The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Ever since I have had a steady paycheck, I haven’t really rented vidjeo gamez. I suddenly had money to spend on things, and dammit, I care enough about games that that’s where all of my money went. Lots and lots of money. Lots and lots and lots of it.

Lots of it.

It didn’t seem like too much of an issue before, but nowadays, it seems like I’m getting more and more games and getting less and less out of them. I’ve got this stack of portable games on my desk, here, which I have only played a few hours of each. The number of games on this desk is almost into the double digits. I am just so interested in keeping up with gaming culture that I have quickly found myself buying everything under the sun, and not just buying a new game when I felt that new game itch. I preorder everything now, on Amazon, and it just shows up, my bank account docked.

I can’t keep doing that.

I’ve got plans for next semester, big plans. I’ve got to get out on my own more, and I’m going to have plenty of new bills to start paying. I have got to start paying a bit more attention to where my money is going. Even just at a glance, it is clear that the majority of my money is being spent on video games. The vast majority.

So a few days ago, I signed up for Gamefly.
I’m not stupid. I know there are still games I am going to flat-out buy day one. MegaTen games? Yes. Stuff I know I will love like Modern Warfare 2? Of course I’m buying that. Quite a lot of portable games? Sure. There’s no way I’m not actually owning future Professor Laytons, or 3D Picross, or any of that. Indie stuff I want to support, like say, Telltale’s catalog? Hell yes I’m buying that.
But at the same time, there are so many games I buy just to try or to play through. There was no real reason why I had to buy Ghostbusters at full price, as much as I enjoyed it. I am sure I will never pick it up again, though I will loan it around. There’s no reason, back in the day, why I needed to buy Fable 2, either. I want to play the new Prince of Persia, Red Faction: Guerrilla, I want to play through RE5’s co-op. But there’s absolutely no reason why I need to own these games. I will never come back to them, and they’re never going to be rare enough to make me feel justified in keeping them around.
So if I can spent 22 bucks a month to rent them from Gamefly instead of 60 to buy each one… well, that’s a significant amount of money saved, isn’t it?
It also gives me a chance to try out random things, I am hoping. For example, John Davidson talked about this game called Miami Law, and how it was some weird mix of Phoenix Wright and a light gun game on DS. I know it’s going to be passable at best. There’s no real reason I would ever buy this game… but now that I can try it on that 22 bucks a month 2 game plan? Well, why the fuck not? I’ll try it for an afternoon and then send it back and get something else.

I honestly don’t know if all of this is going to work out for me. I honestly don’t know if it’s actually going to save me all that much money (Again, I just… I am still going to buy a lot of DS games. I know this.) or anything… but hopefully it’ll save me a little. And maybe it’ll help break me of the habit of having to be there the moment something comes out. There are so, so many good games to play nowadays. I’ll be alright missing just one for a week or two.