How do you be a poor gamer?

[nesguy]

I'm a poor (college) gamer. I spend what free money I have on my 2 systems (PSOne and NES) but I have three and a half years to go. There's no way in hell I could afford the latest systems. I might be lucky to pick up a PS2 after working all through my month off at Christmas, and maybe 1 game.

HELP! How did others do it? Are there any secrets to being a college gamer? Secret piles of hidden cash, or jobs that no one knows about? HELP!

[kainemaxwell]

Try to find the best deals you can in games at EB, Babagges, Funco and other stores.

Xmas and Birthday gifts.

Try to have a friend who'll give you a system.

[Arrrhalomynn]

Being in the same position as you I decided to stop buying loose games. I try only to buy games in sets. Like a saturn with 20 games. Or a 32X with 15 games.

I keep the games I want to keep and sell the others. I usually make a small (or sometimes even a big) profit on this. And it's fun too.
This way you also get a lot more doubles than you would get if you would buy your games indvidually. This means you can keep the best one and sell the worst.

I don't know how good this will work for you, since I usually buy my stuff in Germany or England and sell them again in the Netherlands, where the prices are higher.

[Achika]

Getting 3 Jobs: One Everyday, One Lucrative, and One for the Gaming Discounts.

That's how I do it. Oh, and sticking to older & classic games. I don't always need to have the latest and greatest. Thusly, it doesn't cost as much.

Wait...since you are in school and paying money for it (wether it be you, your parents, grants & aids-SOMEONE is paying for it) shouldn't you be studying or doing homework and not playing games? :wink:

[omnedon]

Listen to Arrrholmynn. I only buy cheap, practically never on Ebay. They know me on sight at the thrifts, and I know some of the flea market vendors by name. I have an ad in the free classifieds saying that I buy old Atari, Intellivision, and CV. The end result, my collection grows every week. I sell dupe or repaired systems on Ebay.

My hobby costs me negative ~$250/month.

[CrazyImpmon]

I usually go for used systems as it's often cheaper. make sure there's a warranty like 30 days or so in case the one you got has a busted controller or system that smokes a lot after only 10 minutes.

Also used game dealer could really help you out. I got a refurbished Gamecube plus 1 GC game plus 1 251 memory card for about $30. That $30 was from all those NES decks I've picked up at various sales, cleaned it up, checked to make sure it worked, and pack the system with AC adapter, rf box, and controllers and sold them to Funcoland for $35* store credit. After a few NES decks or so, you'd have enough credit to buy a current gen system and a few games.

I have about 4 or 5 complete and working NES to unload (some needs work with 72 pin connectors) and I could sell them all for a load of GC games, loads of GBA games, or pick up yet another system (PS2 maybe as I already have working PSX and good DVD player) but defiantly not XBox as there's only 2 games that interests me with no future games at this time.

*$35 was as of the summer, I think it's down to $30 now, maybe less but I'm sure it'll pick up as demand for NES rises around Christmas especially with eCard reader reviving older NES games and the original Metroid game inside Metroid Prime/Fusion. And the upcoming Zelda game might help boost NES sale, boosting NES demand.

[maxlords]

Well, when I was in college it was during the Saturn/N64/PS1 era. There was no Dreamcast yet, and I'd just managed to buy a PS1 new, a N64 used, and I had a Saturn for a while. First off, I lived at home and went to Community College for my first two years. I saved money on classes by going there, and worked part time, using 60-75% of the money towards games. When I graduated there and went to the university, I kept the same part time job, and lived in the dorms. My loans and grants covered all my college costs except food and gaming, and I skimped on food so I could afford games. I picked up a LOT of games used however. Now, I was in a city of 500,000, so it was fairly easy to get em used, as for almost EVERY title that gets released, SOMEONE hates it and takes it back the first week it's out. I got a LOT of games that way, and I hit EVERY pawn shop and used store I could find to get cheap games too. eBay was JUST getting started then, and I started slowly buying games off eBay in 1997. That's how I did it. It was a pain, but I got a LOT of games back then, and now a lot of those games are worth way more than I paid

[ubersaurus]

Well, I don't have any of the latest systems, what I do is I have friends with the new systems (xbox, cube, ps2) so I go over there to play theirs. Since we get together almost every weekend it works out well.

[WiseSalesman]

Best way to be a gamer while poor? Don't. That's how I did it while I was in college. I became a casual player only last year. I finished FFIX, and then played only emulators for the remainder of the year. It sucked, but it had to be done.

[nesman85]

go to the local super market and buy 20 bucks worth of top ramen noodles(get various flavors), that will last you for a long as time. now you will have a lot of extra game money :wink:

[Vroomfunkel]

I am now in my 4th year of study, but have managed to amass a pretty neat collection. I did this pretty much the same way as Arr. I buy sets of games - usually either from ebay uk, or ebay Germany (what is it with everything retro being so much cheaper in Germany??)

I also scour local games shops and charity (thrift) shops at regular intervals and can usually expand my collection that way quite cheaply. I have even used this method to tide me over difficult financial times - I found a couple of rare PAL 32x games in a games shop for £3 each, and saved them up for a time when I was out of work for a week, and then sold them for £75. Along with a few other bits and pieces I had stored up this managed to tide me over till my new work started

As a result I have a collection of a couple of hundred games for Master SYstem, Megadrive, Saturn and PS1. Of course, I would *like* a PS2 or new gen console, but it just doesn't seem worth it to me at the moment. If you can't afford it, forget it and concentrate on older stuff - which can be at least as fun, if not more so.

One of my best freinds has a N64, Dreamcast, and Gamecube. But what does he spend most of his time playing? Death Tank on the Sega Saturn (which he bought purely to play that game after seeing it at my house!), and Final Fantasy 3 on the SNES.

Vroomfunkel

[Dobie]

I've found I can make a little extra game money by buying "common" but "in-demand" NES games like Mario and Excitebike at thrifts for a buck or two and trading up to bigger and better games at the local game shops, or selling them on ebay. You won't get rich, but when scratching for dough, every dollar counts!

Example: Bought Tecmo Super Bowl for $1, sold it for $9.50 on ebay. Boom--instant "more expensive" game can be bought.

Another Example: Picked up Super Mario 3, Tyson's Punchout, & Super C for $1.50 each. Traded up at game store for "comparably priced" games Megaman 4, Donkey Kong Classics, & Maniac Mansion.

Most of the indie game stores around here sell Mario 3 and other common (to collectors) games for around $10-15, so when I come across these, I grab them and trade 'em for stuff that I want. Works well, and saves me some dough.

[Nature Boy]

I had nothing in university except a 286 PC, and I basically lived off of games that I could copy from others (Civilization definitely took a lot of my time). Then I moved in with roomies that had a Genesis, SNES, and VCS. So I just played their stuff.

I'd probably use an Emulator if I were going now. Most likely MAME, and whatever systems I happened to grow up with (I'm assuming that a college kid these days wasn't born when the 2600 was in it's prime ).