It’s not secret it’s getting harder to be a gamer these days.

It seems like every day brings news of higher prices, questionable practices, and low quality return on investments. Gaming is already expensive but these practices further strain the situation.

That doesn’t include the rising prices in other areas such as gas, housing, groceries, and other necessities. These compound the issues and make it harder to justify an increase in spending on something that isn’t a necessity.

And yet, we still need that outlet. Gaming provides so many benefits that, at one point, it was worth the initial investment. These include an outlet for stress, a community of your own, a place to appreciate creativity, and some good old-fashioned fun.

Gaming doesn’t have to take a backseat in your life. There are ways to continue down this path without breaking the bank. The Boss Rush Network Team scrounged up some ideas that can keep you gaming while lowering the strain on your wallet. This isn’t an exhaustive list but just some ways to guide you as you continue gaming amid the economic struggles.

Visiting Your Local Library — Josh Martinez

Pros: Free (with a library card), Flexible borrow time, variety
Cons: Selection may vary, slower gamers may not have enough time, potential costs

Your local library is more than a place to find books. It’s actually a great place to borrow video games for a time. All it takes is a library card to the destination and you are good to go though it’s important to check the policies of your local library first. 

Many libraries have a robust selection of games that many don’t know are available to them. That said, the reflection will vary depending on your library so larger cities may benefit more on this service. Still, I live in a town of about 36,000 and our library is pretty stacked on its selection. 

Selections may also vary depending on other factors. Some libraries may not have the most up to date games though they are likely to have a fair selection of older titles, some maybe on previous generation of consoles. 

The point is the library may be worth your time to, er, check out. You can save a lot of money by just borrowing from the local library and you may find enough to keep you busy as you save up for the newer titles.

Finish Games You Have Been Putting Off — Marianna Rappa 

Pros: Finish your backlog 
Cons: Not very helpful unless you have a big library 

As games increase in price and become harder to afford for many, consider playing games you haven’t finished yet. For example, I’m currently trying to get 100% perfection in Stardew Valley. 

By completing games in your backlog, you allow yourself plenty of time to catch up before another big sale. My recommendation is to write down a list of games that you never finished and start going through them. 

This will not only keep you busy but you will get to fully enjoy the games you bought and never played. By being realistic and completing the games you have been putting off, you allow yourself more time to eventually buy new games you can enjoy. 

Give yourself a nice challenge when making a list of games in your backlog. For example; my goal is to beat Radhan in Elden Ring before considering the DLC. Complete side quests, learn a new in game skill or even romance a character that you never thought you would. 

Really have fun with it! No challenge is a bad challenge. And once again; enjoy the ride! 

Ditch the Subscriptions, Buy Gift Cards — Jordan Davis

Pros: Flexible payment options, less chance of losing access to games
Cons: Fewer games available

Subscription-based services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus have a very high theoretical value, but a pretty low practical value. Sure, in theory, you could play hundreds of different games from these catalogs, and access to that huge catalog is just a modest monthly payment away.

But realistically, how many games in that huge catalog do you actually want to play? And even more realistically, how many do you have time to play? Not to mention the ever-present chance that a game gets removed from the catalog before you even get around to playing it.

Instead of throwing money away on these fickle and fleeting services, you can invest that same monthly payment into something more useful – gift cards.

This might sound a bit strange, but hear me out. Cancel that monthly subscription, and put the $10-$20 a month you save into your storefront wallet of choice. Whenever a game strikes your fancy, you simply buy it with the funds you’ve already set aside. Now it’s permanently in your library. No waiting for it to get added to the subscription catalog, and no worrying that it might get removed.

Yes, this is basically just budgeting with an extra step, but that’s what makes it so great. You set your own monthly payment, one that you can alter at a moment’s notice. And if you have a month where you need to tighten your budget up, you can skip that payment without losing access to anything in your library.

Browse Itch.io — Lev Working

Pros: Huge selection of indie games.
Cons: Quality & Replayability.

Itch.io has a massive selection of video games, mostly created by independent developers and often cheaper than their counterparts on platforms like Steam, and few of them have significant storage or hardware requirements. I’ve found numerous card and strategy games that I’m shocked aren’t available elsewhere. Tiny Islands and Feed The Void are some personal favorites of mine, and I’ve dropped more hours in these than I ever would have expected. 

The biggest downside is quality control. The site has a lot of games, and it can be hard to separate the bad from the good. I recommend making heavy use of the tag system to filter down just to titles that you can play on your system. You can filter by price to stay within budget, tags and genre, and platform. Featured is also an underrated tag to filter through everything. 

Bundles are also worth a glance, as they sometimes have a ton of games for just a couple of dollars. Unfortunately, bundles lack the useful filters that individual titles have. 

Try Mobile Games – Jou Lee Yang

Pros: A lot of free or low-priced games
Cons: Quality and quantity can be troublesome

Mobile games are a great way to pass time and save money while waiting for bigger releases. It’s accessible to anyone with a phone and tends to have either simple or complex gameplay. There’s a little bit for everyone since more and more developers are utilizing the mobile platform as ways to advertise and explore the market trends through smaller projects. 

It can be a hit or miss area though. A lot of the gameplay can be repetitive or copycats of other games. It can be a challenge to really find something that matches your playstyle. The quality can be inhibited by the hardware, so it’s difficult to get the same AAA feeling other games may have.

There are also a lot of different apps, and the navigation of the app store hasn’t improved much to make things easier. Certain genres of games haven’t found a good way to navigate through the mobile platform so although there might be variety, there might not be a huge amount of games in each genre. 

However, a lot of free-to-play games tend to feature on a mobile platform or release early demo versions of the games that then get fully threshed out onto a different platform. It’s a great way to find different developers whose demographics may have never reached your newsfeed before.The mobile space for games has definitely improved throughout the years and many older games have remained strong on the platform because of their uniqueness and gameplay like Unison League or One Piece Treasure Cruise! It’s great and on the go, so a lot of games are easy or best to play while on break at work and resting between bigger games that can make players feel exhausted or frustrated.

Featured Image: rc.xyz NFT gallery (via Unsplash)

Boss Rush Podcast – A Podcast about Video Games

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