for deals.
3. Be willing to wait for games.

These are the points you must be willing to accept if you wish to save money. The first point is easy to accept for most people, but not everyone has the patience for deal hunting or even waiting for games. If you lack patience, then this exercise isn’t for you.

Online is Cheaper

A majority of my gaming purchases are coming from Amazon.ca thanks to its minor price cuts off the usual $59.99 CAD MSRP.

Some previous examples:

• Fallout 3 (PS3/360) – $53.99
• Fable 2 – $49.99

Current examples:

• Call of Duty: World at War (PS3/360) – $54.99
• Prince of Persia (PS3/360) – $54.99
• Resistance 2 (PS3) – $54.99
• SOCOM: Confrontation w/ Headset Bundle (PS3) – $54.99
• Far Cry 2 (PS3/360) – $54.99
• Valkyria Chronicles (PS3) – $53.99
• Dead Space (PS3) – $54.99
• Dead Space (360) – $53.99

$6 to $10 off the suggested retail price is nice, but once you add the $10 off coupon for “new accounts deal” it quickly blossoms to $16 to $20 off the retail price. The icing on the cake? Amazon.ca provides free shipping on orders over $40.

Dell is as unpredictable as they come when it comes to deals. Most of their deals are $5 to $10 off the retail price, but every so often they provide a wonderful deal such as:

• Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (360) – $24.99
• Gears of War 2 (360) – $44.99

Needless to say, I nabbed that Gears of War 2 deal rather quickly.

Other Notables

FutureShop and BestBuy used to have launch window deals of $5 to $10 off, but not anymore. In fact, Fallout 3 is retailing for $64.99 at those stores. It’s a shame, but don’t rule these two out yet.

Select FutureShop stores are offering used game trade-ins for coupons plus the the trade-in values in gift card forms. You’ll have to bring your games to participating stores and wait for the coupon deals to crop up, but some are quite awesome like this one I did:

• Trade-in 3 games worth with a trade-in value of $10 or more and get 50% off Fable 2 or LittleBigPlanet.
• I traded in 3 games worth $13.60 each which resulted in a $40.80 gift card. Using the 50% off coupon for LittleBigPlanet resulted in a $30 price tag which I paid off with my gift card.

So I actually made a bit of money. The deal was especially sweet since I only paid $9 for one of the games I traded in. It’s also worth noting that since FutureShop’s used game business is rather new, you may be able to get higher trade-in values compared to other places such as EB Games and Blockbuster Video.

Another deal worth keeping an eye out for is the 2 for X amount of dollars bundles BestBuy tend to offer around this time. Nothing revealed itself yet, but for the past two years there was always something. An example of this bundle would be this old DMC4 & Turok for $70 bundle.

Checking for Deals

There’s really only one place Canadians need to go for deal hunting: RedFlagdeals.com. The frontpage has noteworthy deals which get updated daily, but you may also find other steals buried within Hot Deals: Video Games forum.

Playing the Waiting Game

Don’t expect day one delivery or even shipping for most of these online sites. Resistance 2 debuted on November 4^th and I still have yet to receive my delivery notification. It could be days or even a week after launch before you get your title, but it’s no big deal if you value the dollars saved.

Besides, it gives me time to play the other games which I’ve purchased.

Happy Saving

Well, that’s the end of this little money saving post. With a few dollars being saved here and there, you may be able to squeeze out another title for this holiday gaming season. And what does it cost you? Just a bit of time.

If you know of any other deals, let me know by leaving a comment!

**Please note that the deals posted are valid at the time of posting. **